Mr Shipp said he doesn’t expect the popular water skiing event on the Murray River to be cancelled, saying the risks for competitors are no higher than for people that use the river on any other day.
“This is not a reason to cancel the event. It's loved by so many people (and) puts so much money into this economy,” he said.
“There's that many other people on the river every day of the week, they’re just as likely to have a similar accident, so why should the Southern 80 be cancelled?
“There's a lot of boats out there, a lot of fast boats, a lot of people skiing and if you get down to the river on the weekend and see what they're like, there's a lot of clowns out there.”
In his response, Mr Shipp said yesterday’s events have affected everyone involved in the Southern 80 and the wider ski racing community.
“You can see a lot of hurt in people's faces yesterday, some because they knew Luke and others because they put (in) so much time and effort ... to do the event,” he said.
“It was just a tragic accident ... it's going to take a while to get it digested.”
Although the club will look into what could’ve been done to prevent the incident, Mr Shipp said they already have many safety measures in place.
“I did a safety run first thing on the Sunday morning, so I do the whole river before anyone gets on it and do a whole run down each day,” he said.
“We've got 18 control point boats out on the river, so we've got all these people sitting on the river watching and to give us feedback and talk to all the radios all the time.
“I think there (were) about 13 maritime vessels on the water as well. So we've got safety stuff everywhere.”
Mr Shipp said the organisers have and will continue to work with the police and other relevant agencies to find out exactly what occurred on Sunday.
“We'll be meeting with New South Police and Victoria Police and the ambulances and all our emergency services groups,” he said.
“We'll have a debrief tomorrow ... but it's too early to get any sort of indications and findings.
“(The police are) comfortable with where we’re at, what we’ve done, and how quick we can get an ambulance (to the scene of an accident).”
MWSC would not provide any further details of the accident, with Mr Shipp also stating that “until it comes out from the coroner or the police about what they believe happened, we can’t say any more than that.”
Despite the awful events yesterday, Mr Shipp said the race is loved by the whole community and not worthy of being scrapped, especially given its rich history. It is not known how much projected revenue was lost due to the cancellation happening so early on in Sunday’s proceedings, but Mr Shipp believes the numbers were still high.
“It's a great race, it's motorsport on water, everyone loves it,” he said.
“The amount of people that go up and down the river and train ... is awesome and what it injects into the economy, it'll be somewhere around about the 12 million mark for this weekend I expect.
“It’s an event that brings so much joy and so many people into the town and a lot of other towns.”
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