News Articles | Club Marine Insurance

News

BILLFISH 15000 SODWANA

13/12/2011

It was the 25th Anniversary of this very popular annual event which attracted nearly 500 anglers creating an amazingly festive atmosphere. Managing member Caryne says organizers Leoni and Johan Burger were perfect hosts and excelled themselves ensuring this was one of the best run deep sea competitions of the year.

Team Club Marine’s enthusiastic crew included Club Marine’s Operations Manager Russell Duvenhage, Boating International’s Paul Trollope, Greg Alice from Boating World in Cape Town with well-known angler and TV personality skipper Mark de la Hey as skipper. (Mark quipped that his crew of “Marlin virgins” were all “cured” that weekend).

Mark’s serious approach to each day and fishing off Lowrance’s 750 Ace Glider boat and making full use of the HDS-8 fishfinder/GPS combo unit with Structure Scan, undoubtedly contributed to their success. And what an awesome weekend it was for each of them tagging their first Marlins ever. Russell was delighted with an 80kg Blue Marlin on the third day – followed by Greg’s 100kg Marlin and Paul’s 180kg Marlin both caught on the last day.

Club Marine client Tony Cohen was in the lead on the Monday with a 250kg whopper but Jan Hofman from Pretoria and crew achieved more points (1528) by releasing six Marlin and one Sailfish overall. Jan went home with an imported Dodge Ram vehicle for which Club Marine gave six months complimentary insurance.

Club Marine gave a hamper of prizes at the evening prize giving which went down well with the tired but exhilarated crowd. Most anglers were up at 3am and determined to make their mark. And their dedication paid off – a world record number of 130 Billfish were tagged and released overall.

Caryne says this was a truly memorable competition and they had loads of fun celebrating Team Club Marine’s success. Caryne and Natalie were there to talk to many Club Marine clients who reported how thrilled they were with claims turnaround time.