Scrub Island Invitational turns on another great party

Another day of perfect racing conditions for day 2 of the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival, with the 6th Annual Scrub Island Invitational, an 11 NM race to a spectacular finish off Scrub Island. Five racing divisions set off outside Nanny Cay at 10am, with an easterly breeze of 15 knots.

Today’s winners are: CSA Racing Division: Pata Negra, Lombard 46, chartered and skippered by Dr. Laura Schlessinger (Calif., USA). Performance Multihull: Coco de Mer, Gunboat 66, owned and skippered by Angus Ball (Portsmouth, UK). Cruising/Performance Cruising: Jenk, J/105, owned and skippered by Remco van Dortmondt (Curacao). Bareboat: Team Merlin, Moorings 45, skippered by Charlie Garrard (Mass., USA). Cruising Multihull: La Novia, Leopard 50, owned and skippered by Georges Coutu (Dominican Republic).

Jenk has raced the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival just one time previously and the team thoroughly enjoyed scoring a win today. The group of friends are from Curacao and Bonaire, where they sail together as often as they can, although rarely do they get an opportunity to sail in as bigger fleet as they did today, noted main trimmer Marinus Woedemom. The crew sailed Jenk from Curacao to St Maarten for the Heineken Regatta and will sail the boat back to Curacao after BVI Spring Regatta.

“Today was super, especially because we won our class; the breeze was super good and I also like to sail around islands because it makes it challenging, it’s better than sailing around buoys,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of boats to race against at home so this is much better, but we do train about once a week and do races in Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao when we can. We’re ready for racing in the Spring Regatta this weekend, the boat is in good shape, we have a new mainsail and today we went fast and so it’s all good!”

Michael Schoonewagen, General Manager of Scrub Island Resort, Spa & Marina: “It’s a great honour to host the Scrub Island Invitational and to be able to show sailors our new facilities that specifically serve boaters. We have a lot more space in our marina than last year, we now have a guest petrol station on dock C of our marina so boaters don’t have to leave the island to get gas or diesel, and we have just bought Marina Cay Island and we are re-establishing the restaurant that was there before, which should open in May.

Schoonewagen has worked at Scrub Island Resort, Spa & Marina for three past years and is thrilled to see boating activity increase dramatically in the last 12 months, with the past year being the best year to date for Scrub Island.

“The past 12 months have been the busiest ever in the history of the resort, there are so many more boats around – it’s packed! Scrub Island is a very unique place and somewhere that feels like home, the staff are fabulous and it’s just a beautiful place to be!”

Thursday is a lay day for competitors and racing resumes on Friday with day 1 of the BVI Spring Regatta.