Kangan Batman employee is Australian sailing champion
26 October 2004
Kangan Batman staff member, Colin Johanson, recently won his Class in the Australian & International Access Dinghy, Championships at Belmont 16 Footers Sailing Club at Lake Macquarie, NSW.
Colin, who is Kangan Batman's Computer Aided Design & Intellectual Property Co-ordinator based at the Broadmeadows campus, competed in his Docklands sponsored, servo-controlled Liberty on 2 & 3 October.
Colin, who lives in Williamstown, uses a manual wheelchair as a result of a hang gliding accident in 1977 that left him a quadriplegic - unable to use his legs at all and with limited hand use. His disability doesn't seem to have stopped him from having a very active and full life.
Colin won two Gold and one Silver for First in Liberty full servo, Liberty International, and a Silver in Open Liberty. It is his fifth attendance in the National competition but this is the first time he has achieved Australian Champion in his Class.
Colin came second in the State titles in Open Access 303 earlier this year at Docklands (in a fully manual yacht) and came fourth in the Liberty World Championships in January 2004 at Blairgowrie. So it has been quite a successful competition year for him.
His next aims are hopefully to attend the 2005 IFDS Single Person Dinghy World Championship in Rutland, Great Britain; 2006 FESPIC Games in Kuala Lumpur; and a Commonwealth Games lead-up event to be held in Docklands in February 2006.
