Cedric Lewis, his J/105 co-skipper Fredrik Salvesen, and their band of blue-shirted merrymakers from Annapolis, Maryland, arrived early to the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series Caribbean Championship in the BVI with a master plan. As holders of the title from a year earlier, they had more than enough time to plot their defense, and plot they did. They locked in their ace crew, chartered a mothership catamaran to cargo their provisions, people and potable water, and then set up their Sunsail 41 to be as slippery as possible. Over five days of racing, they were ­virtually untouchable.

With Hurricane Tammy churning menacingly close to the Leeward Islands, most competitors arrived mere hours before regional airports and ferries closed. Some crews never made it off the continental US. While it looked as if the fleet would be grounded in base for a few days, Tammy gracefully departed, and the first of five distance races got underway on a tropical Sunday afternoon off Cooper Island. For the week’s first challenge, dubbed the Islands Race because it encircles Cooper, Ginger and Salt islands, the hurricane flipped the traditional easterly trades, so the fleet was sent counterclockwise around Salt and Cooper in a light northwesterly.

In the expected chaos of six teams, five of them new to the 41-foot charter boats, the start was a frantic affair with a few boats on or near the line, but a few others were caught off guard while trying to figure out how to work the mechanics of their cruising cockpits. From the melee, Team Mirage promptly broke away and led comfortably around the western corner of Salt before turning upwind and into the heaving hurricane swells. Nearly two hours and many tacks later, Team Mirage put its first win on the scoreboard.

Hot on their transom was the talented squad from Holland, Michigan, led by Tom and Mary Bryant, winners of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in St. Petersburg, Florida, with their S27.9 Matros. Due to an unexpected twist of inventory at Sunsail’s Tortola base, Team Matros found itself on a 46-footer, much more substantial than the 41s allocated across the fleet. While benefiting from the extra waterline length, Team Matros’ longer steed was, however, laden with a generator, air conditioning and other accessories that would theoretically even things out over the course of the week. And while there was some quiet consternation from others in the fleet, it was the opinion of regatta PRO Dick Neville—with decades of experience running the charter-boat fleet races at the popular BVI Spring Regatta—that the Matros syndicate could enjoy their AC, but all would even out across a variety of ­conditions over the week.

Third across the Cooper Island finish line were the California Space Cadets of the VX One that earned its Caribbean Championship berth at the San Diego regatta. Skipper Charlie Welsh arrived in the BVI on a hot streak, having won US Sailing’s Mallory Cup. This young six-pack of friends and teammates were new to charter bareboat racing, but it didn’t take them long to figure out the nuances of their laden vessel.

Finishing mere feet behind the Cadets were the New Englanders of Carolyn Corbet’s Team Elektra, IOD sailors who won the Marblehead edition of the Regatta Series. In the moments before the Islands Race, they unfurled their jib for the first time and quickly realized that it was massively oversize and near impossible to trim correctly. To either tack the boat or sheet the sail home properly, Corbet reported, they had to partially furl it. But as engineers and young critical thinkers, the Elektrans got to work after the race to solve the challenge—rum undoubtedly fueling the innovation.

Next to finish was Team Exile, a late entry to the regatta when Jeff Davis’ Chicago-winning J/111 team surrendered its berth. Team Exile, led by Andy Graff on the big wheel, was short two crewmembers who were unable to reach the regatta because of hurricane travel snafus. Graff, an accomplished doublehanded racer on his J/88 with teammate Scott Eisenhardt, was nonplussed, other than what to do with all the extra provisions. They each had their partners to assist with the trimming, so all was good on board.

Last across the Cooper Island finish line was the young and enthusiastic crew of Bruce Irvin’s Team Shamrock, which put in maximum effort despite being handicapped with a mainsail that was a good few feet short of full hoist. Suffice to say, they drew the slow boat, but Irvin’s fun-loving crew quickly accepted their fate; the revelry to come would more than make up for the unlucky boat draw.

The mainsail on Shamrock’s boat, clearly pilfered from something much smaller, could not be replaced overnight, so for the following day’s leg from the Baths to Bitter End Yacht Club in Virgin Gorda Sound, Neville spotted them a one-minute jump on the fleet. But even that wasn’t enough as, one by one, teams cruised past. Team Mirage was, again, first to Bitter End, making quick work of the course that took the fleet through the Dog Islands and into Virgin Gorda. The Space Cadets scored a second, finishing ahead of Team Matros by a few lengths. Team Elektra grabbed fourth, Exile was fifth, and Shamrock rocked in a few minutes later.

With a Bitter End Yacht Club lay day to relax and jump into the official Wave Beer Can Series, the racers convened the next morning at the watersports center. After a short briefing, they hit the sound in the colorful cats for some spirited buoy racing. The two divisions of Hobie Waves and Getaways raced together, and the Cadets, through all means possible, took advantage of the no-rules racing scheme and won both classes. They followed up with a ­narrow ­victory later that evening at the Mount Gay Rum Cocktail Contest with a tasty ­concoction called “Astro Punch.”

The following morning, the fleet set off to a new destination on the traditional championship route: Scrub Island Resort & Spa and Marina Cay. Team Shamrock got its jump-start and was first to short-tack its way out of the channel while the rest of the fleet lay chase, bouncing each other from side to side until out in the open ocean and into some loose reaching. Team Mirage found itself looking at a fleet of transoms as it exited the sound, but it later pounced at Scrub Island when the front-runners attempted to cut the corner.

