Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

Hobie 16 makes a splash

VISAKHAPATNAM: Hobie 16 category of sailing boat made its first appearance in India here in 2002 when the National Games event was held at Rushikonda beach. The participants and officials hailed it as one of the best venues for the sport and efforts have been made to popularise the sport. The Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh has given six boats. But the sport did not take off as expected.

National meets were held at Rushikonda in the past, and this time the venue for the seventh National Hobie 16 championship has been shifted to the Ramakrishna beach . Secretary of the National Hobie Class Association K.S. Panigrahy said the wind speed and waves were not different from Rushikonda. “Everyone can watch the Hobie 16s sailing. This is a lovely beach, but lacks facilities,” Maj. Panigrahy said.

Twenty five yatchmen from the Artillery Centre, Hyderabad, arrived here forty-five days before the championship, to promote Hobie 16 sailing as well as coastal tourism, and to spread the message to keep the coast clean.

Many youngsters came and practiced on the Hobie 16s but most of them did not continue. “This is a boat that needs a lot of physical strength to handle. Some foreign sailors showed interest after they came to know of the event but they backed out after learning that we were using boats of 2006 make,” Maj. Panigrahy said.

He said that there were about 120 yatchmen who actively sail on Hobie 16s and what the association and sailors needed was support from the Government. The boats are expensive, each costing Rs. 10 lakh, and need to be regularly upgraded.

Local teams

The locals can feel proud of the fact that a good number of youngsters from the city are participating in the National championship (the competitive part starts on Saturday). Thanks to the 45 days of training before the championship, the Yachting Association of Vizag and the Dolphin Yachting Association are fielding three and four teams respectively.

The sailors include Amreen Mallik, a national women swimmer and a Commonwealth Games probable. Others are Melwin, Yellaji, Prasad, Chinna Reddy, Venkatesh, Rajesh, Srikanth, Varma, and Kiran.

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