FRISKY, BRISK FIRST
DAY FOR BVI
Tortola,
British Virgin Islands, April 4, 2003 Last
night's torrential Caribbean downpours didn't
dampen competitors' enthusiasm on the start line
today and many a boat was called back by Principal
Race Officer (PRO) Peter Reggio.
The
day dawned overcast and blowing a solid 18 knots.
As the day wore on the clouds dissipated, and
the wind remained leaving typical Caribbean trade
winds for the rest of the day albeit blowing from
the east south east. The spinnaker course saw
its windward mark set off Salt Island, resting
place for the RMS Rhone sunk in a hurricane in
1867.
Reggio
got off 26 races for the seven classes on the
spinnaker course with racing A, B, C and racer/cruiser
A and B rattling through four races and beach
cat spinnaker and non-spinnaker three each. Using
an evolution of the multi-start, multi-finish
format introduced in 2001 there are eight permutations
of windward-leeward courses and both a windward
and a leeward finish line.
Sotto
Voce, the JV66, smoked around the courses beating
Chippewa and Equation by approximately five minutes
in each race. But after their corrected times
were calculated Sotto Voce and Chippewa each had
two wins, two second places and six points each.
Equation has thirteen points and was disqualified
in race one for "incident on the start".
Lolita,
Frank Savage's Swan 56, bulleted racing B with
four firsts and beat scratch boat for the class
Flirt around the course once today. Flirt gives
Lolita two minutes and 33 seconds per hour under
the Caribbean Sailing Association (CSA) rating
system and Lolita finished a lot closer
than that. Marc Ewing's Riot, Flirt and Carlo
Falcone's Caccia Alla Volpe are close with 12,
13 and fourteen points respectively.
The
highly competitive racing C was a little incident-prone
today. Slam, only recently re-rigged after its
dismasting on the last day of St Maarten¹s
Heineken Regatta last year, 'lost it' again in
race two. Lost Horizon II, Cape Air CORT (Caribbean
Ocean Racing Triangle) leader coming in to the
BVI Spring Regatta, was t-boned by Beneteau First
Class 10 Uncle Sam on the last race of the day.
Lost Horizon was given redress and received a
nice round score of 3.67 for the race an
average of its three first races of the day. John
Foster and his Magnificent 7 team have stepped
into the top spot with Melges 24 2 Contact Carib
in second place. Despite its mishap Lost Horizon
II is in third place and will be repaired for
the start tomorrow morning at 10.00am.
BVI
Olympian Robby Hirst is topping the IC/24 class
having won four of the six races today in this
11-boat one-design class. His new boat Crowley
Shipping was only completed the night before it
was due to leave for the International Rolex Regatta
and although Robby and crew have quickly found
their groove racing is extremely tight.
UK
Swan 48 Celerity owned and skippered by Stuart
Robinson is leading Igoodia, a Jeanneau 52.2 by
three points in racer/cruiser A. Another Swan
48 Wind Dancer, with a John Glynn/Jim Connor combo
at the back, is third.
Racer/cruiser
B saw on of those racing rarities a corrected
time tie.
Dehlerious and Cold Beer both had a time of 44
minutes and 19 seconds and tied for second place
with 2.5 points each. BVI boat Cold Beer is leading
this class while Pipedream made a very unwelcome
course error in race one and DNF¹d receiving
13 points for its trouble. This puts them in fifth
place in class.
Ron
Noonan's Wildflower is actually racing in the
cruising class despite erroneous information last
night, and winning it. Natural Magic is second
and Antrim 27 Rhumb Squall, third. This has helped
last year's winner in the Jib & Main class
winner Second Nature, a Hughes 38, continue its
run by topping that class today.
Dot
Com is topping bareboat A and Bavaria 36 Next
Best Thing, bareboat B.
If
conditions hold tomorrow could see big boats and
non-spinnaker boats racing round Tortola.
For
full details on the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing
Festival including the full results and photos
from today, visit the official web site: www.bvispringregatta.org.
The
BVI Spring Regatta is jointly owned by the Royal
BVI Yacht Club and the BVI Chamber of Commerce
and Hotel Association. The 2003 BVI Spring Regatta
is presented by Nanny Cay Marina and also sponsored
by Heineken, Road Town Wholesale (1975) Ltd, Bitter
End Yacht Club, the BVI Tourist Board, Cable &
Wireless BVI, Village Cay Marina, Maui Jim, Tortola
Yacht Services, Prospect Reef Resort, Caribbean
Star, Cape Air, Zephyrhills Water and Island Marine
Outfitters.
Official
web site: http://www.bvispringregatta.org