“The wind shadows on this course were significant, and those guys were moving along before they hit the wall,” Lewis says. “We steered clear of the shoreline, and to be honest, we got lucky.”

Such fortune in the final mile netted them a horizon job into the Scrub Island finish. Team Elektra, meanwhile, having engineered a better jib lead with borrowed blocks and spare dock lines, had remarkably better pace and handling. The crew put a second place to their score line, proving all along that it had been the boat, not the sailors, holding them back. The Cadets were third, Matros fourth, Exile fifth, and Shamrock was in familiar territory.

The Scrub Island pitstop was a ­welcome respite. While some teams napped, swam or snorkeled, other teams scrambled ashore to the resort for a complimentary rum punch, a pool swim, and a luxury lunch in the air-conditioned dining room.

With many more miles to go to reach Jost Van Dyke before sundown, the race committee hailed all teams back to their boats for the start of the day’s second leg. Irvin’s pleas to the race committee to allow his team to start with the fleet was granted, and the Shamrock squad promptly engaged with Mirage in a pre-start duel that found both of them OCS. Despite the outcome, it was a highlight of the regatta for Irvin. The two were once rivals from back in their junior sailing days, and Irvin was thrilled to be able to square up against his one-time rival. Team Matros, however, got a clean getaway and quickly established a lead it would never relinquish as boats slowly made their way to a finish line set off the picturesque anchorage of Sandy Cay. Here too the Elektrans notched another second-place finish to inch ever closer to Team Mirage in the standings. Mirage was third to the island, the Space Cadets fourth, Shamrock fifth (its best finish yet), and Exile cruised in across the finish not far behind.

The Soggy Dollar Beach Bar and later Foxy’s Bar and Restaurant served as natural post-race gatherings, which carried on into the early hours.

The championship’s notorious Leg Five, which includes a clockwise loop around Sandy Cay and its surrounding reefs before leading the fleet through Great Thatch Cut at the Western end of Tortola, started off with a slow and clean start. But the morning’s promising wind went light just as the boats tried to navigate past Sandy Cay’s reefs. Crews held their breath as they held impossibly thin lanes, creeping past the submerged rocks. Heaving swells pushed boats ever closer, eventually creating a frantic scene of calls for water and engines in reverse. When it was all eventually sorted, Mirage was first to reach Great Thatch Cut and the finish of the shortened course, notching another win before proceeding under power to Norman Island for the ­afternoon’s buoy races.

With a weather mark tethered to a ­mooring deep inside The Bight, Neville pondered the sanity of a half-mile weather leg in such a small anchorage but proceeded with the plan for two windward-­leeward contests. Mirage nailed the first race and then the second, even with a second-­row start. Lewis, Fredrik and Missy Salvesen, Greg Larcher, Vernon Sheen, Lilla Salvesen, Vince Yannelli, Kaila Lewis, and Molly Hughes Wilmer had once again conquered the BVI and the championship (with the help of their mothership skippers Tina Lewis and Debbie Larcher). While their defense plans are not yet in motion, Lewis says, they will come to fruition after some much-needed recovery.

The post The Ultimate Prize appeared first on Sailing World.

Cedric Lewis, his J/105 co-skipper Fredrik Salvesen, and their band of blue-shirted merrymakers from Annapolis, arrived early to the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series Caribbean Championship in the BVI with a master plan. As holders of the title from a year earlier, they had more than enough time to plot their defense, and plot they did. They locked in their ace crew, chartered a mothership catamaran to cargo their provisions, people and potable water, and then set up their Sunsail 41 to be as slippery as possible. Over five days of racing, they were virtually untouchable.

With Hurricane Tammy churning menacingly close to the Leeward Islands last week, most competitors arrived mere hours before regional airports and ferries closed. Some crews never made it off the continental US, and while it looked as if the fleet would be grounded in base for a few days, Tammy gracefully departed and the first of five distance races got underway on a tropical Sunday afternoon off Cooper Island. For the week’s first challenge, dubbed “The Islands Race” because it encircles Cooper, Ginger and Salt islands, the hurricane flipped the traditional easterly trades so the fleet was sent counterclockwise around Salt and Cooper in a light northwesterly.

In the expected chaos of six teams, five new to the 41-foot charter boats, the start was a frantic affair with a few boats on or near the line but a few others caught off guard while trying to figure out how to work the mechanics of their crowded cockpits. From the melee, Team Mirage promptly broke away and led comfortably around the western corner of Salt before turning upwind and into the heaving hurricane swells. Nearly two hours and many tacks later, Team Mirage crossed the finish line to put its first win on the scoreboard.

Hot on their transom was the talented squad from Holland, Michigan, led by Tom and Mary Bryant, winners of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in St. Petersburg with their S27.9 Matros. Due to an unexpected twist of inventory at Sunsail’s Tortola base, Team Matros found itself on a 46-footer, much more substantial than the 41s allocated across the fleet. While benefiting from the extra waterline length, Team Matros’ longer steed was, however, laden with a generator, air conditioning and other accessories that would theoretically even things out over the course of the week. And while there was some quiet consternation from others in the fleet, it was the opinion of regatta PRO Dick Neville—with decades of experience running the charter boat fleet races at the popular BVI Spring Regatta—that the Matros syndicate would enjoy their AC, but across a variety of conditions over the week all would comparable in the end.

