Major change - Vineyard Cup IRC Div for July event

by US iRC News on 25 Mar 2008 Two major changes in the Vineyard Cup, scheduled for July 18-20 in Martha's Vineyard, should make for a bigger fleet and a top quality event.

First, an IRC Division has been added to make this a more regional event with a global handicapping system that will broaden the scope of competition.

Second, Sail Martha's Vineyard (Sail MV), the organizing authority for the annual event, has brought Peter Craig and Premier Racing on board to provide professional race management for the racing Divisions.

All qualified IRC rated boats are invited to enter online at http://www.vineyardcup.com/

The Vineyard Cup was initiated in 2006 as a fundraising event for Sail MV, an Island non-profit organization which provides community sailing and academic opportunities at no cost for the youth of Martha's Vineyard and heavily subsidized marine education and other maritime related services for adults.

'Three years ago,' said director Brock Callen, 'our Board realized that with our programs growing so fast and with most of the participants being Islanders, our costs were growing faster than our revenues.'

'Having come off the running of very successful Tornado and A Cat Worlds Regattas,' Callen continued, 'the Board decided that they could realistically make a long term commitment to re-establishing a major big boat event here on the Island...and the Vineyard Cup was born in 2006. With initial support from Vineyard Vines we started with the local fleet which included everything from Jim Swartz's original boat, the Swan 601 Moneypenny, to the Soros family's 65' Gannon and Benjamin schooner, Juno, to a very active smaller (in boat size) handicap fleet. In each of 2006 and 2007 we had entries approaching 50 boats.'

'After last year's Vineyard Cup, we decided that we were ready to aggressively expand the event to include more competitive IRC racing programs and to build a large, exciting fleet to raise funds for Sail Martha's Vineyard. To make sure our effort was successful right from the start in 2008, we had to make sure that we had top-of-the-line race management. Peter Craig and Premiere Racing will now provide the PRO for the IRC/One Design/PHRF Spinnaker circles. We also had to make sure we had the financial resources to support the organization and operation of an event we could be proud of. To that end a number of national brands have been brought on board as sponsors led by Vineyard Vines and Men's Journal magazine.

'At the same time several other efforts have been made to attract competitive one-design fleets; the Swan 42's are promoting the Vineyard Cup as a tune-up event for their Nationals which take place in Newport the next week; and Sail Martha's Vineyard is working hard to get the Melges 32 fleet who also have their Nationals the following week in Newport. In addition, there is an aggressive effort ongoing to promote the event to attract the large PHRF-Spinnaker fleet that races in this neck of the woods. '

One of New England's most exciting regattas, the Vineyard Cup is three days of great racing and great fun for everyone on beautiful Martha's Vineyard Island. Vineyard Cup Race Weekend brings a unique variety of boating competitions to a single venue in a three-day period, with championship events for yacht racing, team competitions, The East Coast Junior Olympic Windsurfing Championships, an open long distance windsurfing event and the Cornish Pilot Gig New England Championship rowing races.

Register: http://www.vineyardcup.com/