RBVIYC Dinghy Championships 2011
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RBVIYC 2011 Dinghy Championships prize giving at Nanny CayA whopping 36 sailors signed up for the RBVIYC annual dinghy championships held April 30/May 1 out of home base Nanny Cay.
Regatta organizer, Richard Wooldridge was over the moon to see such a strong turnout with nearly half of the competitors traveling from St. Thomas and St. Croix. Richard explained: “We had 18 sailors in the Optimist ‘Green’ fleet, half of them from the USVI. You can always judge how healthy a sailing program is by looking at the Green fleet where they are just starting to learn some racing moves. It was great to see these youngsters meet and bump into each-other for the first time, they were having a ball!”
The Optimists raced inside Sea Cow’s Bay because the Sir Francis Drake Channel was way too rough for beginners.
BVI youth sailors get set to sail with help from Nanny Cay and Sol
Click to enlargeNanny Cay and Sol Petroleum were pleased to make their first financial contribution to the Royal BVI Yacht Club (RBVIYC) junior sailing programme. Nanny Cay boatyard manager, Keith LiGreci and country manager for Sol, Deborah Benjamin, recently joined the young sailors at Nanny Cay beach to present them with the first quarterly installment. Earlier this year, the two businesses had agreed to make a contribution to the RBVIYC from every gallon of fuel sold at the Nanny Cay marina.
ARC Europe 2011 opens at Nanny Cay
At 0900 this morning the flag was raised and the doors opened to the ARC Europe office, nicely located just off the beach at Nanny Cay. The first of the arrivals, including ‘Resolution 3’, ‘Neva’ and ‘Diatonic’, have already checked in. ‘Thor VI’ called up Rally Control on the VHF after listening to the morning broadcast, even though they…
Billionaires, BVI Spring Regatta & Nanny Cay
CNN’s Mainsail has just aired with its coverage of the BVI Spring Regatta and Sir Richard Branson’s participation onboard his luxury catamaran, Necker Belle. Great footage of the BVI, the regatta village, the docks, and particularly, the arrival of Necker Belle on A dock…! Watch the clip… You can watch it on…
40th Anniversary BVI Spring Regatta Wraps
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Clcik to enlargeWhat defines a magnificent regatta? Ask anyone who sailed in the 40th Anniversary BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival (March 28-April 3, 2011) hosted and presented by Nanny Cay, and you’ll hear the same thing: red-hot racing, professionally run courses, a family friendly regatta village, and—of course—killer parties…exactly what sailors on 122 different competing yachts experienced at Nanny Cay—the regatta’s base—this weekend.
While the 40th included plenty of firsts, including the inaugural Gill BVI International Match Racing Championship (March 30 and 31), one class that isn’t new is the venerable Squib. These keelboats are similar to Rhodes 19s and are used locally in a variety of youth-sailing programs, including Sailability, which helps facilitate sailing for everyone, regardless of a sailor’s mental or physical handicaps. “These particular Squibs raced in the first BVI Spring Regatta, forty years ago,” said Sue-Ellyn Eldridge, who runs the Squib class’ Race Committee. “We even had one of the original racers from 40 years ago, Peter Bailey, join us.” Eldridge squeezed off several dozen races using a variety of course shapes, giving crews plenty to smile about, regardless of their performance. “Just getting to the end of the regatta and being above the waterline, that’s a success right there.”
40th Anniversary BVI Spring Regatta—Tightening the Noose
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Nanny Cay sponsored Triple KackA single day of racing remains at the 40th Anniversary BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival (March 28-April 3, 2011), and the tussle for podium places is getting serious. Razor-thin margins define several classes, and Mother Nature is forecast to deliver a wild card tomorrow: less pressure. For the past two days, 122 participating boats have enjoyed 15-22 knots, so tomorrow’s question mark will test each crew’s ability to switch gears. While the party rages at the race village at Nanny Cay, the regatta’s base, everyone knows that change may literally be in the wind.
One pronounced format change here over most other regattas is the presence of on-the-water umpires in the IC 24 class. While the BVI Spring Regatta isn’t the first to use umpires in a fleet-racing format, we’re advancing a popular new protocol. Rather than using a protest room to settle an on-the-water kerfuffle, umpires observe and assign penalties in real-time; guilty sailors, in turn, serve immediate penance. “We don’t have 10-15 protests stacking up at the end of racing,” said Glenn Oliver, an International Judge and Umpire. “It speeds the game along.” When queried as to whether this innovation will spread, Oliver advises that it requires a sophisticated regatta to pull it off. “You wouldn’t see this in most places—[only] larger events where they can bring in umpires to do the work.”
RBVIYC Youth Sailing Programme fundraising throughout Regatta
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Sol Petroleum is hosting the Royal BVI Yacht Club (RBVIYC) Youth Sailing Programme at its tent in the Regatta Village during the BVI Spring Regatta.
The RBVIYC raffle is one of the biggest revenue producers for the junior sailing programme. This year there are two major prizes that appeal to the international visitors as well as to the resident community. Sol has donated one of the two grand prizes for the traditional, junior sailors fundraising raffle. The winner of the Sol prize will enjoy a skippered charter on a Moorings 40 (3 cabins / 2 heads) for six days and five nights. The other prize is a week’s stay for two people at the Bitter End Yacht Club valued at $6,000.
Tickets are $20 each and will be on sale at the Nanny Cay Chandlery and at the Bitter End Yacht Club in the run up to the opening of the Village. Tickets will also be on sale at the Sol tent at the Village and watch out for the junior sailors selling tickets in the Regatta Village.
As well as selling raffle tickets, the RBVIYC will be signing up resident and international individuals and families for membership of the sailing club.
40th Anniversary BVI Spring Regatta – No Fooling Around
Despite the calendar date, there were precious few pranks occurring today at the 40th Anniversary BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival (March 28-April 3, 2011), where 122 boats assembled on four different racecourses, eagerly anticipating their starting guns. Fifteen to twenty knots and small seas greeted sailors racing in the protected waters, and classic Caribbean ocean rollers fueled surfing sessions outside of the lee of the islands. The race committees made sure to entertain, sending boats on a variety of courses, ranging from windward-leewards to scenic excursions around the numerous islands that pepper the Sir Francis Drake Channel near Nanny Cay Resort and Marina, the regatta’s base.
Back ashore, however, a few sly moves were attempted. “It was mostly in the racing class!” laughed Renata Goodridge, the Regatta Measurer. Caribbean Sailing Association (CSA) rules—the regatta’s governing rules—stipulate that owners can only change their rating three times per year, but this didn’t deter some shenanigans. “Guys always try to one-up each other. They’ll say, ‘that first spinnaker, we used it for one whole regatta—it’s really blown out, let’s measure a new one and see if it will make us go faster.’ But, for the most part, everybody plays by the rules.” Given that Goodridge is also an official CSA measurer, you can bet your last bottle of rum that nothing slipped under her radar.
Nanny Cay – Sailing Summer Camp for adults
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Willem Wester’s Antilope wins the Nanny Cay CupThe atmosphere is crackling with excitement on the eve of racing at the 40th Anniversary BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival (March 28-April 3, 2011). The race village is open, boats and sailors are here, and everyone is psyched for what promises to be three brilliant days of racing on the Sir Francis Drake Channel. Just poll anyone walking around Nanny Cay—the regatta’s base—and their comments are the same: It’s like summer camp for adults, sans chaperones.