Third across the Cooper Island finish line were the California Space Cadets of the same named VX One that earned its Caribbean Championship berth at the San Diego regatta in March. Lead skipper Charlie Welsh arrived in the BVI on a hot streak having just won US Sailing’s Mallory Cup (Adult Championship). With a young six pack of friends and teammates the Cadets were new to charter bareboat racing but it didn’t take them long to figure out the nuances of their laden vessel.

Finishing mere feet behind the Cadets were the New England sailors of Carolyn Corbet’s Team Elektra, IOD sailors that won the Marblehead edition of the Regatta Series in August. In the moments before The Islands Race, they unfurled their jib for the first time and quickly realized it was massively oversized and darn near impossible to trim correctly. To either tack the boat or sheet the sail home properly, Corbet reported, they had to partial furl it. But as engineers and young critical thinkers, the Elektrans got to work immediately after the race to solve the challenge—rum undoubtedly fueling the innovation.

Next to finish was Team Exile, a late entry to the regatta when Jeff Davis’ Chicago-winning J/111 team surrendered their berth. Team Exile, led by Andy Graff on the big wheel, was short two crewmembers who were unable to reach the regatta because of Hurricane-induced travel snafus. Graff, an accomplished doublehanded racer on his J/88 with teammate Scott Eisenhardt, was nonplussed, other than what to do with all the extra provisions. They each had their partners to assist with the trimming, so all was good onboard (until their water tanks eventually ran dry).

Last to the Cooper Island finish line was the young and enthusiastic crew of Bruce Irving’s Team Shamrock, which put in maximum effort despite being handicapped with a mainsail that was a good few feet short of full hoist. Suffice to say, they drew the slow boat, but Irvin’s fun-loving crew quickly accepted their fate…the revelry to come would more than make up for the unlucky boat draw.

The mainsail on Shamrock’s boat, clearly pilfered from something much smaller, could not be replaced overnight, so for the following day’s leg from the Baths to Bitter End Yacht Club in magical Virgin Gorda Sound, Neville spotted them a one-minute jump on the fleet. But even that wasn’t enough as, one by one, teams cruised past. Team Mirage was, again, first to the Bitter End, making quick work of the course that took the fleet from The Baths, through the Dog Islands and into Virgin Gorda. The Space Cadets scored a second, finishing ahead of Team Matros by a few lengths. Team Elektra grabbed fourth, Exile was fifth, and Shamrock rocked in a few minutes later.

With a Bitter End Yacht Club lay day to relax and jump into the official BEYC Wave Beer Can Series, the racers convened the next morning at the watersports shop and after a short briefing, hit the Sound in the colorful cats for some spirited buoy racing. The two divisions of Hobie Waves and Getaways raced together and the Cadets, through all means possible, took advantage of the no-rules racing scheme and won both classes. They followed up with a narrow victory later that evening at the Mount Gay Rum Cocktail Contest with a tasty concoction called “Astro Punch.” (The recipe will soon be shared to the world once trademarked).

The following morning, the fleet set off to a new destination on the traditional Championship route: Scrub Island Resort and Spa and Marina Cay. Team Shamrock got its jump start and was first to short tack its way out of the channel while the rest of the fleet lay chase, bouncing each other from side to side until out in the open ocean and into some loose reaching. Team Mirage found itself looking at a fleet of transoms as they exited the Sound, but later pounced at Scrub Island when the frontrunners attempted to cut the corner.

“The wind shadows on this course were significant and those guys were moving along before they hit the wall,” Lewis says. “We steered clear of the shoreline, and to be honest, we got lucky.”

Such fortune in the final mile netted them a horizon job into the Scrub Island finish. Team Elektra, meanwhile, having engineered a better jib lead with borrowed blocks and spare dock lines, had remarkably better pace and handling. They put a second-place to their scoreline, proving all along that it had been the boat, not the sailors, holding them back. The Cadets were third, Matros fourth, Exile fifth, and Shamrock in familiar territory.

The Scrub Island pitstop was a welcome respite after a few hours of hot sailing. While some teams napped, swam or snorkeled, other teams scrambled ashore to the resort for a complimentary rum punch, a pool swim and a luxury lunch in the air-conditioned dining room.

With many more miles to go to reach Jost Van Dyke, the race committee hailed all teams back to their boats for the 2 pm start of the day’s second leg, which was moved to the vicinity of nearby Monkey Point on Guana Island.

Irvin’s pleas to the race committee to allow his team to start with the fleet was granted and the Shamrock squad promptly engaged with Mirage in a pre-start duel that found both of them OCS. Despite the outcome, it was a highlight of the regatta for Irving. The two were once rivals from back in their junior sailing days and Irvin was thrilled to be able to square up against his one-time rival. Team Matros, however, got a clean getaway and quickly established a lead they would never relinquish as boats slowly made their way to a finish line set off the picturesque anchorage of Sandy Cay. Here, too, the Elektrans notched another second-place finish to inch ever closer to Team Mirage in the standings. Mirage was third to the island, the Space Cadets fourth, Shamrock fifth (their best finish yet) and Exile cruising in across the finish not far behind.

The Soggy Dollar Beach Bar and later Foxy’s Bar and Restaurant served as natural post-race gatherings. Well into the early hours.

