In what was set to be one of the biggest Geographe Bay Race Week events held in recent times, has ended in disappointment for event organisers and competitors.
The Geographe Bay Race Week committee were forced to cancel the annual sailing regatta due to WA's current COVID-19 situation and five-day lockdown.
Geographe Bay Race Week was due to start on Sunday, February 7, 2021 in spectacular fashion with more than 60 yachts navigating a course close to the Busselton Jetty.
The week long event would have injected more than $2 million into Busselton's economy.
Geographe Bay Race Week spokesperson Nigel Chesterfield-Evans said with many of the yachts and competitors still needing to sail down the West Coast from Perth, the committee had no choice but to cancel the event.
Mr Chesterfield-Evans said the feedback they had received from competitors was that while they were hugely disappointed. the committee had made the right decision.
If the lockdown was extended past Friday then there was noway they could hold the meet, he said.
The committee made up of Ken Waller, Barry Brown, Sal Watts and Mr Chesterfield-Evans decided if they could not run the event properly they did not want to run it at all.
Volunteers had worked tirelessly throughout the past year to make sure this year's event would be a huge success.
The committee focused on attracting more boats to take part rather than trying to secure sponsorship, which resulted in an increase of 50 per cent more yachts registered for the event.
Because other international sailing events had been cancelled, some of the world's championship yachts were due to race in Busselton.
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