Hobie Cat® Australasia in conjunction with Daiwa Australia, announce that eighteen competitors from five nations, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, USA and Australia, will compete in the inaugural Hobie world kayak fishing championships. The tournament will be held in Australia, on the New South Wales mid north coast, starting on October 27 at Camden Haven on the Camden Haven River, moving to the Hastings River at Port Macquarie on October 29 and 30.
The event is the concept of Steve Fields, General Manager of Hobie Cat Australasia. Steve is a former sailing world and national champion in multiple Hobie Cat Catamaran classes.
Steve Fields, stated, &dlquo;Hobie Cat has been hosting Hobie sailing world championships since the first Hobie 16 titles held in Hawaii in 1976. They are fantastically competitive and ruthless events on the water but they are great social occasions as well&drquo;.
&dlquo;People from all over the world with similar interests not only compete but share expertise, knowledge and skills. In the end, there is one World Champion, but everyone goes home feeling better about themselves, with new friends, new skills and having had a cultural experience in a part of the world they, otherwise, may never have visited.&drquo;
&dlquo;Hobie Cat has grown and diversified into new areas since those early days. Our venture into kayaks has built a huge, worldwide Hobie kayak fishing fraternity. I wanted to bring these people together somehow and came up with the Hobie Kayak Fishing World Championships. I put the concept to Daiwa Australia and they loved the idea so much they jumped straight aboard, as the major sponsor of the first such event ever to be held.&drquo;
Day one of the International competition will be a standalone event. However, on the starting signal, at 7am on the weekend of October 29 --- 30, the spectacular sight of 67 pedal powered Hobie MirageDrive® Pro Angler kayaks will leave the beach. The world championship competitors will be joined on the water by grand finalists from the 13 rounds, held throughout Australia, of the Daiwa Hobie ABT Kayak Fishing Series.
Live weigh-ins of the catches will take place on the waterfront grassed area at the Water’s Edge Boutique Hotel, Buller Street Port Macquarie, from 2pm on each of the three days of the world championship competition.