The Championship’s notorious Leg 5, which includes a clockwise loop around Sandy Cay and its surrounding reefs before leading the fleet through Great Thatch Cut at the Western end of Tortola, started off with a slow and clean start. The morning’s promising wind went light just as the boats tried to navigate past Sandy Cay’s reefs. Crews held their breaths as they held impossibly thin lanes, creeping past the submerged rocks. Heaving swells pushed boats ever closer, eventually creating a frantic scene of calls for water, and engines in reverse. When it was all eventually sorted, Team Mirage was first to reach Great Thatch Cut and the finish of the shortened course, notching another win before proceeding under power to Norman Island for the afternoon’s buoy races.

With a weather mark tethered to a mooring deep inside the bight, PRO Dick Neville pondered the sanity of a half-mile weather leg in small anchorage, but proceeded with the plan for two windward-leeward contests. Team Mirage nailed the first race and then the second, even with a second-row start—putting a big ‘ol Willy-T style tattoo on the rear end of their win. 

Lewis, Fred and Missy Salvesen, Greg Larcher, Vernon Sheen, Lilla Salvesen, Vince Yannelli, Kaila Lewis and Molly Hughes Wilmer had once again conquered the BVI and the Championship (with the help of their mothership skippers Tina Lewis and Debbie Larcher) and while their defense plans are not yet in motion, Lewis says, they will come after some much needed recovery. 

The post Team Mirage Victorious In the BVI Again appeared first on Sailing World.

The Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series Caribbean Championship kicked off with the traditional opening Islands Race, a challenging loop around Cooper and Salt islands in the stunning BVI.

The post Helly Hansen Sailing World Caribbean Championship Islands Race appeared first on Sailing World.

Winning one’s fleet at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series is one thing, but scoring the overall title takes the celebration up a big notch. At each regatta, individual fleet winners’ names are placed into a Mount Gay Rum red hat, shuffled and drawn, with one winner earning a berth at the 2023 Caribbean Championship in October. Racing charter boats provided by Sunsail in the British Virgin Islands, teams will sprint from island to island for six days. Five teams (clockwise above) will take on our 2022 defender, Annapolis’ Team Mirage.

Defender: Team Mirage (J/105)

Cedric Lewis and his talented crew from Mirage arrived in the BVI last October with two clear goals: to have fun and take down the defending champ. It took them six days and plenty of rum to claim the title. Now, with local knowledge and a handle on how best to get the most from their charter boat, Mirage will enjoy the upper ­handle—er, hand.

St. Petersburg Challenger: Team Matros (S2 7.9)

Tom and Mary Bryant, ­leaders of the Michigan-based Matros, have confidence they’ll be contenders in the BVI after winning the S2 7.9 class’s Midwinter Championship in St. Petersburg. The trick, they say, will be to “set up the boat each day for the conditions.” Little do they know, it’s the same every day in the BVI—trades are trades.

San Diego Challenger: Team Space Cadet (VX One)

Emerging from the San Diego regatta as the top VX One team in the class’s regatta debut, skipper Charlie Welsh, of Newport Beach, California, will lead his teammates Liz Swain and Carolyn Smith to the BVI, with one big challenge: transitioning from their nimble sportboat to the cruisy charter boat they’ve earned. Not to worry, Welsh says, the space cadets will be in their own orbit.  

Annapolis Challenger: Team Shamrock (J/30)

Luck was firmly in hand for Bruce Irvin and his team of youngsters on the J/30 Shamrock, which won an especially challenging edition of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in Annapolis. The crew, he says, were “over the moon” when the pick was made, and the only problem he foresees will be fitting them all on board in the BVI. No doubt, every berth will be occupied.

Chicago Challenger: Team Exile (J/88)

While Jeff Davis’ team on Shamrock, the J/111 version was selected on the spot in Chicago following its win in the ORC division and sub-class. With pressing work commitments, however, Davis ultimately surrendered his berth to the Chicago regatta’s top J/88 team on Exile, skippered by Andy Graff. Graff and Co., happily accepted the challenge, and while highly respected in their one-design class and on the shorthanded racing scene the Great Lakes, Team Exile will be tested to get the maximum speed and enjoyment from their Sunsail charterboat.

Marblehead Challenger: Team Elektra (IOD)

Carolyn Corbet, of Boston, and her teammates on Elektra did the unthinkable in Marblehead, usurping the International One Design defending class champion on the final day, and then winning the fifth and final championship berth. “My crew was hoping for this,” she says. “It’s going to be awesome.”

The post 2023 Caribbean Championship Challenger Lineup appeared first on Sailing World.

The last time the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Caribbean Championship was contested in the British Virgin Islands, way back in 2019, a team from Marblehead that called itself “Juhnksho” finally halted the winning streak of one Jimmy Sears and his mates on Team Viper. At the time of his loss, Sears, who clearly knows how to get every bit of speed from whatever Sunsail charter boat is given to him, vowed to return and the wrong.

In the early stages of the championship, two days in and easing into the lay day at the Bitter End Yacht Club, Team Viper and those in their pit and making good on their intentions. They may and very well could run away with it, but the race committee has plans.

But before we get there, let’s bring you up to speed with the essential details. Nine teams set off from the sprawling Sunsail base in Road Town, Tortola, on a sun-kissed Sunday morning for the first race of the series: an afternoon lap around Cooper and Salt Islands.

