Updated Apil 15th
The BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival just released their 2025 regatta wrap film video. Watch it here:
April 7, Nanny Cay, Tortola: Wrapping up day 3 of the 52nd BVI Spring Regatta, following several days of relentless high winds, competitors will importantly remember the final day of racing: a picture-perfect Caribbean racing day with temperatures in the mid 80’s, warm trades blowing 15-18 knots, and a great party in the Regatta Village to end a fantastic week of racing. Solid teamwork and consistency paid off on day 3 for the winning teams, most of whom maintained a leading position throughout the Regatta. It was gratifying to see old teams return and new teams have a fantastic experience: the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival delivers!
CSA 1
Warthog, the Reichel 37 owned and skippered by Jim Vos (Sag Harbor, Long Island, USA) raced BVI Spring Regatta for the first time in only its second-ever Caribbean regatta with a mostly Antiguan youth team. Two more bullets on the last day sealed the deal for an overall win in class for the team that finished with 10 points.
“I’ve had a great time here and a highlight for me was that the boat had a bunch of changes over the summer; it was always hard to plane on the boat but it’s finally planing which is fantastic,” Vos said. “It’s a very heavy boat but it’s finally moving! I like the long courses at this Regatta for steering, it’s great practice to concentrate on these long legs so I really enjoyed that. It’s a great team, full of enthusiasm, super young, they enjoy boat building and tinkering; it’s kind of like a high school science experiment!”
Jules Mitchell, boat captain, coach, and main trimmer on Warthog, added, “We’re super grateful to have an owner like Jim Voss who is just as enthusiastic about race boats as we are and this team is so fortunate to have been introduced to him because these programmes are so few and far between. Having something like this in the Caribbean to motivate the next generation of sailors is amazing.”
Jim Vos’ Reichel Pugh 37 © Alex Turnbull/Tidal Pulse Media
The Swan 58 WaveWalker owned/skippered by Woody Cullen took two second places to finish second overall with thirteen points, while Jax the custom Brooklin Boat Yard 43’er owned/skippered by Oivind Lorentzen, took two third places to finish third overall with fifteen points.
CSA 2
Tony Mack and his long-time crew on Team McFly racing the J122 El Ocaso won by a huge margin finishing first overall with seven points. The Elan 450 Emily of Cowes, skippered by David Hall, took second with eighteen points, just ahead of the J105 Kairos skippered by Antolin Velasco, who finished third with twenty points.
“The first day was a bit brutal and a bit choppy,” Mack smiled, “Unfortunately a couple of the boats who we were competing against had to withdraw due to breakages which was a shame because the racing may have been a bit closer, although Emily of Cowes pushed us! We race together as a crew all the time on my boat in England so everybody knows their job. I don’t think we could have done anything any better, and as always, we’ve had a lovely time.”
Ting A Ling, the Corsair F27 skippered by Graham Harney (BVI) and an all-BVI crew, including his cousin Nathan Haycraft, finished with ten points and a three-point lead over second place Barney Crook(BVI) on his Corsair 31-1D, Airgasm. Lucky 7, the Corsair Spring 750 co-helmed by Eddie Brockbank BVI) and his 18-year-old daughter Ashley, finished third with twenty-two points.
“The boat has been on the hard for a month and we’ve been doing all sorts of work on it, like removing the toilet!” Harney laughed. “The boats were all re-weighed going into the event and we were unsure how we were going to fare, but it all worked out and the racing was good. Friday was some of the strongest breeze we have raced the boat in; the boat loves breeze typically but we hadn’t pushed her that hard before. Winning feels really great; it’s a dream for all of us especially Nathan because he gets to beat his dad!”
Performance Multihull
Finishing in first with nine points, renowned offshore sailor Brian Thompson, racing on Layla, the Gunboat 72, commented, “This is our second ever regatta and only our sixth day of racing the boat. Conditions were great, a little more wind than we had in St Maarten and we learned to sail the boat better and better. It’s a really comfortable cruising boat with a flybridge so it’s astonishing how well it does, particularly upwind it flies. Downwind we are struggling a little to keep up, especially today with the smaller boats we give time to; Spike and Triple Jack beat us on the downwinds today, they are both very well sailed and excellent competition. This is a wonderful venue with great race organisers, race committee and just the welcome here in Tortola has been brilliant, it’s a great sailing community, we’ll be back!”
After breaking a rudder earlier in the week, the (brand-new) Rapido 40 Spike skippered by Sam Talbot was thrilled to take second in class with nineteen points, just one point ahead of the Kelsall 47 Triple Jack skippered by Richard Wooldridge.
Performance Cruising A
Kinship supported by Bitter End Yacht Club, a Baltic 52 skippered by Ryan Walsh (USA) took first in class finishing with twelve points. The Salona 45 Panacea X (CAN) finished second with fifteen points, and Altivo (PUR), the Grand Soleil 44 Perf owned/skippered by Jorge Rodriquez finished third with nineteen points.
Peter Fletcher, trimmer on Kinship, said, “We went into today with a one-point lead on Panacea X so we didn’t do anything special, we made sure we were quick off the line and kept the boat going fast all the time. The boats in the class were so different in size and speed so everyone separated quite quickly so we just had to make sure we were going quick, we played the shifts and stayed in the pressure. Conditions were perfect, 15 knots in the Caribbean, the sun was out, great competition, it’s been a beautiful day.”
Performance Cruising B
It was a family affair on the IC24 Big Island skippered by Chris Stanton, sailing with his brothers Peter and Scott, and nephew Grayson, taking another two bullets today to beat fellow IC24 owner/driver Mike Feierabend and finishing with ten points.
