With winds hovering about 20, the lightest wind seen all weekend, choppy seas and very blue skies, BVI Spring Regatta wrapped up today. There seemed to be a consensus that today’s conditions were the best yet.

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With winds of 22 – 25, it was a little less breezy as the 128-boat fleet set sail for the second day of competition at the BVI Spring Regatta.

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Broaches, breakdowns and a few bruises among crew were the order of the day, with winds gusting to 33 knots across the Sir Francis Drake Channel. But Jeff Gouzer, from France, mainsheet trimmer aboard the Kerr 11.3 Minnie the Moocher, put the scene into perspective; “There’s lots of times we have these kinds of winds back home, but we don’t have the warm water and sun to go with it like we do here. It was really a beautiful race day.”

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A sleigh ride was predicted and a sleigh ride it was for the 35 boats that braved the breeze. With winds averaging 20 knots from behind the fleet seemed to fly from the Bitter End Yacht Club to the BVI Spring Regatta home, Nanny Cay Marina. The first to finish was the Andrews 68, Equation. Bill Alcott and the crew completed the 21-mile race in an hour and a half, averaging about 17 miles per hour. All the racers were through the finish line in less than three and a half hours, a record for this race and less than half the time it took them to sail the race in the opposite direction.

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With a steady 25 - 30 knots of breeze, and killer puffs accompanying an occasional squall line, some die-hard sailors raced in North Sound on Bitter End Yacht Club’s Hobie Waves, Getaways and Lasers. For those who decided not to abuse themselves on the water, there was plenty of entertainment dockside at the Bitter End’s Pub where sailing videos accompanied copious quantities of food and drink. For others, the pool and the spa beckoned.

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The frantic call came in from a staff member at Bitter End Yacht Club around 1PM, “Was it true; the race is cancelled?” “What”, replied Bob Phillips, Event Chairman. And then after a second, “What”, the light bulb went on; it’s April 1st.

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With registration now closed for the BVI Sailing Festival, the low pressure precursor to the BVI Spring Regatta can now boast having the fourth largest fleet of handicapped racers in the Caribbean. In only it's sixth year, and with 55 boats entered, the BVI Sailing Festival nips at the heels of the big three- St. Maarten Heineken Regatta, Antigua Sailing Week and BVI Spring Regatta. “In no way are we surprised by the success of the event as everyone wants to come and play in the BVI. That said, we’re ecstatic,” remarked Judy Petz, Regatta Director.

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This year’s theme for the entertainment at the Regatta Village is “The Caribbean Rocks”. With artists that represent some of the best music in the BVI, the Regatta Village at Nanny Cay will be rock’n with the sights and sounds of the Caribbean during the BVI Spring Regatta, April 3 – 6. In addition, courtesy of the BVI Tourist Board and Sunsail, after racing each day, sailors can catch the T2p.tv video highlights of the days’ action.

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This year’s theme for the entertainment at the Regatta Village is “The Caribbean Rocks”. With artists that represent some of the best music in the BVI, the Regatta Village at Nanny Cay will be rock’n with the sights and sounds of the Caribbean during the BVI Spring Regatta, April 3 – 6. In addition, courtesy of the BVI Tourist Board and Sunsail, after racing each day, sailors can catch the T2p.tv video highlights of the days’ action.

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With just two weeks left before the big event begins, the entry list for the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival is starting look like a who’s who of Caribbean sailing. “Early registration is stronger than we’ve ever seen it. We currently have nearly ninety boats registered and many of them are coming from strong performances in other events. We expect to have some great competition,” says Bob Phillips, Chairman of the event for the past 11 years. This year’s event takes place March 31 – April 6 with more than 160 boats are expected.