With the race committee posted off the northwest corner of Cooper, the winning strategy was easy: first to lay the top of the island on port was a goner. Some, like St. Petersburg challenger Gary Schwarting’s squad, attempted to win the pin but failed. Others, including Team Viper, opted for a more conservative mid-line start and seconds later were pirouetting their vessel on to port tack for a straight shot across the top of Cooper Island. And away they ran.

But back to the race committee’s plan: With such a diverse fleet of mix-sized charter boats, ranging in size from 45 to 50 feet, veteran PRO Dick Neville instituted what is informally known as the Dick Rule. At the end of the race, the winning boat’s time delta would be applied as a penalty the next morning. To reduce their penalty, Team Viper reached back and forth, teasing a finish, until the last second.

But Cedric Lewis’ savvy crew on Team Mirage, representing Annapolis, knew the loophole in Dick’s Rule. Instead of finishing, they bore away from the finish line and piled on the minutes. In the end, Team Viper got its win, but also a 5-minute start penalty for Leg 2 the following morning, from the Baths on Virgin Gorda to the reborn Bitter End Yacht Club.

The second start was a more casual reaching affair and Team Mirage got the jump with a perfectly timed Vanderbilt start and a clean lane to run with. Eastbound and off. Five minutes later, Team Viper started alone and over the next 12 miles or so picked its way through the fleet before engaging in a tacking duel as they entered the channel. After finally breaking free, Team Viper led by a good nautical mile until driving itself into a windless hole off near Saba Rock.

Taking advantage and finding wind on the opposite shoreline, Captain Steven Hosch and Team Omaha came storming in from the right and crossed the Vipers with a perfect layline to the finish. Unclear what exactly the finish line was, they sailed right past the pin, tacked and finished the wrong way. The win promptly went the way of the Vipers, and only after unwinding their string did Team Omaha finish behind Team Mirage. Nail biting stuff, indeed.

So the scores stand as follows for those following along: Team Viper/FNG is at 2 points and Team Mirage with 4. Rudolph Hasl’s Team Palaemon is hunting the lead with 7, Team Omaha with 9. David Baker’s Colorado-based Team Snipers is holding solid in mid-fleet with 10 points and from there it’s Chicago’s Team Mojo (11), The Starck family on PatStrong (13) and Schwarting’s Team Obsession with 16. The Crump Family’s team R80 is currently undefeated in the Cruising Division.

Racing resumes on Wednesday with Leg 3 from the Bitter End Yacht Club to Guana Island’s Monkey Point. In the meantime, the lay day shenanigans are about to get underway.

The post Team Viper Bites first at BVI Championship appeared first on Sailing World.

The waters of the British Virgin Islands showcase plenty of regattas, the BVI Spring and Interline Regatta being among the most widely recognized, but the one annual regatta few racers know about, is the one that could very well be the most difficult to win. That would, of course, be our own Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series Caribbean Championship, which will once again be contested at the end of October following a three-year COVID hiatus. Nine teams from across the continental United States will line up for the season title in Sunsail charter boats packed with family and friends.

Six of the nine competitors earned their berths by nature of winning their respective class at a Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta over the past three years. Two teams caught wind of the action and have been welcomed in to take on the Caribbean Challengers. One final team is that of a past defending champion who is keen to reclaim the throne lost years ago to the Marblehead-flagged team that called itself “Team Juhnksho.” You can read about it here.

That particular champion is skipper Jim Sears, of Long Beach, California. Way back when, Sears earned his berth as the top Viper 640 skipper at the San Diego stop of the regatta series. He has since sold his Viper (FNG) and has been enjoying the perks of racing other people’s boats, as well as his remote control race boat (and here, too, he’s been collecting hardware). His proven skill set with regard to getting unprecedented speed from a laden bareboat charter vessel is worthy of consideration for those about to face the erstwhile Caribbean defender.

And speaking of champions, next on our BVI skipper roster is David Starck, fresh off a fourth-place finish at US Sailing’s Championship of Champions (sailed in MC Scows). Starck is noted to also be the 2022 Lightning Class World Champion. He and his brother Tom, as well as forward crew Jenna Probst, were champions of the Lightning class at the St. Petersburg stop of the regatta series this year. There’s an intended repetition of “champion” there…so as to get the point across that the Starck family and whomever will be joining them will no doubt give Sears and Co., a run for their rum.

Representing the one-design sailing talent pool that is Annapolis, Maryland, will be co-skippers Will and Marie Crump, legends of the J/80 class and overall winners from Annapolis two years ago. The two-time J/80 North American champions just missed the podium at October’s J/80 World Championship in Newport, Rhode Island, by a mere 3 points, so they will arrive in Tortola with two distinct advantages: they’re on a roll and they’ve competed in this championship once before. They know the importance of playing the long game and they know well the regatta’s six-leg racecourse, which connects the gems of the British Virgin Islands over five days of anchorage-to-anchorage races.

Representing the Helly Hansen St. Petersburg regatta as its Caribbean Challenger will be Tampa Bay’s favorite Melges 24 skipper Gary Schwarting, who’s been sitting on his golden ticket for more than a year. Schwarting’s Obsession team is, perhaps, the true dark horse of the fleet, and their greatest challenge will be transferring Melges 24 skills to the more displacement-oriented 46-footer. With no spinnakers onboard the charter boats, the true test is one’s wing-on-wing technique, and the commitment to poling out the jib for more than 10 miles, baking under the searing tropical sunshine.

