Chester Race Week prepares to hoist sails

by Lynn Helpard on 9 Jul 2010 The Chester Yacht Club, on the scenic waters of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia is preparing to host Chester Race Week August 11th to 14th 2010. This is the largest keel boat regatta in Canada.

Sailors come to compete from all over Nova Scotia, PEI, northern USA, and beyond. It is expected that there will be over 150 boats competing for the beautiful trophies in ten classes on three separate race courses. Yacht owners are encouraged to register their boats well in advance through the web site www.chesterraceweek.com.

Once again the Principal Race Officer Andreas Josenhans plans to make the racing better through organizing the courses immediately before the starts to take maximum advantage of the current weather conditions, including wind strengths and direction. This racing agenda worked out very well for the outside 'Alpha' course last year and is being expanded to include the 'Bravo' course this year. Race officer Jay Hooper will be able to move the start line of 'Bravo' to where the wind is. Instructions for start lines and courses will be communicated to the racers primarily by VHF radio. The very competitive Bluenose fleet will, once again, have Ray Cambria as their race officer on the 'Charlie' course.

Rear commodore Randy Stevens said ' they come for the racing, but stay for the fun'. And fun there is! There is live musical entertainment on the club house deck in the afternoons and a party and dance each evening featuring the Hopping Penguins and The Lucas Paton band. Everyone sailors and landlubbers are welcome to visit the Chester Yacht Club and to join in the fun. For those who have sailing experience and wish to crew for the races they can find a sign-up sheet on the CRW web site by clicking on 'Race' and following the link to 'sign-up or find crew'.

The trophies, many of which are a century old, are awarded to the winning yacht skippers on Saturday evening, the 14th.

This huge regatta has a history of over 100 years and is the result of the hard work by a large crew of volunteers and many generous sponsors. Chester Race Week in mid august will once again welcome yacht racers from all over the globe and land lubbers as well who want to join in the action and see the large flotilla of beautiful yachts vying for glory.