2022 AGM Award

Noel Croucher Award – Yachting

Noel Croucher Award – Rowing

Mr Rob Berkley

Mr Berkely had singlehandedly run the HKPN handicapping system for the HKSF for the past 13 years. The HKPN system brought a huge number of boats and sailors into yacht racing and his hard work on this has made HKPN much more relevant than it was a decade ago. His work touched sailors across Hong Kong, from all of the clubs. For the Club, Mr Berkley had taken over the reins of the ATI rating system which was formally run by Mr Jamie McWilliam.

Mr Berkley was also one of the co-founders of the Hong Kong Shorthanded Sailing Association, who organised a number of events during the lockdown period when fully-crewed sailing was a challenge and the clubs were not allowed to be involved. Shorthanded sailing is very popular worldwide – this group will continue to organise shorthanded events or form a division in existing big boat events.

Mr Berkley was an active member of the Big Boat fleet, racing with his boats “Sex Drive” and then “Calamansi”. He now had a larger cruising boat that he often raced double-handed. He was a member of the Big Boat Committee and the Offshore Racing Committee. As an experienced offshore sailor, he also acted as a scrutineer for offshore races.

Bonita Leung

Ms Bonita Leung had brought huge attention to expanding accessibility and inclusivity for rowing and paddling in the recent years. She set up, managed and ran a pilot 7-week dragon boat training programme for cognitively impaired individuals to expand comfort level with water sports during Covid in the summer of 2021. The programme was so successful that not only was it prominently covered by the local press, it was also picked up by the Financial Times and generated positive coverage for the Club and especially for the rowing and paddling section. Ms Leung then further expanded on the pilot programme to organize an inclusive dragon boat race in June 2022 in the Wan Chai basin for local teams with cognitively impaired racers. Due to that programme, the Australian Dragon Boat Federation has reached out and requested support and guidance on setting up inclusive dragon boat training programmes and races; there had also been discussions with adaptive racing teams in the United States to exchange ideas on how to expand accessibility of dragon boat racing for all.

Ms Leung also assisted in promoting the Club’s image to the public as being a firm supporter of the inclusiveness of water sports and that barriers to even paddling could be overcome. During Covid’s “5th wave”, she spearheaded club-wide ‘Move For Hong Kong’ fitness initiative to spur sports to compete against other sports to raise funds for Covid-related relief and to bring the Club’s sports together; as part of that initiative she assisted in setting up a crowd-sourced online fundraising platform for the Charity Foundation to modernize its ability to fundraise.

Ms Leung had been an active member of the Paddle Sports section for many years. She has been a member of the Rowing Committee since 2020, Paddle Sports Sub-Committee from 2016–2018 and is recently the chairman of Dragon Boat SubCommittee. She has raced locally for the Club’s dragon boat and outrigger canoe teams and internationally for the Club’s dragon boat team. She was also an active contributor in race management and in the Club hosting dragon boat races to further develop the Club’s ability to work with the relevant national sports federation to attract overseas competitors to race in Hong Kong.

Shaan Mutreja

Shaan is a committed and passionate sailor who was rewarded by winning the Laser 4.7 class at the Southside regatta last year, in what was the only event he was able to participate in locally last season. Halfway through the season, Shaan was promoted to the Hong Kong Sports Institute team. Shaan is also someone who encourages and helps his fellow teammates as much as possible. In his spare time, he is one of our best assistant instructors for sail training courses and also likes to sail 29ers, Waszps and J/80s.

Tom Larmour Award – Most Promising Young Sailor

Kai Storey

Kai is a dedicated youth Sharks sailor who attended every training session and was often found at Middle Island outside training hours taking himself out Optimist or Bic sailing. Kai was one of two sailors who were promoted from Optimist Gold Squad to Optimist Performance/Development team halfway through last season due to his very quick improvement and fantastic attitude. Kai’s result at his first Optimist regatta in the open fleet at the recent Optimist nationals was 18th out of 36 sailors.

Tom Larmour Award – RHKYC Sharks Best Performance

Wilson Bowl Award

Emily Polson

Emily was promoted to the Hong Kong Sports Institute 29er team early in the season where she started sailing with Maddalena Di Salvo, who also started sailing originally with the Sharks. The pair managed a second place in the Hebe Haven Regatta this year and then had a very successful summer in Europe, placing 52nd out of 127 sailors at Kieler Woche regatta, 39th and 4th girls team out of 165 sailors in the 29er European Championships and 5th out of 17 sailors in the Youth World Championships where they narrowly missing out on 3rd place after a protest in the final race.

Chloe Shim

Chloe is bold, dares to ask questions and is very supportive to the rest of the team during sessions. She had made great progress during her time at the Club and enthusiastically attended many sessions throughout the year. Her ability to learn fast has been reflected in her strong technique; her timing, rhythm and stroke technique have shown very solid improvements. She is ambitious and not afraid to dream. The Wilson Bowl award was then presented to Chloe Shim.

Samantha Kelly Memorial Award

Elizabeth Wai

Elizabeth Wai has been an active member since 2019, and her passion is bridging the club’s core sports as a former university-level rower and now turned sailor. As a member of the Young Members Committee and as the Etchells Class Secretary she worked towards improving cross-pollination among the core sports. She has been helping with club events that bring seasoned veterans and more junior members together to encourage seamanship and knowledge transfer. She aims for more member-led training, inter-fleet sailing activities, and youth member activities where paddlers, rowers, and sailors can support one another.