On Sunday, the 46th annual BVI Spring Regatta came to a close at Nanny Cay.

This year’s event attracted 86 boats competing in various classes.

On the last day, due to light winds the sailors completed only one race, but several class winners were determined on the final day.

In Racing 2, Chris Haycraft skippered Pipedream to first place by just a half a point, beating Tony Mack, of Team McFly, who has won the division for the past four years. Pipedream was also named Best BVI Boat.

In the IC 24 class, Frits Bus and Chuck Pessler racing on Island Water World Racing took first on a tie-breaker with Aeropost.com skippered by Colin Rathbun.

“The beauty of this regatta is that you are racing against boats you don’t know, so you don’t know how they are going to perform which makes it all the more interesting,” said Mr. Haycraft. “I love meeting all the new people who come to the BVI Spring Regatta; it’s just a great atmosphere. It’s also been enjoyable to see more of our local ex-pats visiting the event village to see what it is all about.”

Peter Corr took first in  Racing 1 on his new boat Blitz. In the past, Mr. Corr chartered a King 40, however, he loves his new boat.

“Today was super light air with the breeze shifting dramatically at the start and throughout racing,” Mr. Corr said. “We saw two knots at one point, then as much as eight to nine knots. The competition here this week has been really high level, you had to be on it and not let up for a minute. I love racing here, it’s just magical.”

In the relatively new one-design class, C&C 30, Don’t Panic, owned and skippered by Julian Mann from San Francisco, took first place in only his fourth regatta.

“After last weekend in St. Thomas, I feel like we came into the Spring Regatta as the underdog,” Mr. Mann said. “We knew we were in control and potentially winning positions in St. Thomas in virtually every race, but it seemed like we were racing ourselves. This week we’ve really put a lot of time and effort into fixing that and there are certainly more things to work on, but our improvement shows in the results, which we’re really happy with.”

Avanti, the Hanse 43, skippered by Jeremi Jablonksi took first in Jib and Main.

“We sailed in a pretty large division with great sailors and super friendly competition,” Mr. Jablonski said, who has competed in the BVISR four times. “We’re beginning to feel like we have some local knowledge now, and so we’ve been improving our performance over the years.”

In Bareboat 1, Subversive-JogFund, skippered by Warwick Dunnett took first, finishing with eight points.

“An experienced San Francisco crew, stronger breeze and some good tactical decisions picking the favoured side of the course earlier in the series suited us and led to a very satisfying win,” said Mr. Dunnett.

For the eighth time, Bob Beltrano has competed in the BVISR. In previous years, he has competed aboard Naia, a Swan 53.  This year he charter a boat and won the Bareboat 2 Class aboard a Sunsail 44, Pinel.

“Racing was fantastic, we had a lot of good starts and our local knowledge helped us,” said Mr. Beltrano said. “Today was about shifts, so we were constantly looking up and down the course trying to stay out of currents upwind. We traded positions with Presley King on Bageal all week, which made for exciting racing. I also enjoyed racing on a charter boat with insurance as my team likes to get into tight places, so this year they didn’t have to worry about the paint.”

 In Bareboat 3, Team Horizon racing their first BVISRaboard Jitterbug, took first in the class. Skippered by Frank Rowsell from Devon, UK, the team enjoyed racing with different guests on board each day.

“The conditions yesterday with more wind suited us better so we made good on that,” Mr. Rowsell said. “Today we concentrated on boat speed to keep moving and we were keeping up with all the larger boats in our fleet. Our plan was just to keep mistakes to a real minimum, which we seemed to manage to do.”

Piglet owned and skippered by Joe St. Martin, of St. Croix, took first in the Multihull Class.

The Offshore Trimaran Division was won by Triple Jack skippered by Richard Wooldridge.

In the Offshore Multihull Division, the Gunboat 62 owned by Jason Carroll took first.

For complete results visit: http://www.bvispringregatta.org/ 

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