The Little Boat That Brought the World to St. Croix: the ISCA (Sunfish) Worlds Come Home
Fifty-six years after the first Sunfish Worlds in St. Thomas, the championship returns to the USVI, and St. Croix's own Peter Stanton is racing on home water.
Little did Peter Stanton think when he started racing Sunfish (ISCA) as a kid at the St. Croix Yacht Club (SCYC) that one day the world would come to his backyard. From November 4-14, more than 70 sailors, nearly half women and representing at least 16 countries, will race off Christiansted when the ISCA World Championships return to U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) waters for the first time in 56 years. Stanton — who went from racing a fleet of about 10 ISCAs on Sundays off St. Croix to competing in 13 ISCA Worlds, winning the 2025 ISCA Masters World Championship, and earning a bronze medal for the territory in the Open ISCA class at the 2018 CAC Games — will be among them, this time on home waters.
| Youth, Masters & Women’s Worlds | November 4–8; racing November 6–8 |
| 55th Open World Championship | November 8–14; racing November 10–13 |
| Host | St. Croix Yacht Club; boats launch from Hotel on the Cay, Protestant Cay, Christiansted |
| Fleet | 70-plus sailors, nearly half women, at least 16 countries |
| Defending champions | Open: Simon Gomez Ortiz, Colombia · Masters: Peter Stanton, St. Croix |
| At stake | World titles, plus ISCA-class berths for the 2027 Pan American Games |
| Where to watch | Shoys Beach, The Buccaneer, and the Christiansted Boardwalk as the fleet goes out and comes back |
| Last time in the USVI | 1970, St. Thomas: the first Sunfish Worlds, 56 sailors from nine countries |
It’s a fitting homecoming for a 14-foot boat with an outsized place in USVI sailing history. The first ISCA Worlds were sailed in St. Thomas in 1970, when 56 sailors from nine countries competed. Now, 56 years later, the championship returns to the territory and moves to St. Croix. Specifically, the SCYC will host the ISCA Youth, Masters and Women’s World Championship November 4-8, with racing November 6-8. The 55th ISCA Open World Championship follows November 8-14, with racing November 10-13.
From Sailfish to ISCA
The ISCA started with a simple idea. Friends Al Bryan and Cort Heyniger of Waterbury, Connecticut, wondered how to put a sail on a surfboard. Their answer was the flat-decked plywood Sailfish. Then, in 1951, Bryan’s pregnant wife found the deck uncomfortable. Adding a cockpit and widening the hull created the ISCA. Heyniger drew its familiar logo by tracing a nickel and adding fins, a tail, and an eye. Fiberglass construction came in 1959, while the basic one-design hull and performance profile have remained essentially the same since 1970.
Wooden Sailfish caught on early in St. Croix. The first Sailfish one-design series was raced in August 1961, with famed multihull designer Dick Newick winning. By February 1962, the fleet had grown to 25.
“Periodically, the fleet was culled and new boats purchased, with the ISCA replacing the Sailfish,” says Julie San Martin, regatta chair.
The boat the world still calls the Sunfish now races under its class association’s initials: a 2025 agreement with World Sailing made the ISCA-built boat the class-legal successor to the trademarked Sunfish, and every Sunfish built before 2025 remains class-legal.
Growing Up ISCA
Stanton joined the scene after his family moved to St. Croix in 1989.
“My parents told us that living on an island meant we had to swim, row and sail,” he says. “We later realized that meant they needed us to go somewhere while they worked.”
That somewhere was the SCYC summer program. Stanton, his brothers, and a core group of young sailors bounced between boats depending on the upcoming regatta. At 130 pounds, Stanton was too light for a full-rig Laser. There were 420s, but few regattas, and St. Croix had no high school sailing program at the time ISCA offered opportunities.
In 1998, Stanton’s mother, Karen, and other volunteers raised money to replace part of SCYC’s 30-year-old ISCA fleet. A year later, 10 juniors from St. Croix and St. John qualified for the Worlds in nearby Ponce, Puerto Rico. Stanton finished seventh among 104 sailors and earned Top Junior honors. That was 1999.
Stanton’s mentors included Alan Sun, Lenn DePalma, Carlos Skov, Beecher Higby, Nick Castruccio, Stan Joines and Bill Chandler. Chandler offered free Saturday morning coaching and kept watch even from home.
“Bill would watch from his house any sailing on the water. Sure enough, he would get in his car and head to the SCYC, meet all the sailors, and give us his viewpoint on what we were doing or ask why we did certain things,” Stanton says. “It was just a great community all around.”
Stanton carried those lessons to Worlds and major international games.
“Bringing the Crucian hospitality, and how my parents raised my brothers and me, everywhere I go is so important,” he says. “Sailing well and results are great, don’t get me wrong, but how you represent yourself and your country on and off the water is even more important. One comment I say a lot is, ‘If you have not won the respect of your competitors, you have won nothing at all,’” he adds.
Winning the Masters World Championship in 2025 was especially sweet.
“It was always a dream of my dad’s to see me win one, and I finally did,” says Stanton, whose father passed away in 2022. “I know he had to have helped me from above.”
Bringing the Worlds Back
By 2021, with Stanton ranked among the top 10 ISCA sailors internationally, talk often turned to the first Worlds in St. Thomas. Later that year, after Stanton finished fourth at the Worlds in Sarasota, Florida, San Martin took it a step further.
“Julie asked me, ‘Hey Peter, do you think we should host the ISCA Worlds?’” Stanton says. “I said, ‘Sure, why not,’ not thinking it would happen. But if you know Julie, she is a go-getter.”
San Martin contacted the international class, submitted a proposal and budget, and St. Croix was awarded the 2026 Worlds. As a result, some 200 sailors, family members, and supporters are expected in Christiansted for about 10 days during a traditionally slow tourism period. More than 70 ISCA will launch from Hotel on the Cay, fill Christiansted Harbor with sails, and stream through the Schooner Channel toward the racecourse. Among those to watch will be defending Open World Champion Simon Gomez Ortiz of Colombia. Other top competitors hail from Curaçao, Peru, Guatemala, Canada, and the United States, while Caribbean islands are represented by Bonaire, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad & Tobago. Stanton races as the defending Masters World Champion. The Worlds also give countries a chance to qualify in the ISCA class for the 2027 Pan American Games. Spectators can watch from Shoys Beach and The Buccaneer, while the Christiansted Boardwalk offers a shoreside view as the fleet heads out and returns.
Stanton hopes the payoff lasts beyond the Worlds.
“I sure hope there is a resurgence in ISCA sailing in the Caribbean, not just on the racing side, but getting sailors and new sailors on the water and starting to love the sport of sailing and enjoying the amazing waters of the USVI,” he says.
For Stanton, who found his opportunity in an ISCA, raced it around the world, and became a Masters World Champion, there’s no plane ticket required this time.
Carol Bareuther has written for ALL AT SEA since 2004.
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