Today, a yachting veteran David Booth, 72, was killed after he was struck by a timber beam and then thrown into the water in a yacht crash that left another participant pinned under water. Paramedics and police were asked to Newport’s Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club at around 2.30 pm after the yachts broke up in Pittwater, bumping a seventy-two-year-old racer into the sea.
Tonight, the man’s friends flooded the Facebook page of the club with many tributes to the late sailor who was sailing on his couta yacht. Bob Rayner said: “A great loss of a nice bloke. Unfortunately died doing what he loves doing. RIP mate.”
Parry Thomas, a fellow sailor, said: “I have been friends and sailed with both the people involved for over 30 years. My thoughts are with the families and all the other people who have been touched by this tragedy.”
Witnesses stated that around fifty yachts from Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club were battling it out in three races earlier on Saturday. At the time of the mishap, it was a quite hectic at the top mark in the regatta, as vessels jostled for position to round it.
Mr Booth was as a Hornsby based commercial real-estate agent. The agency owner Murray Byrnes descried Mr Booth as a fairly extraordinary man. He said that he was a really good golfer when he was young, but after that he discovered yachting and racing. He loved the water and racing.