Outriggers: The Whitsunday Outriggers have dominated the start of the 2018 paddling season, coming home from the Canoe Point regatta with medals galore earlier this month.

Wild weather forced a move from the foreshore at Tannum Sands into the Boyne River.

The Whitsunday team headed for the world championships in Tahiti in July.

They came away with gold in both their events which had Outrigger Whitsunday president Nick Bellinger happy with the result.

"It is the first regatta of the Grand Prix series for 2018 and the whole club performed really well,” he said.

Bellinger gave a shout out to the club's newest members from Mackay, Darrell Thoroughood and Angie Cockram, who both walked away from the weekend with golds in the six-man crew they were in and together won the open mixed two-man race.

Thoroughood also claimed gold in the 8km OC1 Master Marathon.

"Darrell has been paddling for 29 years and he has recently started with us and just came back this season,” Bellinger said.

"They do a lot of training in Mackay but come up once a week to train with us on the weekend.”

Other achievements included open men (team 1) and open women crews both claiming first in the 500m sprint and he 12km marathon.

The open men (team 2) paddled to bronze in both 500m sprint and also in the 12km marathon.

Open mixed (team 1) won gold in the 500m sprint and bronze in the 12km marathon while the open mixed (team 2) took out the bronze in the 500m sprint event.

The local outriggers also collected a gold in the open women's OC2, a third in the OC1 8km, first place in the open men 8km OC1, a silver in the 8km open women OC1 and medals for the mixed junior events.

Just three months into the new year Bellinger said the club has had a 20 per cent increase in membership.

"We've kicked off the season really well, we have had a heap of new members sign up this year and are on our way to getting the north Queensland champion club again,” he said.

"We have about 70 members which our four week challenge has definitely helped with - we had 24 participants.”

The second round of the regatta grand prix will be held at Tinaroo dam on Saturday, April 14.