Indeed! This weekend was the Loyal West End Yacht Club’s 27th annual “Sweethearts of The Caribbean” Regatta. On Saturday there were two races; the schooner race and the single-handed race. Unfortunately, the schooner race was abust… only one schooner showed up! Recently, a well-known schooner owner from the USVI had died, and most of the other local schooner owner/captains were aboard his old boat back in Cruz Bay holding a memorial of sorts.
i missed most of the Saturday action, however. i had my usual morning commitment on the Spit, helping with Laser sailing with KATS. The previous evening, one of the WEYC race committee members had cornered me and convinced me to fill in for his usual Saturday afternoon KATS commitment. So, after morning Lasers, it was off to Nanny Cay and to join a few other kids for racing aboard an IC-24.
Back in West End, Sunday was scheduled for two more races, the Classics (boats whose design or manufacture is greater than 30 years old) and the Wannabes (25 yrs old). i had the great priviledge to crew aboard a great competative boat in the Classics class, a Kinney Pipe Dream 36 called Ruffian. i had just finished a bunch of interior woodwork on the boat, and the owner, Marty