At this year’s Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in San Diego, it was Rudolph Hasl’s immaculate and perfectly sailed J/145 that swept all seven races in its seven-boat ORC division. Those who witnessed the win said it was flawless, a testament to the team that Hasl had assembled for the inshore regatta. His yacht, Paelemon, is also a regular of the Southern California offshore racing scene, and he was once quoted about the philosophy of a winning squad: “Creating a team is critical,” he told the San Diego YC media team before the 2021 SoCal 300. “The boat needs a team that enjoys working together and knows the boat and its sailing conditions very well. We all need to depend on one another during a race of this nature. We need skilled drivers and trimmers. We need the crew to be able to adjust during the race to the changing conditions, including sail changes and the ability to take care of problems that are likely to arise.”

This, of course, will apply equally to the Caribbean championship, with the exception of the sail changes. More like…changes to the sail trim…or changes to the playlist or the cooler rotation.

The biggest challenge for our Chicago-winning co-owners co-owners Gary Powell and Scot and Yvonne Ruhlander, was accommodating the oversized crew pool of friends and family that make their Beneteau 40.7 Mojo such a successful program. How could they possibly leave anyone back home?

Their solution was to simply get a bigger boat—duh—and a mothership with 11 of their friends. While the Caribbean Championship has traditionally been a strictly one-design experience, a limited monohull inventory at Sunsail’s Tortola base and a larger-than-ever fleet for the Championship has opened up the opportunity to include larger boats, which will be scored using a reliable and proven scoring scheme, which regatta PRO Dick Neville will deftly apply.

When once asked by the editors of hometown sailing rag Spinsheet Magazine what keeps the crew working together? Annapolis J/105 co-owner Cedric Lewis said, “We never get down on ourselves. If we have a bad start, we set smaller goals, like ‘let’s pass two boats on this leg!’ This keeps everybody engaged and working together. We are all friends and like to do things together on and off the water.’”

That’s the formula that earned Cedric Lewis and partner Fredrik Salvesen and their team on Mirage the berth at this year’s Annapolis regatta. When selected at the conclusion of awards that day, they were ecstatic and also shocked. After so many years of winning their class and never getting selected, they were sure the selection process was rigged against them. A big team with a big cast of regulars, their challenge—like their competitors from Chicago—their inclusive solution was to charter a big cat and fill it with crew. Fresh reserves are key.

For competitors of this challenge, fair warning is given to the true dark horse of Stephen Hosch’s Team Omaha. Yes. Nebraska is where this squad will hail from and Capt. Hosch has sailed the BVIs either 29 or 30 times, so many he can’t recall. He teaches sailing, and is just one of the finest gentleman sailors to have ever joined the regatta. He competed years ago in the Caribbean Championship and even today recalls one of his greatest sailing memories: nipping Jims and Co., at one finish, by inches.

On the roster is an unknown squad that calls itself the “Snipers.” They’re sharp shooters, but rather Snipe sailors from Bow Mar, Colorado, not far from Denver. They once competed at a Helly Hansen Regatta in the Lightning fleet and caught wind of the championship. David Baker, who owns his piece of the Sunsail charter fleet, thought what the heck, let’s jump in and see what this is all about. With plenty of experience cross-cutting Sir Francis Drake Channel in charter boats, he knows where the wind shadows lay, and he knows the importance of a proper jib-pole technique, which is also critical in the Snipes they race. One could suspect they’d be one of the faster teams on the run, of which there are many to come.

The championship begins on October 21 with a five-day circumnavigation of Cooper and surrounding islands, followed by a leg from Cooper to Virgin Gorda where the sailors will enjoy a layday and respite at the iconic Bitter End Yacht Club. Then comes the long downwinder to Jost Van Dyke, and the next-day’s sprint to Norman Island. Buoy races on the final day will provide them opportunity to put their newfound bareboat skills on display, and serve to break any tie, should that come to be. And we expect it will.

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As 10-year-old Ryan Becker crossed the finish line of the final leg of the Helly Hansen NOOD Caribbean Championship, he pumped his fists into the air, celebrating his family’s victorious arrival into The Bight at Norman Island in the British Virgin Islands.

The Becker family’s win of the championship’s fourth distance race was their second of the nine-race regatta. They’d also won the long down-winder from Guana Island to Sandy Cay the previous day, and while it helped them edge closer to the NOOD Caribbean championship title, it was little too late. Two-time defending champion Dr. Jim Sears had already built an unassailable lead in the standings, and when he followed Becker’s Team Awkward Turtle into The Bight, he locked it up for the third consecutive year.

With a cumulative score of 11.5 points (which included three buoy races, dinghy races at the Bitter End YC, and four distance races) Team Viper, from Southern California and Ohio, squeezed more speed from its 47-foot charter boat provided by Sunsail, but it was hardly a stroll through the BVI’s natural wonders, says Sears.

“We were happy to come out of the first day [buoy races on Sir Francis Drake Channel] with a 2-2-1,” he says. “What we’ve learned from the past is to get out from the base early so we can dive and look at our bottom. We were blessed with a pretty clean one this year, but more than that, it’s just getting out and figuring out the mechanics of the [jib] pole and the sail controls.”

Tactically, in the buoy races, Team Viper’s plan was to stay clean and minimize tacks, which meant starting on port so as to either duck or cross the fleet, get to the starboard layline, and tack once. “It was really shifty that day, which made it hard to weigh the difference between sailing through the headers or tacking,” says Sears, “because, in light air, the tacks are brutal. Turns out, as it got shiftier, everyone else was tacking a lot, so we did, too.”

