Meet Local Sailing Veteran Heather Sutton

Heather Sutton of Whitsunday Sailing Club is a big part of the local sailing community, not just during Airlie Beach Race Week, but throughout the year too.

For Race Week, however, Heather is responsible for recruiting volunteers and ensuring there are always enough people in the right places to enable the smooth sailing of the event.

This year, Heather managed to gather around 50 volunteers.

Some volunteers are sailors or ex-sailors, some are partners or family members of participants in Race Week.

Heather has helped the Whitsunday Sailing Club for 10 years and reminisces on her time as the Club’s Commodore. She thoroughly enjoyed the responsibility it entailed.

Heather loves sailing and has sailed since she was 12 years old. Her favourite sail was to Vanuatu in 2017, where she helped transport supplies to help villages recover from a recent cyclone.

“The community gave us four and a half ton of aid. So we visited 20 islands and gave aid to about 25 villages,” she said.

“The trip to Vanuatu was very satisfying, a real achievement. The way we helped the villages, especially with water. Water was one of the biggest things.

“I had a water maker, specially fitted to the boat so that we could stand off and make water. And they would bring all their plastic containers out and we would fill them up for five hours a day.”

Heather Sutton, Photo credit: R Jean Photography

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