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Although the schedule remains the same, the list of prizes sailors compete for keeps increasing. For those who plan to race in the International Rolex Regatta, and the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, there are more prizes to be won. Registration for VI Raceweek, the new event that encompasses eight days of racing, over a ten day period and spans both the US and the British Virgin Islands, is available on line through the BVI Spring Regatta registration site. http://bvisr.register.result.vg/

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Sponsorship seems to be in the air for the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival. Now in its 37th year, the event seems to be snowballing in popularity for both sailors and sponsors. The 2008 edition, March 31 – April 6, is drawing sponsors not only for the current year but many are seeing the benefits of a long term commitment to the event. “With a long term contract, sponsors really have a chance to better define their marketing strategies and take advantage of the opportunities that we can offer,” says Regatta Director, Judy Petz. “Each sponsor wants and needs something different and we really try to tailor the sponsorship packages to suit their unique needs.”

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The BVI Buzz is getting louder as the registration for the 2008 BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, March 31 – April 6, is on line and easily accessible for all who are planning to compete in either or both events. Contributing to buzz for the regatta, hosted by Nanny Cay, are two promotional marketing pieces now posted on the front page of the BVI Spring Regatta website, a video and a separate slide show. The video captures clips of the action on the water interspersed with interviews with participants, whereas the slide show is fast paced (don’t blink) with flashes from every race course, the nightly parties and the awards.

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2008 BVI Spring Regatta Buzz With less than three months before the start of the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, the sailing community is starting to buzz. Presented by Nanny Cay, the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival is the highlight of the Caribbean racing season, drawing about 160 boats ranging in size from 14 to 75 feet and sailors from almost every continent. The regatta is big enough to attract plenty of competitive boats but small enough to offer racing, entertainment and an infrastructure that caters to the sailors.

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Discounted rates on hot yachts and destination vacations as top prizes. This is just a sample of what awaits sailors who compete in the inaugural Virgin Islands Race Week – March 28 to April 6 – presented by the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism.

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Organizers are please to announce that Cape Air has been named the official airline of the 2008 Cape Air C.O.R.T. Series.

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As winners took to the stage to collect their spoils on Sunday evening, April 1, more than one them took the microphone and commented on the quality of this year’s BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival. John Foster, sailing Racing Class C winner, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, said, “This is the best regatta I’ve ever raced in.” Dave West, of Chippewa, and the owner of Titan XII, Tom Hill, made very similar comments and it makes one wonder, what sparks such positive accolades from the competitors.

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The photo gallery has now been updated with photos of the entire event. Check it out.

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Picture perfect weather was the order for the last day of the 2007 BVI Spring Regatta. Sailors were able to enjoy a consistent 20 knots of breeze, sunshine and relatively flat water in races that, in many classes, determined who was to stand on the winners’ podium at this afternoon’s prize giving.

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The sun shone most of the day, there was no rain and winds from 20 – 30 miles an hour with rough seas. Conditions put sailors and boats to a true test. As always, when the wind blows this hard, there is some carnage on the race course but crews returned to the Nanny Cay, the event host, tired, salty and with some great sea stories to tell. When asked how was it out there, Mike Masters, sailing Black Pearl in the IC24 class summed it up, “Grueling and great.”

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It’s been a wild and wonderful time for racing in the first day of competition in the 2007 BVI Spring Regatta. Wind was not lacking but rather too much for some boats that struggled to keep from broaching in gusts up to 26 knots. Others reveled in the brisk breeze and turned wind into pure power. Sailing in over 15 knots of breeze from the northeast, rather than the prevailing southeast, under cloudy skies and intermittent rain, boats on the Norman course sailed one race in the morning and one in the afternoon, the Cooper Race area completed three races and the one-design racers completed five.

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Battling the elements of light air and rain, sailors beat their way back to Nanny Cay in the last leg of the BVI Sailing Festival. Although given the prevailing breeze, my money would have been for the fleet to coast downhill from Bitter End to Nanny Cay, instead, what little wind there was, shifted from the north east to the south west. Bob Phillips, Chairman of the BVI Sailing Festival remarked, “This year the boats beat up to Bitter End and back. It was only two years ago when we had just he opposite situation, and boats sailed downwind up and then downwind back to Nanny Cay. I guess that makes us even now.”