Despite his experience from previous Caribbean NOODs, Sears says he’s still not totally used to sailing a much heavier boat than the Viper he typically races. “You find yourself trying to foot and waiting for it to accelerate, but there’s not a lot of feel. It takes a lot of patience and maybe that’s why some of the teams that come from smaller boats tend to struggle on the first day.”

One of those that did struggle was Becker’s squad, unable to steer their boat in straight line. After racing, they discovered their boat’s rudder was severely damaged [they were later awarded points for redress]. Sunsail’s service team was dispatched to Cooper Island the following morning to replace the rudder on the water, getting Team Awkward Turtle to the first distance race start, from the Baths to the Bitter End YC, 30 minutes before the warning signal.

The long leg to Bitter End belonged to Stephen Hosch’s impressive squad from Omaha, Nebraska, the regatta’s lone outside challenger. In a nailbitter of a finish, Sears came in with speed while Hosch’s team stalled at the line. The difference was only five feet. Becker followed Sears into the finish, establishing the regatta’s pecking order from there on out.

In the dinghy races at Bitter End that immediately followed, Becker and Sears padded their teams’ leads ever slightly, but it was Team Bight Me, Marblehead NOOD winners, that trounced the evening’s Mount Gay Rum drink contest, judged by the race committee. With a potent mix of Mount Gay Rum, champagne and juices delivered seconds before the time limit expired, the Marbleheads perhaps knew it was better to be late to the judging than early.

*Here’s the recipe for what Team Marblehead called “Stripper Dust”

Ingredients: Mount Gay Rum, Champagne, Guava/mixed fruit juice, Red Twizzler (for pole), granulated brown sugar and lime on the rim.*

Once back to business after a lay day at the Bitter End YC, teams were settling into a groove and weeping their water tanks for the long downwind test to Guana Island, a roughly 7-nautical mile race.

“We changed two major things after the second day,” says Becker. “We readjusted our weight significantly, for starters. We’d initially stored our bottled waters in the bow and moved them under the dinette, but the bigger change was that we actually put the saildrive into neutral. We’d had it in reverse, like you typically would on a raceboat, not realizing it was not a folding prop. With it turning, at least, it wasn’t dragging as much.”

Becker also experimented with changing from a wing-on-wing mode to more of a looser reach style because their custom pole wasn’t as long as those used by other teams. “We were having a really hard time in the light air holding the jib out, so instead,” he says. “We found the best apparent-wind angle and just stayed on it the whole time.”

The changes seemed to work as they led toward Guana Island and what could have been their first leg win, but just as they were about to jibe toward the finish, the wind shifted 40 degrees. “We actually expected the wind to go the other way,” says Becker. “We got screwed by the shift there, but we can’t fault the wind. We learned, though, that reaching was better in light air and there’s a time for winging it.”

The shift allowed Team Viper to cruise to yet another leg win, followed across the line by Hosch’s Team Omaha, and Becker’s Awkward Turtle, third.

Having a pole that was longer was an advantage, says Sears. “The guys on the Omaha boat had one about the same length — ours was 22 feet and theirs was 21 — but they didn’t seem to have the same downwind gear. There were times where they tried to sail faster higher, but we just kept looking for the pressure and staying in it, allowing us to sail lower. We had plenty of luck, too.”

On the day’s second distance race, from Guana Island to picturesque Sandy Cay, Team Awkward Turtle found its groove and got to the palm-lined islet first, followed by Team Viper and Team Omaha. Mathematically, Sears had it locked, but he was unsure how Becker’s first-day redress would play out the following day.

“We were consistent and didn’t score anything worse than a second, which gave me a bit of cushion in the last race,” says Sears. “But that leg [from Jost to Norman Island], is one I seem to struggle with.”

Becker got ahead before the leaders passed through Great Thatch Cut, crossing tacks with Sears several times before others came into the picture, including Team Omaha, and Chicago NOOD winner Martin Johnson’s Team Aquaholics.

For a fleeting moment, says Sears, he found himself sitting in fourth, wondering how the points would play out.

“When we started that day we didn’t know the redress situation, so we thought the main competitors were the Omaha guys, so we went for the clean start and everyone else was late. I don’t think he [Becker] knew the math either. It seemed like he wanted us between him and Omaha because that was what he needed to do to get second.”

As the reach through Great Thatch Cut turned into a long beat into the Norman Island finish, Team Awkward Turtle was noticeably faster. “We figured out that a tack takes about two minutes from tack to tack and eventually we got faster,” says Becker. “Our top speed was a bit faster than the other guys going up wind.”

Becker’s 15-year-old son, Josh, was hard at work on the main, working his magic. “Earlier in the week he wasn’t sure what to do, but by that point, he really got the hang of it,” says Becker. “That was cool.”

As they finished with whoops and hollers, the Becker family (assisted by friends Parker Mitchell and Coco Solsvig) had accomplished what they’d set out to do: introduce their kids to big-boat sailing and Caribbean bareboating.

“The kids loved it,” he says, “especially the day after racing when we went to three different islands and snorkeled the wreck of The Rhone. They’d never done anything like that before.”

