BIIRW Sailing To Get Underway On Saturday
The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club [RBYC] is ready once again to open its doors to visiting and local sailors as the annual BIIRW is set to begin on Saturday April 27. BIIRW 2013 will see five sailing classes competing over the course of the week: Comets, Lasers, J105s, Etchells and IODs; and one busy competitor competing in two classes.
The Comet class is back for two days of racing this year with 12 teams entered. Vying for bragging rights are the veteran team of Stephie Dickinson and Pat Young, 2012 BIIRW Champions. Hot on their heels are a crop of youth teams such Ellie Wollmann/Peter Dill, Dimitri Stevens/Tremaine Bean and Martin and Michael Finegan. Comets are set to start racing Saturday April 27 at 10:30 and finish on Sunday.
The Busy Class – the singlehanded dinghy, the Laser, is one of the most competitive in BIIRW. This year the fleet will consist of eight internationals and eight locals; all mixing it up from Sunday April 28 to Thursday May 2. The Laser is the natural progression for the single handed sailor who moves from Optimist and Bytes. Amongst local representatives are three ex-Olympians, Malcolm Smith, Sara-Lane Adderley and Jesse Kirkland; a past UK Youth National Champion, RBYC Racing Coach, Sean Evans and Kalin Hillier who has seen fantastic results as a youth at CORK, Canada. Past Champion Rockal Evans is also competing –after competing in the Comet class first. Rockal is gambling on a successful Comet campaign that will allow him to drop the last race on Sunday as he jumps into his Laser for the third race on Bravo Course [Race 3 for Lasers, Race 6 for Comets].
The Speedy Class – The International Etchells class has a long and proud history in BIIRW. Tim Patton, past winner and past World Champion, will celebrate his 40th consecutive BIIRW in 2013.Tim will be sailing with the crew joining him in Tuscany this year that the Etchells Worlds. Joining Tim out on the water will be 2012 BIIRW champion William Thompson, Mark Watson III of Tiburon Racing [USA], Jason Owen from the UK, Tom Clarke from Canada, Peter Martin [BER], Les Crane and the Macrae Brothers [CAN]. The Etchells will be racing Saturday April 27 – Tuesday April 30.
The J105s – The RBYC and BIIRW are happy to have the J105s back in BIIRW after a year’s absence due to scheduling conflicts with overseas regattas. The J105s continue to be a growing fleet in Bermuda and the competition is fierce. Expect good results from Chuck Millican in Elusive and Trevor Boyce/Michael Neff in Yabsta and James Macdonald in Passion. Rounding out the competitors are Ian Feathers in ChequeMate and RHADC Vice-Commodore, Ed Faries, in Back in Black. The J105s race Saturday April 27 – Tuesday April 30.
The Classic Ladies – not to be forgotten are the classic boats of BIIRW, the International One Designs [IOD]. Once again this 75-year old fleet will be fielding a complete roster of 13 boats: 11 overseas entries and 2 Bermuda entries. The Regatta will be hotly contested as usual, as two – time past IOD world champions and defending Bermuda Race Week winners John Burnham and co-skipper Peter Rugg from Fisher‟s Island headline the list of competitors. Not to be taken lightly, the field will have four other past Bermuda Race Week winners in addition to the Burnham-Rugg duo. The most recent race week winner is past champion from Newport Dan Faria who is keen to get another victory. Giles Peckham who represents the Daring fleet from Cowes, England won the Vrengen trophy four years ago. Perennial competitor Jan Petter Roed from Norway rounds out the former winners. He is looking to regain the magic that won him the event some time ago. Bermuda‟s 2012 overall series champion Patrick Cooper will be headlining the hopes of the Bermuda fleet. George Cubban from Bermuda is very familiar with sailing here as part of the local IOD fleet. He is keen to test his skills against the foreign competitors. The IOD class races from Sunday April 28 – Friday May 3, 2013.
The New Kids – For the first time ever during BIIRW the very active Optimist fleet will be running a “sister” regatta, the AES Ltd. Optimist BIIRW. ”Inviting the Optimist fleet to be part of BIIRW seemed like a natural progression of the event,” states RBYC R/C of Sailing, Leatrice Roman. “The island’s kids are so enthusiastic about being out on the water. It will be a good warm up event for Optimist North Americans, being held in here in July.”
For more information please check the event website.