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Bitter End Yacht Club. Today, the official layday for the BVI Sailing Festival, every sailing dinghy and Hunter 216 that Bitter End has was out on the water participating in either the Nations’ Challenge Cup or dinghy racing. Competition began in the morning with about ten knots of breeze but was delayed due to some torrential showers in the early afternoon. The weather cleared and, with very light and fluky wind, sailors took the boats from shore around 4PM to compete in two more races.

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Under cloudy skies and a little bit of rain, 45 boats raced in winds averaging 15 knots from Nanny Cay Marina to the Bitter End Yacht Club in BVI Sailing Festival. PRO, Dave Brennan said, “ It was a terrific day, with plenty of breeze, nice sailing and pleasant conditions. It was overcast, cool and not too much sunscreen got used.”

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It is now official, the 2007 BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival have begun; 45 boats registered, marking this as the highest number of participants in the Festival, the low-pressure, three-day warm up for the regatta. With registration today, followed by a welcome party this evening at Nanny Cay, the event host, racers are readying their boats for tomorrows race from Nanny Cay to Bitter End and readying themselves with libations. Tomorrow is the start of three days of destination cruising, racing and layday fun, including the Bitter End Cup, the Nation's Challenge Cup, one design and dinghy racing and the Nanny Cay Cup. All of this will lead up to the main event, the three-day BVI Spring Regatta starting which begins on Friday, March 30.

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The BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, presented by Nanny Cay and held this year March 26 – April 1, 2007, is taking a cue from some of the well-established one design classes and providing on the water umpiring for the very competitive IC24 class. Using ISAF’s “Experimental Appendix Q” umpired fleet racing rules, Bob Phillips, event chairman, said, “This will be a wonderful learning experience for the racers as the on-water umpires will define the line you can’t cross on the water, not in a room well after the fact; you cross that line and the umpire either lets you exonerate with a penalty turn or, in the case of a serious breech of the rules, immediately disqualifies you from that race.”

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The BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, presented by Nanny Cay and held this year March 30 – April 1, 2007, will be welcoming a new boat to the Caribbean racing scene. ABN AMRO, winner of the 2005-06 Volvo Ocean Race, is making the BVI Spring Regatta one of its three events in the Caribbean this season. The boat will be competing in the Caribbean Big Boat Series which is comprised of the Heineken Regatta in St, Maarten, BVI Spring Regatta and Antigua Sailing Week.

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The BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, presented by Nanny Cay, is known for its innovation and the 2007 event, March 26 – April 1, will be no exception. This year the BVI Spring Regatta wants to bring sailors back into the protest room, on the judge’s side of the table.

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This year’s BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, presented by Nanny Cay Marina, March 27 – April 2, 2006, hosted a record 154 boats ranging in size from15’ Lasers to the Riechel Pugh 75’ Titan XII. Winds were light but enough to support six days of exceptionally competitive sailing throughout the BVI. Organizers feared the worst, in terms of wind – or lack there of - but in the end, there was only one race, on one day, on one course, in which not all the boats finished before the time limit.

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It is no wonder that the place to be last night was checking the results in the Mount Gay Results Tent. Today marked the last day racing in the BVI Spring Regatta, hosted by Nanny Cay, and the last of race of the CORT series, sponsored by Heineken. The event was included in the IRC Gulf Stream Series and the Caribbean Big Boat Series. Needless to say, there were an incredible number of trophies on the line.

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Tortola, British Virgin Islands, April 1, 2006- After an intense first day of racing in the BVI Spring Regatta, hosted by Nanny Cay, crowds were entertained by the exceptionally talented Maxx Cabello Jr. and his band last night. Strumming an incredible blend of blues, rock and jazz, crowds stood in the rain to hear him play. Then out on the water today, rump roasting hot racing took place with winds of 10 – 12 knots and currents and shifts with which to content.

