New Budget Marine trophy for top female sailor
James Bristol, Festival Chairman, announced in November that for the first time, the 2010 Grenada Sailing Festival will offer two week ends of great sailing action instead of one.
The event will start on Friday, January 29, with four days of international yacht racing off the island’s southern coast in the Port Louis Racing Series, based at the Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina. Racing will start and finish from the marina, and there will be new, longer courses, including an extended South Coast Ocean Triangle, providing more challenging racing.
Local work boats will head for Grand Anse Beach the following weekend February 6 and 7, when the traditional Grenada Sailing Festival Digicel Work Boat Regatta becomes a central part of the island’s National Independence Celebrations.
In Racing Class for the yacht series, 2009 Festival winner James Dobbs with his Antiguan-based J122 Lost Horizon will take on stiff competition from such prominent names in Caribbean sailing as Peter Peake with Storm, and Paul Solomon skippering Enzyme, both from Trinidad, plus well-known Festival competitors Steven Lewis and brothers from Barbados in Whistler.
Grenada’s home-grown talent will also be in contention with tough local crews sailing for Richard Szyjan in Category 5, David Cullen in Pocket Rocket and Justin and Peter “Champie” Evans in Tanga Langa 3. The event will also be welcoming back British skipper Hugh Pringle and his crack Cowes Week crew, in the very fast Lancelot, and saying hallo for the first time to visitors from Martinique in Sonadio.
The Cruising Class is looking just as strong, with early notice from Jaguar, Wayward, Bloody Mary and Boxxer that they will be contesting the Festival title again in 2010. Already the J24 fleet is looking very competitive, too, with local boats Die Hard, Blew by You and Tempest taking on Steve Bushe’s Ambushe from Trinidad, and Barbados Js Paddington and Hawkeye, skippered by Peter Hoad and Robert Povey.
Charter Class will again be sponsored by long-term supporters Boval, the Dutch Insurance Group. Over past years, the group flying to Grenada to compete has been steadily growing and now 49 keen sailors from The Netherlands will be joining the 2010 Festival, chartering seven boats to take part.
Budget Marine Grenada, a long-standing sponsor of the Grenada Sailing Festival, will be extending its involvement by initiating a new Budget Marine Trophy, to be awarded to the most outstanding female sailor participating in the Port Louis Racing Series. Nicholas George, Manager of Budget Marine Grenada, said, “The Company has long been a great supporter of the promotion and recognition of talented female sailors, and we are very pleased to bring this to the Grenada Sailing Festival.”
The perpetual trophy is a wall-mounted Chronometer which will be displayed permanently in the Budget Marine Grenada Store in True Blue. Each year the winner’s name will be added to an engraved plaque under the Chronometer, and a picture of the presentation featured in a Grenada Sailing Festival Photo Gallery also in the Store.
Preview submitted by Grenada Sailing Festival
