174th Sandy Bay Regatta roaring ahead despite Covid concerns

A flurry of yachts, dragon boats, and rowing crews made a splash at Long Beach for a special water-based 174th Sandy Bay Regatta this Australia Day. SEE ALL THE PICS >>

Volunteers pushed the boat out for the 174th Sandy Bay Regatta, which was largely held out on the water this Australia Day due to Covid restrictions.

The regatta had to drastically scale back its land-based activities, with several popular events such as the Miss Regatta Girl and pie eating competitions being shelved.

Instead the day featured swimming competitions, rowing races, Clifton Beach Nippers, dragon boating, and ‘come and try’ kayak and stand-up paddling for newbies.

Eight-year-old Chloe Herd got a matching eucalyptus-munching koala painted on her face with her classmate Sophie Liebeknecht.

Chloe said she’d played hard during the summer holidays, but was really looking forward to going back to school and seeing her teacher Ms Foster again.

“We have a really nice teacher. We had her in Grade One too,” Chloe said.

Swashbuckling children’s performer Michelle Pears spent Australia Day entertaining the kids dressed up as a socially-distanced pirate.

sandy bay regatta

sandy bay regatta

Mrs Pears said there were precious few opportunities to go pirating these days with events shutting down due to Covid.

“Aye, it’s a hard life being a pirate when events get cancelled, but it’s wonderful to be here today at the Sandy Bay Regatta, yaarrgh,” Ms Pears said.

Sandy Bay Regatta Association volunteer Peter West said it was a thin crowd this year, with only a few thousand attendees compared to their usual 10-15,000 visitors pre-pandemic.

However Mr West said the volunteers were still keen to keep the regatta tradition alive, being such an iconic event of the Hobart calendar.

sandy bay regatta

sandy bay regatta

“Next year is our 175th regatta, so we’re all really keen to reach that landmark,” Mr West.

“It’s one of those great little events all run by volunteers, and there aren’t many events left in the world that have continued strong for 174 years.”

During the regatta around 300 immigrants became true-blue Australians at the City of Hobart Citizenship Ceremony.

The day also featured the launch of the new Ocean Swim race as well as a trophy for Surf Life Saving Club members.

sandy bay regatta

sandy bay regatta

For a full schedule and more information please head to the Wrest Point Sandy Bay Regatta website or Facebook pages.

174th Sandy Bay Regatta roaring ahead despite Covid concerns

The 174th Sandy Bay Regatta will go ahead today, but the event will be cut short to keep it Covid safe.

Chairman of Sandy Bay Regatta Association Peter Douglas said it was important for the community the event be able to continue, despite uncertainty around Covid.

“It’s disappointing so many community events have had to be postponed or cancelled,” Mr Douglas said.

“We think it’s important to continue with community events like this.

“It’s a great opportunity for the community to come together and enjoy activities to participate in.”

Mr Douglas said the day would into the late afternoon, with a number of land based activities to follow the aquatic events.

SUNTAS: Sandy Bay Regatta promo - four nippers for ocean swim. at Long Beach Sandy Bay

He said due to Covid, many would be missing from this years Regatta Day.

“It will be concluding earlier this year, normal finishing time is about four because we won’t be having extensive land based activities,” Mr Douglas said.

“Obviously we have to take into account the circumstances around Covid, that’s why we’ve made the decision to constrain our activities to water based ones as we did last year.

“We’ll implement a Covid safety plan for the day, we’re asking patrons coming to participate to bring and wear a mask unless they’re eating or drinking and that they conduct themselves in a Covid safe manner.”

But he said there would be plenty of action in the water.

“We’ll be commencing activities at 8am with rowing races, followed by sailing races, we’ll have the dragon boat,” Mr Douglas said.

“We’ll be introducing a new event this year, the ocean swim which we’re very excited about.”

Nippers committee member Rob Peart was hopeful to get 50 people participating in the new event.

“It’s happening at midday and the swim is off Long Beach at Sandy Bay,” Mr Peart said.

“We’ll set a 500 metre course, they’ll go round the course and there’ll be some flags they’ve got to run through at the end.

“You’d need to be a competent swimmer to do 500 metres, it’s not overly deep water and we’ve got heaps of water safety there.”

SUNTAS: Sandy Bay Regatta promo - four nippers for ocean swim. at Long Beach Sandy Bay

Mr Peart said the event would be good exposure for the sport.

“It’s a very fast growing sport,” Mr Peart said.

“It’s grown a lot in the last few years with swimming pools getting shut, ocean swimming has exploded.

“We get a few hundred swimmers regularly, if we can get it up to that it would be great.”

Mr Douglas said he hoped next year’s event would be back with all the favourites.

“We look forward to 2023 when we will conduct our 175th regatta, we hope we’ll be able to return to a full program, including the Blundstone boot throwing competition and the pie eating competition.”