AUS Widdy on woodies Damien Widdy on the OK Dinghy fun factor and building boats
O
ver the past few years the OK Dinghy fleet in Queensland, Australia, has been one of the fastest growing regions for the class. Local boatbuilder Damien Widdy has been an instrumental part of that growth building, first a boat for himself, and then for others, working with Dan Leech to refine the CNC kitset files that Leech produces.
He grew up near Mornington, Victoria, and began sailing there. “Mates of mine from school were sailing Sabots so I went along one day to have a go in a club boat.” “But I always wanted to go on bigger boats as crew so started crewing on Flying Fifteens on the Saturdays and did this for a couple of years. From there I left sailing to do powerboat racing and didn’t return to sailing again until 2012 on a Hobie F18 just to have fun with a mate from powerboat racing days.” He got involved with OKs in 2014. “A couple of good mates had OKs and were having great battles with each other. My good mates Ben Downey, Kelvin Holdt and Dave Vincent were all there from the beginning so when the four of us hit the water the interest grew from people watching the banter and close racing from the beach (well close racing from the other three anyway).”
Beginnings
The main focus for the growth has been the Southport Yacht Club, located on the Gold Coast, just south of Brisbane, with other boats at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron, in Brisbane. The Queensland fleet started to grow fast. “It all happened The Dan Leech boat built for Shane Smith
JULY 2020 • www.okdia.org
quickly as the group was getting bigger, and so did the fun, so it snowballed from there. Finding second hand boats was hard and I had always built my own racing power boats so I ordered an OK Leech build kit and made my own OK Dinghy.” He says the attraction to invest in the class is from the fun on and off Damien Widdy sailing in Southport the water. “To be honest it was mainly because of these mates constantly sledging each other both on and off the water. One could say it was all about who won the starts and the rest didn’t matter, so I wanted to be a part of this.” He credits Andre Blasse and Glenn Yates for influencing and helping him when he joined the class. “I would have to say Andre Blasse for all the technical stuff and Glen Yates. I called him the OK Dictionary. As secondhand boats were non-existent in Queensland we were buying boats sight unseen from interstate so by telling him the sail number he was able to give us the history of the boat and what the gear was like so this made purchasing them easier for us newcomers to the class.” He got involved in boatbuilding during his powerboat racing days. “As a hobby I built most of my boats and it was a running joke with my mates that every two seasons I would launch a brand new boat, going on to do no better than third at the nationals, sell the boat to a mate, and then that boat would go on to win the next two titles, which goes to show it’s clearly the driver.” The lack of availability of suitable secondhand OK Dinghies 13