The Hebe Haven Yacht Club expects its lease to be renewed this year and has drawn up a masterplan to put to the Government thereafter, General Manager Alan Reid said.
First a CLP substation has to be shifted, however, and some structures taken down. The masterplan envisages a new two-storey building on the site of the existing car park. This will house a restaurant and garden bar fronting on to a swimming pool. It will only be built, perhaps starting in 2017, if the Government agrees to lease modifications, Alan said.
The old building will be renovated for offices and the Sailing Centre with classrooms.
“The club was built in 1963 for 100 members and now we’ve got 1100,” Alan said. “We’ve been saving up for a long time, so once we’ve got the necessary approvals we should be able to go ahead.”
New requirements for public access have the HHYC offering 240 hours of sail training a month to government-approved institutions. This is benefiting mostly children from the YMCA, Kellett School, Renaissance College and others. The sail training by club instructors is not cheap, $1000 a session per child, “but we still have to subsidise it,” Alan said.
Anyone from the community of any age may take advantage of this service. You don’t have to be a member.
The sailing for the disabled programme called Sailability, set up by Mike and Ray Rawbone five years ago, is pulling off some big successes. A team of six took part in the Paralympics in Korea and a bronze medal was won. Sailability’s 18 specially fitted out boats have been used to teach 376 people with disabilities, physical and mental, to sail. “One young lady so paralysed she can move only her head learned to helm moving just her head,” Alan said.
The club’s 24-hour dinghy race raised almost $11 million for five charities including the Children’s Cancer Foundation. Some children taking part were using prosthetic limbs paid for by earlier events.
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