Downhill racing in BVI Festival's Nanny Cay Cup

by Linda Phillips on 5 Apr 2008 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.

In the Nanny Cay Cup, Yani, Bob Swann's Marten 49 finished second behind Equation, while Christopher Lloyd's BVI-based Modified Oceanis 440, Three Harkoms, took third.

BadWine, Peter Krol's Beneteau First 40.7 led the Cruising Class, followed by David Hueter's chartered Beneteau Cyclades 50, Mary Jane, in second, and Ian Galbraith's Oyster 53, Jigsaw, third.

In the Bareboat Class, Chess, a Beneteau Oceanis 440 helmed by Jan Soderberg, led. Nanuk of the North, a Beneteau 52 skippered by Patrick Festing-Smith, came second and Joyce Smith, a Moorings 51, third.

Finally, only one brave sole, Charles McCormick, aboard his Manta 42, Blew Bayou, raced in the Multihull Class. He not only won the class, but picked up some bragging rights as well.

The BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival Village sprung to life after the sun went down, with the awards for the Nation Cup, the Mount Gay Welcome Party and the skipper's check-in and meeting a draw.

Numbers are slightly down this year, 128, with the weather claiming a number of boats. For example, St. Croix's Devil 3, a Melges 24 sailed by the Stanton brothers, had to turn back en route to Tortola on Thursday. The good news is that this season-long class-winning boat cast off again Friday morning hoping to make at least two days of regatta racing.

There's no Laser class this year, again due to high winds, and only two valiant beach cats – St. Croix's Chris Schreiber's AutoWorld Express and St. Thomas' Peter Stoeken's Islandsol.net – are attempting the 20-plus knot 6- to 8-foot swell conditions today.

As the fleet competes both against one another and Mother Nature, one sailor did find just the right words to sum up the sentiment here: 'Look out there,' said Agusto Tromben, crew aboard St. Thomas' Chris Thompson's J/27, J-Walker. 'Why would anyone go out in this stuff?' Tromben, looking out towards the Sir Francis Drake Channel racecourses shortly before 9 a.m. this morning, smiled broadly and answered his own question, 'Because we can!'

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