Stanton said, “We’re hoping to have more IC24s here next year, the Puerto Ricans have left their boats in St Thomas so we’re guilt-tripping them into bringing them over next year. We’d like to revive the class in the BVIs. Today was beautiful, you couldn’t ask for better conditions. It was very pleasant compared to Friday! It’s been a great regatta.”
Jib & Main
Walter Keenan owner/skipper of the Beneteau First 40 Libertas took first overall finishing with eight points, three points ahead of Cricket, a Beneteau First 35. In third was First Love, also a Beneteau First 40, owned/skippered by Quino Sanchez with nineteen points.
Keenan said, “We were absolutely anticipating that this was going to be a competitive fleet. Sandy Mair brought his boat Cricket up from Antigua, he’s a great sailor and one of the most experienced sailors in the Caribbean. He knows the CSA rule very well so his boat is highly competitive and his crew is very good. First Love is also super talented so we had three very talented boats and each one could have won. We had a one-point lead going into the day and knew we couldn’t make any mistakes in order to beat Cricket in the first race which we did.”
Bareboat 1
Alice Martin (USA), skippering Team Painkiller and her crew racing on a Sunsail 46 finished with eleven points prevailing in tight contest with Dutch Team Orange Breeze (NED), also on a Sunsail 46 who finished with twelve points. In third was Pure Vida, an Oceanis 46 skippered by Dan McGanty (USA) with nineteen points.
Martin said, “Today we started out hoping to get another first overall for the day but in the first race, just when we thought we were doing really well we went to the wrong island, so Orange Breeze who were our closest competitor all week (we had so much fun racing against them) – got way ahead of us. The second race we really worked hard to stay ahead and got a first. It was very exciting; we like being on the podium!”
Bareboat 2
Charlie Gerrard (USA), skipper of the Sunsail 42 Mi Piba and sailing with Team Merlin, his long-time crew and sailing partners, finished first with nine points and enjoyed tight racing against 94-year-old Dr. Robin Tattersall (BVI) and his team on racing on a Horizon Yacht Charter Bavaria 37 Jitterbug, who finished second with 11.5 points. Racing on a Dufour 41, Team Cape Fear skippered by Bob Cowen (USA) finished third with 27 points.
“Having the opportunity to sail against the legend Dr. Tattersall made our week, he kept us on edge right through to the last race,” Gerrard commented. “Thank you to the race committee for their extraordinary patience and great courses. We have already booked for next year
Cruising Multihull
George Coutu (DOM), racing his Leopard 50 La Novia, has won in class at BVI Spring Regatta more times than he can remember and took first overall once again with six bullets over six races. The Perry Antrim 52 Little Wing, owned/skippered by Ron Boehm (USA) took second with sixteen points, winning a tiebreaker with the Dutch team No Escape sailing on a Moorings 4500 who also finished with sixteen points.
“We had fantastic wind and we were sailing very well today and yesterday, my boat does really well in the strong breeze,” Coutu said with his characteristic enthusiasm. “The highlight was that conditions were absolutely beautiful; such perfect weather and wind, it’s rare to get both at once. We had a lot of competition from Little Wing the last two days, those guys sailed super nice!”
VX One
It was awesome to have this exciting class race in both the USVI and the BVI this past week. Sandy Askew sailing on Flying Jenny with her well-seasoned crew Rob Greenhalgh and Drew Barnes took first overall finishing with eighteen points and prevailing against her husband David helming Wizard with crew Charlie Enright and Patrick Farrell who finished with twenty points. Tim Pitts, fleet organiser and skipper of Another Bad Princess took third finishing with forty points. The winner of the VX One Caribbean Championship, a two-part series culminating with the BVI Spring Regatta and sponsored by Evolution Sails, was awarded to the best Corinthian team Another Bad Princess.
Sandy Askew had enough points going into day 3 that she didn’t have to sail the last race of the regatta today which worked for her; she was beat! “It’s been a really great week; we’ve had a great time but it’s been tough, but that’s okay! Being out of shape has not helped but I muddled through,” Askew smiled. “It has been a hard sea state; there’s no doubt about it. The competition was great, a lot of them are fantastic amateurs and great helmsman like Tim Potts. Phil Lotz calls his own tactics, trims his on main and drives, which is amazing on these boats, it’s a great fleet.”
Tim Pitts said, “BVI delivered perfect conditions; the rum, the hospitality is what we’ll come back for, there couldn’t be better racing. Our PRO did an amazing job, we may have had seven minutes between races, but we got three races done today in less than two and a half hours. We’ve been using the mark bots all year and love them; thanks to the BVI for allowing us to bring them and thanks to Evolution Sails for sponsoring them and making it happen. They’re a game changer. We’ll be back.”
Distinguished awards were presented to Graham Harney and his crew on Ting A Ling, a Corsair F 27 who took two bullets and four second places over six races to win the Sport Multihull class and the Best BVI Boat award.
Every year, the Regatta presents the Guy Eldridge Spirit of Enthusiasm Award to an individual or individuals who shine in the spirit of the sport and who have stepped out and gone beyond. This year the award was presented to Jim Vos, owner/skipper of the Reichel Pugh 37 Warthog, for his commitment to the development of youth sailing.
Cayley Smit, Regatta Director said, “It’s been another great Spring Regatta with competitors coming in from fourteen different countries; we were thrilled to have them join us, it was especially great to see our European fleet returning and we hope they come back again next year. We love the support from our Caribbean neighbours who help to make the racing so much fun. We are forever grateful to our fabulous sponsors, our local community, and volunteers. See you all next year!”
