Joshua Rubenstein, left, and Taariq Jacobs (RSA 111) misjudge a wave on Day 1 of the 470 African Championships held in Granger Bay, Cape Town, South Africa on 14 January 2016. The day was characterized with strong South Easterly winds which proved to be testing, for the 11 teams from Angola, Algeria and South Africa. The 2016 470 African Championship was a ground-breaking moment for sailing in Africa, as the event marked the first ever African Championships and first ever Continental Olympic Qualification Event.
It all began when the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) proposed a 10.5% hike in fees for 2016. The students retaliated, saying most of South Africa’s youth can’t afford tertiary education and this problem would only get worse. Soon, students at the University of Cape Town (UCT), University of Stellenbosch, University of Johannesburg (UJ), University of Pretoria and the University of KwaZulu-Natal joined Wits in protest. It became a national movement. Students around the world want the answer to who will foot the bill – clearly they don’t want to.