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Wind was the word on everybody’s mind as skippers and crews aboard a record 154 yachts wondered if they would compete on the seas or retreat to a rum punch on this first day of sailing in the 35th annual BVI Spring Regatta. After a delayed start of less then an hour, the fleet took their mark in the light six to seven knots of breeze that Mother Nature blew across the three courses set in the Sir Francis Drake channel.

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Registration is now closed and it looks like a bumper year for BVI Spring Regatta, presented by Nanny Cay. 154 boats are entered and this makes the event’s 35th anniversary the biggest year yet. 154 boats have been split into sixteen classes and range in size from the 75’ Reichel Pugh, Titan XII, supporting a crew of twenty, to the one man Lasers and windsurfers. The BVI Spring Regatta officially kicked off tonight with the Mount Gay Welcome Party and the opening of the Regatta Village and sailing will begin tomorrow in the Sir Frances Drake Channel, continuing through Sunday on three different courses.

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Although the weather looked a bit iffy early on today, the second day of the BVI Sailing Festival, the precursor to the BVI Spring Regatta, turned out to be nearly picture perfect. Sailors had their choice of activities at the Bitter End in North Sound, but many chose to participate in the one design racing in Lasers, Hobie Waves or Hobie Getaways or Nation’s Challenge Cup, sailed in Bitter End’s fleet of 216’s. The sailing activities were so popular that by the end of the day, Bitter End had all of their 32 one-design dinghies racing in North Sound.

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Day One of the BVI Sailing Festival, the low pressure warmup to the BVI Spring Regatta, started off looking like a bust. Before the start of the race, the course was shortened, sending the boats directly from Nanny Cay to Bitter End, by-passing a mark at The Baths and several islands off the north coast of Virgin Gorda. The race committee started the three classes in five knots of breeze but as the boats approached the western end of Virgin Gorda a squall rolled in kicking the winds up to approximately 20 mph.

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The BVI Sailing Festival - the three-day, low-pressure warm up for the BVI Spring Regatta to take place this weekend (March 30 - April 2) – officially kicked off today with registration. Throughout the day, boats filtered into the Nanny Cay Marina and began preparations for the event. Forty boats have officially entered the event and have been divided into Racing, Cruising, Bareboat A and Bareboat B classes.

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Maxx Cabella Jr., a “rump roasting hot” young guitarist, soulful vocalist, and prolific songwriter, headlines the entertainment on Friday, March 31, the first day of racing of the BVI Spring Regatta at the Regatta Village, Nanny Cay. The BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, hosted and presented by Nanny Cay Marina, not only offers plenty of racing during the day, but each night presents entertainment worthy of this trend setting event.

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Tortola, British Virgin Islands, February 16, 2006 – The Sol Group, the distributor and marketing group of Shell’s petroleum products in the Eastern Caribbean, Guyana, Suriname and Belize, has signed on as a major sponsor of the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival presented and hosted by Nanny Cay Marina.

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The 2006 BVI Spring Regatta, presented and hosted by Nanny Cay, will add a fourth race course to the already busy Sir Francis Drake Channel, March 31 - April 2. The one design course, which last year hosted IC24s, windsurfers, Lasers and beach cats, will split in 2006, with the windsurfers and beach cats branching out on their own to ensure that the only dirty air they get will be their own.

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Nanny Cay Marina, host and presenting sponsor of the BVI Spring Regatta since 2002, recently signed a five-year contract to continue its support of the British Virgin Islands' largest sporting event. Held annually on the first weekend of April, the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival is celebrating its 35th anniversary next year. It is now a seven-day event with two events back-to-back attracting an average of 135 yachts per year with eighty percent of the competitors from overseas.

