HEALESVILLE AND GOLDEN FALLS CELEBRATE A VERY SPECIAL LIFE

Healesville on Thursday bids farewell

Following the Celebration of Ray Stokes life in Healesville, Victoria, in Australia on Thursday, Golden Falls Members met today in Dublin to also share some memories on Ray’s visits to the Club in Ballymore Eustace over the past 20 years or more. Some tears and lots of smiles !

Australia’s Ray Stokes made an enormous contribution to the sport of Waterskiing in his short 51 year life. He revolutionised Jump Ski design, converted almost all to a much safer way to score big Jump distances, coached almost every major international Jumper and five National Teams, brought Emma Sheers and June Fladborg all the way to setting World Jump Records, and most of all made global friendships on a scale never seen before in our sport. With over 30,000 individual messages on his CaringBridge pages, his impact was exceptional. Irish Federation President Des Burke-Kennedy was invited to organise his Memorial Ceremony with the Stokes family in Healesville, Australia on Thursday.

Golden Falls remembers Ray today

Today, our Golden Falls Members got together at Chris Terry’s Cafe Du Journal in Monkstown, County Dublin for breakfast and to also celebrate the life of somebody who made so many great friendships over these past 20 years at our Lake. We then moved to DunLaoghaire’s West Pier to share some final thoughts beside the water.

Our condolences go to Ray’s family and June and Mark and Neil and all his closest friends. Our Club was one of the first to invite Ray to provide coaching courses and we will never forget his friendship over the past 20+ years. May he rest in peace.