I
t was 2003 and a young Sandy Oatley had just finished competing in the Hamilton Island Race Week grand prix division with the 58-foot Davidson sailboat Another Duchess. He was heading to the presentation dinner when the then chief executive of the island dropped a bombshell.
“We were saying thanks very much for a great week; we’ll see you next year,” says Oatley, “And he said, ‘Well, maybe not because we’re looking at doing a management buyout.’ ”
Sandy, Bob and Ian Oatley on Hamilton Island in 2005, soon after the family acquired it.
Oatley’s dad, Bob, and the team on the island sat down on the following Wednesday and went through the financials. “We had to make a bid for the island on the Friday, so we had no time for due diligence,” says Sandy, chairman of Hamilton Island Enterprises. “But being in the wine industry, we knew about remote sites and infrastructure.”
“By Christmas, we’d improved our bid, and the other company that was bidding for it dropped off. And it’s all history. We took over basically from January of the next year.”
The island cost the Oatley family a neat $200 million. Fast-forward 20 years and Hamilton Island Race Week is now one of the biggest events on the Australian racing and social calendars, and the island is a world-class holiday destination,
The marina is full of yachts during Hamilton Island Race Week.
“What triggered it all was Dad’s sailing in the Whitsundays and trying to build an iconic resort in Australia that was also a great sailing venue,” reflects Oatley. “He had sailed all around the world, and he saw the Whitsundays as a great paddock, as he called it, to go sailing in.”
Aside from creating a week of sailing, celebration and frivolity – “schoolies for sailors”, as many refer to it – the Oatleys have invested their hearts and souls into transforming Hamilton into a uniquely Australian luxury resort that competes with the best of the best internationally.
