BPI Signature Yacht Race Series 2025-26
by Guy Nowell 15 Apr 06:20 UTC
8-11 April 2026
BPI Subic Regatta 2026 © Guy Nowell / BPI
The last day of the BPI Subic Regatta started much as the others - with the breeze coming in just a tad late. At 10.00 ('normal' time) there was a lot of glassy water, everywhere. At 10.15 there were cat's paws; by 10.30 they belonged to very large cats, and at 11.00 there was a solid 10kts over the top of the committee boat. I usually see this stuff from water level, and discovered, by being 20' up on the flybridge of Lost in Asia, that the RO is not actually clairvoyant - you can see a great deal from up there.
Leading the scoreboard, and looking for a shot at glory, Raw Honey tried a port tack start at the pin end, but quickly changed her mind. After a minute or so there was an even split in the fleet, left and right, heading up the course to the windward mark, 220 degrees, 1.4nm. Racing very much in home waters, Selma Star found the conditions to her liking, finishing last in 49 minutes on the water, but first in front of Centennial VII on corrected time. Raw Honey lost a protest from Belatrix and collected a 10% time penalty, taking her from first to last in this race. Ouch.
The Cruiser and Multihull divisions sailed the same course, albeit a little slower, and once again Papaya (Cruising) and Estelita del Mar (MH) took the honours to secure their positions at the top of their respective fleets. From on board Lost in Asia we saw boats taking some 'interesting' routes around the bay and wondered if there might not be a shorter way around a windward/leeward track.
And then, last race of the regatta, and also the 2025-26 BPI Series. With the breeze holding good, and time available, RO Simon James extended the course out to 2nm to finish the event with a flourish. The big boats, Belatrix, Centennials III and VII, took off in a real hurry, leading away from the windward mark like a parade of sail with the 1,100m hills of the Cinco Picos providing a spectacular backdrop to a great day's racing and a finale for the event.
There really was absolutely everything to play for: Belatrix won the race, with Raw Honey finishing fourth after surviving a second protest from Belatrix during the pre-start. This time Raw Honey was the winner, finishing the regatta on 12 points in front of Belatrix on 12.5. James Villareal said later, "It was really stressful defending ourselves against protests in both of the last two races." We can only imagine.
At 17.00 it was time to gather in front of The Lighthouse to celebrate the winners and competitors, and say thank you to all the people that constitute the moving parts of a the machine called 'a regatta'. Race Management, Organisers, mark boat drivers and so on. After a lavish buffet it was time to recognise success in the BPI Subic Regatta 2026, meaning Estelita del Mar (Andy Aguila) in the Multihull division, Pa-pa-pa-paya (René Ticzon) for the Cruisers, and Raw Honey (James Villareal) for the IRC Racing class. There was plenty of good camaraderie 'on tap' as it were, and the stories looked like going on for a long while yet when this scribe retired (with the prospect of an 04.00 transfer to Clark next morning). For sure, a good time was had by all.
So endeth the third season of the BPI Private Wealth Signature Yacht Race Series. BPI has promised a fourth season to come, so all sailors should be regrouping and reorganising themselves in anticipation, and Owners should be looking at their crew availability. BPI's ongoing efforts to resuscitate big boat sailing in the Philippines are beginning to bear fruit, and although two Hong Kong boats joined in at Boracay this year, attracting overseas competitors is going to continue to be a challenge when the nearest source of international entries is more than 600nm away.
A total of 25 boats participated in one or more regattas in the 2025-26 programme. There will be a reception to celebrate the overall winners in due course, but meanwhile the back-of-a-fag-packet calculations tell us that James Villareal's Raw Honey is indeed the Series Overall Winner in the IRC division. Congratulations to the new IRC Champions - especially in the wake of a win in the Cruising division 2023-24 with Wild Honey.
Organisers will probably be doing some tweaking of the schedule before the next Series. The 2025-26 programme was quite compressed, with four regattas in four months, which made it very difficult for some of the boats to get to all the events. If you are seriously taking a tilt at a division title, one skipped regatta carries a heavy scoring penalty.
As a promotional tool for Philippine marine tourism, the BPI Series is first class. Come to the Philippines, sail and race in beautiful places, cruise in between events. Fortress Corregidor, steeped in history, and attended by its outliers at Carabao and Fort Drum; beautiful Busuanga, in the northern reaches of Palawan; spectacular Subic, where the mountains run down to the sea; boisterous Boracay, sometimes with more than its fair share of breeze. Every location is uniquely beautiful.
Three cheers for BPI's support of sailing, and roll on the BPI Private Wealth Signature Yacht Race Series 2026-27!