Home Waters: Airlie Beach Race Week through the eyes of Ullman Sails Whitsundays

The Whitsundays might provide one of sailing’s great postcard backdrops, but racing between the islands demands more than admiring the view.

Tides, shifting pressure and big changes in breeze can turn a straightforward sail choice into something far more complicated.

For Paul Mitchell and Ullman Sails Whitsundays, Airlie Beach Race Week is their biggest local regatta of the year. Most of the loft team swaps the sailmaking floor for the racecourse, racing alongside the same customers they work with throughout the season.

Local knowledge matters. Paul starts each day looking at the expected course, tides and breeze, but once racing begins, the sails need range.

“Quite often there are large wind variances in a short period of time, which doesn’t give sailors a chance to change sails.”

There was plenty for the loft to celebrate too. Paul and sailmaker Joe Finch finished second in division aboard the Extreme 40, just one point off first, while apprentice Jesse also took second in his division aboard the Bethwaite Sports 8xx Kiss. Shannon Hart joined the action aboard local trimaran Trojan.

Great courses, close racing, plenty of familiar faces and even a few whales along the way. It’s easy to understand why sailors keep coming back.

STILL GETTING BETTER

Winning a one-design championship once is hard.

Winning it six times tells a much bigger story.

After another standout performance at the Cal 20 Class Championship in Newport Beach, Chuck Stevens and Keith Ives added a sixth title to their record. We catch up with the pair to find out what keeps them coming back, and what it takes to keep finding speed in a boat they know inside out.

AROUND BRITAIN: Offshore miles have a way of testing every decision made before the start.

The RORC Round Britain & Ireland Race leaves little room for shortcuts. A course of this scale can throw almost everything at a crew, with changing weather systems, exposed coastlines and long offshore legs demanding as much from preparation as they do from the sailors themselves.

This year, we’re following Sickleback Sailing and Pata Negra as they take on one of Britain’s great offshore challenges with Ullman Sails aboard.

Out here, experience shows itself differently. It’s in the sail chosen hours before the breeze changes, the decision to preserve equipment rather than chase a short-term gain, and the confidence to keep pushing when conditions allow.

Round Britain & Ireland is a race where thousands of small decisions eventually become one result.

And whatever that result says on paper, the miles leave every crew knowing more than when they started.

THE NEXT MILES

At 17, Joshua King is already taking his sailing well beyond his home waters in the Whitsundays.

The Airlie Beach local and Year 12 student at Proserpine State High School was selected to represent Australia at the 2026 Youth World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, racing in the ILCA 6 fleet with support from Ullman Sails Whitsunday.

It was a tough week of racing, with long days and highly shifty conditions. Against a fleet of 307 sailors, Joshua finished 86th overall and 9th in the Silver Fleet, another valuable week of international racing added to a growing bank of experience.

And he’s already looking ahead. Joshua is aiming towards the 2027 Australian and Oceania Championships and selection for the 2027 Under 21 World Championships in Melbourne.

For the young sailor from the Whitsundays, there are plenty more miles still to come.