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Over the weekend of April 1-3, 134 yachts, beach cats, Lasers and windsurfers competed in the 34th annual BVI Spring Regatta. Spread between three courses and 14 classes, 128 races were held during the three-day event with winds ranging from 8-14 knots. "We had three days of excellent racing," said Bob Phillips, regatta chairman. "The wind held and we managed to get a phenomenal amount of starts away. With the great weather, wind and our regatta village waterside on Nanny Cay's beach providing some great entertainment, I think it was one of the best ever!"

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The final edition of the daily edition of Startline, also sponsored by CCT Global Communications, is now online with top three results and comments from crews. Click to download the the final CCT edition (April 4) of the 2005 BVI Spring Regatta (2.5 mb file). All the other editions can be found in our "Breaking News" section.

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Click to download the CCT Global Communications edition (April 3) which summarizes the second day of racing action (5 mb file).

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For the last day of the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival presented by Nanny Cay Marina, the "Willy-T Run" was canceled. This run to the infamous floating bar at Norman Island had become a dangerous habit the last couple of years due to lack of wind. Instead the fleet went racing much to the consternation of those grinders needing a little light libation after back to back racing in the first two days of the regatta.

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Wind picked up a little more for the second day of racing for the 34th annual BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival presented by Nanny Cay Marina. Ten to fourteen knots were seen in the morning but dropped back to eight to ten knots in the afternoon.

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Click to download Equity Trust edition (April 2) which summarizes the first day of racing action (5mb file).

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In a pleasant surprise for competitors in the first day of racing in the 34th annual BVI Spring Regatta presented by Nanny Cay Marina, the winds were slightly stronger than forecast and the race committee, making the most of the breeze fired off 42 races between the 14 classes. Classes sailing on the Norman course saw one race, the Cooper course three and on the One-Design course, up to seven races.

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Click to download The Moorings edition (April 1) which previews the Regatta and summarizes the Sailing Festival with results (5mb file).

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In what was considered by one competitor to be a “long waterline race” today with winds ranging from 8-13 knots, Bill Alcott’s long waterline Andrews 68 Equation was pipped at the corrected post by 35 seconds by Martin Jacobsen’s Swan 44 Crescendo. But it was Mike Schlen and crew on Cosmic Warlord that took the overall prize for the Sailing Festival turning in a third place today to go with their win on the first day.

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Six teams – with two on the waiting list - entered the second annual Nations' Challenge Cup held on the North Sound in Virgin Gorda yesterday (March 30). With two flights of four races each in the morning and afternoon, Team Ireland led by nineteen year old Jeremy Wilmott, son of Crescendo's skipper Jamie Wilmott, racked up fifteen points in the eight races and took the Cup.

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Day one of the BVI Sailing Festival - the three-day, low-pressure warm up for the BVI Spring Regatta to take place this weekend (April 1-3) - saw 34 boats in four classes cross the line off Nanny Cay Marina as they headed up to the North Sound in Virgin Gorda racing for the Bitter End Cup.

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Through the regatta daily editions of Startline, the official newsletter of the BVI Spring Regatta, will be published. Copies will be available for download from this site and throughout the regatta village and Nanny Cay Marina.

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Nanny Cay Marina, host and presenting sponsor of the BVI Spring Regatta since 2002, recently signed a five-year contract to continue its support of the British Virgin Islands' largest sporting event. Held annually on the first weekend of April, the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival is celebrating its 35th anniversary next year. It is now a seven-day event with two events back-to-back attracting an average of 135 yachts per year with eighty percent of the competitors from overseas.

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The BVI Sailing Festival - the three-day, low-pressure warm up for the BVI Spring Regatta to take place this weekend (March 30 - April 2) – officially kicked off today with registration. Throughout the day, boats filtered into the Nanny Cay Marina and began preparations for the event. Forty boats have officially entered the event and have been divided into Racing, Cruising, Bareboat A and Bareboat B classes.

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