Bequia Easter Regatta 2008 - Caribbean Compass

APRIL 2008 CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 12
Dare we say that despite the sea surge, it was…
really swell?
Despite an unusually large ground sea and a resultant
unfounded rumor that this year’s Bequia Easter
Regatta might even be cancelled, a record-breaking
number of entries in the international yacht division
and neck-and-neck racing in the famous Bequia double-enders
made this year’s Bequia Easter Regatta one
of the best ever! And aside from that ground sea, it was
brilliant sailing weather from March 21st through
24th. One race a day made up the three-race regatta,
with a fun-filled Lay Day included, of course.
Forty-five yachts were divided into four classes, and
the turnout of 11 in the increasingly popular J/24
Class was a new high for a one-design keelboat class
in a southern Caribbean regatta. Although J/24s
came from Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada, Barbados and
Bequia, St. Lucian J/24s dominated the top three
places. The victory of Attitude’s very young crew, led by
Benjamin Todd, was well deserved.
In the Racing Class, former Bequia resident Richard
Szyjan put his local knowledge to good use to cop top
place with three bullets in a keenly competitive fleet
of mainly Martinique-based boats. The Grenadabased
Hobie 33’s win was in a class that included
seven Surprises.
In the two Cruising Classes, boats came from the
USA, Canada, Antigua, Grenada, Barbados, Trinidad,
the UK and Germany.
Cruising Class I was exciting, with Petit Careme and
Bloody Mary swapping first and second places on Days
One and Two, and then Jaystar climbing from a sixth
and a third place to take first in the last race. After a
race from Admiralty Bay to Friendship Bay and back,
and then a circumnavigation of Bequia, did the final
around-the-buoys course present different challenges?
Cruising II also saw upsets in the Monday race. With
Hot Chocolate coming into the last race with two firsts
and Appleseeds right behind with two seconds, Kula
grabbed away the top spot and the Antigua-based
schooner Samadhi took second, while Appleseeds and
Hot Chocolate had to settle for third and fourth respectively.
Nevertheless, the last day’s results weren’t
enough to shake Hot Chocolate and Appleseeds out of
the top slots overall in this class.
Although it didn’t count in the series, a Single-
Handed Race on the Easter Sunday Lay Day attracted
an impressive 16 solo skippers to race around the
island. They were divided into CSA Rated and Non-
CSA Rated classes. The nail-biting CSA Rated combat
saw Hallucine — skippered by Clippers Ship’s Nicolas
Gillet — rounding the island in two hours, 11 minutes
and 17 seconds, followed less than 15 minutes later by
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Telephone: +1 401 439 6377
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BEQUIA EASTER REGATTA 2008
RECORD-BREAKING
YACHT TURN-OUT
Above: The J/24 Class, established at Bequia Easter
Regatta’s 2005 event, attracted 11 enthusiastic
regional competitors
Right: Trinidad’s renowned Rawle Barrow at the helm of
Cruising Class 1 overall winner Petit Careme
Yann Lecam on Sonadio 3, culminating in a tie on corrected
time for first place.
All yacht races were smoothly run by Race Officer
James Benoit and Wayne Frank from Grenada, assisted
by Rawle Sealy of the Barbados Yacht Club.
The Bequia Sailing Club would like to thank their
main sponsors Heineken (St. Vincent Brewery), Mount
Gay and Pepsi (Bottlers Ltd. St. Vincent), the SVG
Ministry of Tourism, Youth and Sports, Digicel,
Yacht at Rest, Mind at Ease
DYT Martinique
Telephone: + 596 596 74 15 07
nadine@dockwise-yt.com
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Mountain Top Water, Tradewinds Cruise Club, the
Frangipani Hotel, Windward Island Plantation and C.
K. Greaves, plus all business and private donors, and
all the hardworking Sailing Club volunteers who
made the 27th Annual Bequia Easter Regatta such a
huge success.
—Continued on page 34
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