As top finisher of the five invited Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta champions, Becker, who won his J/70 class in Annapolis earlier in the year, was crowned the 2016 overall season champion. Sears, as it now seems tradition, earned another invitation from Sunsail to defend in 2017, which he says he intends to do. Next time, though, he’ll leave the bimini up, and not take himself so seriously.

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Holley and his crew beat out second place co-skippers Ken Cormier and Steve Dalton in an overall points tie because Holley had more bullets overall. “It was a very tough week of sailing,” said Holley. “We were only one of two fleets that had to sail all four days. We were 12 points down coming into the last day of sailing, and we pulled through.”

He added, “There was everything from light air and flat water, to heavy air and high seas. I want to say it takes consistency to win, but we weren’t very consistent. There were at times five boats wide round the mark, and sometimes other factors made it a very complicated regatta.” Interestingly, in the 33-boat fleet, the top 13 boats had at least one first place finish during the NOOD.

Fred deNapoli’s Allegro Semplicita, the J/105 class winner, took home the black Wilmington Trust Leader Spinnaker. The “leader spinnaker” was given to the winning boat of each day, and switched owners a few times over the regatta. Ultimately, the overall class winner took it home for good. In second place in the class was Mark Marsur’s Two Feathers, followed by Mark Lindquist’s Sterling.

Holley and his team from the Marblehead NOOD will join Ron Buzil’s crew of the Beneteau First 40.7 Vayu, Grant Dumas of St. Petersburg, Fla., and his crew of the Tripp 38 Warrior and John Laun’s Caper crew of San Diego, Calif., along with Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, Terry Hutchinson, winner of the Annapolis NOOD and other victors in the British Virgin Islands to compete in the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta Championship hosted by Sunsail. Each overall winning team will be outfitted with new sailing gear, compliments of Helly Hansen.

At the Marblehead NOOD, along with new title sponsor Helly Hansen, we welcome back renewing sponsors including: Mount Gay Rum, North Sails, Sunsail, West Marine and Wilmington Trust.

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“Obviously it was a great weekend with successful results, but it was not easy to come by,” said Buzil. “The conditions on Friday were awesome – cold rain, high waves – people couldn’t believe we were out there. The first two races we beat LaTempete, but in the last race we placed sixth.

“The final day’s racing we did well, but in the last of three races we had to cut the jib sheet, get the knife out and ultimately slice it,” said Buzil. “We got a replacement jib sheet up and hung in there. The crew is terrific and the members on my team have been doing this with me from anywhere from five to 16 years. My newest crew member has been on the boat for three years.”

Ultimately, Vayu won the class with an overall score of 19 points, followed by LaTempete, skippered by Tom Weber, in second with 21 points and Das Boot in third place, skippered by Jay Muller, with 25 points.
Before they hop on a plane to the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta Championship, Buzil and his crew will tackle a handful of other local and ocean races this summer and fall. Beyond the Chicago-Mac and the Verve, they’ll be sailing in the Bayview-Mackinac race, the Nassau Cup Race, and February’s Storm Trysail Club’s new race to Cuba.

The interview was cut short by Buzil’s crew, brandishing bottles of champagne and Mt. Gay Rum cups to celebrate their victory. Needless to say, Buzil will have no trouble finding crew to race in the BVIs later this year.

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“Day one we made a couple of small mistakes, but we had good speed and the team was doing well,” said Taylor Canfield, Hutchinson’s tactician. “The beginning was tricky for us because we were over early in the last race, but we had a great comeback. The conditions were supposed to be windy, but we predicted it would be lighter than the forecast. We have been training since last Sunday and expected to have a decent first race with pressure, but it was lighter.” Canfield later added, “We sailed conservatively to keep ourselves in the hunt for the rest of the weekend. We put in more fight when we needed to.”

Terry Hutchinson, Katherine Hutchinson, Morgane Renoir, Nick Turney, and Taylor Canfield (not pictured) won both the J/70 class and the overall regatta in Annapolis. As the regatta continued into its second day, no races were completed for any of the regatta’s buoy-racing fleets, including the J/70s. Considering the light-wind forecast for the remainder of the weekend, Hutchinson said he’d told his team on Friday that they’d “better be in the lead, because there might not be any racing after.”

The final race on Sunday was delayed once, but with a light southerly sea breeze finally filing, the race committee started the day’s one and only race. “We tried to get off the line clean and sail fast. We started a little bit late, and went left with the tide,” said Hutchinson. “A big right-shift filled in halfway up the first beat, and we sat in 20th place initially. We passed boats in the first run down, and beat most of the teams around the mark the second time.”

Hutchinson said Canfield wanted to go left and they went for it, but ultimately it didn’t feel like a Hail Mary. “It was smart sailing,” he said. Hutchinson gave credit to his new team of sailors, which included his 13-year-old daughter Katherine, Canfield, sailmaker Nick Turney, and Morgane Renoir.

“Last weekend my son was on board sailing, and this week my daughter is,” said Hutchinson. “Katherine helped tack, pull the ropes and trim the jib. She was worried we would lose after Friday and I told her that it’s not in the start—it’s the finish that counts, and we did well.”

Hutchinson and his crew will join Grant Dumas of St. Petersburg, Fla., the crew of the Tripp 38 Warrior and John Laun’s Caper crew of San Diego, Calif., along with winner from Chicago and Marblehead, in the British Virgin Islands to compete in the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta Championship, hosted by Sunsail.

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