Evans does double duty for Race Week

Former world champions and Olympians will take to the water on Saturday as Bacardi Bermuda International Invitational Race Week begins.

Hosted by the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, the competition will take place over five classes: Comets, Lasers, J105s, Etchells and IODs.

The Comet class is back for two days of racing this year with 12 teams entered. Vying for bragging rights are the veteran team of Stephie Dickinson and Pat Young, 2012 Champions. 

Hot on their heels are a crop of youth teams such as Ellie Wollmann and Peter Dill, Dimitri Stevens and Tremaine Bean as well as Martin and Michael Finegan. Comets are set to start racing Saturday April 27 at 10:30am and finish on Sunday.

The Laser Class is one of the most competitive for Race Week. This year the fleet will consist of eight internationals and eight locals; all mixing it up from Sunday April 28 to Thursday May 2. 

The Laser is the natural progression for the single-handed sailor who moves from Optimist and Bytes. Amongst local representatives are three ex-Olympians: Malcolm Smith, Sara-Lane Adderley and Jesse Kirkland. Also competing are a past UK Youth National Champion and current RBYC racing coach Sean Evans.

Kalin Hillier is also in the mix and he has seen fantastic results as a youth at CORK, in Canada. Past champion Rockal Evans is also competing.

But Evans is doing double duty as he’ll compete in the Comets first. He is gambling on a successful Comet campaign that will allow him to drop the last race on Sunday as he jumps into his Laser for the third race on Bravo Course.

The International Etchells class has a long and proud history in Race Weekend. Tim Patton, past winner and past World Champion, will celebrate his 40th consecutive Race Weekend in 2013. He will be sailing with the crew joining him in Tuscany this year at the Etchells Worlds. Joining him out on the water will be 2012 Race Weekend champion William Thompson, Mark Watson III of Tiburon Racing (USA), Jason Owen from the UK, Tom Clarke from Canada, Peter Martin (BER), Les Crane and the Macrae Brothers (CAN). The Etchells will be racing Saturday April 27 to Tuesday, April 30.

Fierce

The J105s  are making a return after a year’s absence due to scheduling conflicts with overseas regattas. The J105s continue to be a growing fleet in Bermuda and the competition is fierce. 

Expect good results from Chuck Millican in Elusive and Trevor Boyce and Michael Neff in Yabsta as well as James Macdonald in Passion. Rounding out the competitors are Ian Feathers in ChequeMate and Ed Faries in Back in Black. The J105s races are from Saturday, April 27 to Tuesday, April 30.

Once again this International One Design fleet will be fielding a complete roster of 13 boats: 11 overseas entries and two Bermuda participants. The Regatta will be hotly contested as usual, as two-time past IOD world champions and defending Bermuda Race Week winners John Burnham and co-skipper Peter Rugg from Fisher’s Island headline the list of competitors. 

Not to be taken lightly, the field will have four other past Bermuda Race Week winners in addition to the Burnham-Rugg duo. The most recent race week winner is past champion from Newport Dan Faria who is keen to get another victory. 

Giles Peckham who represents the Daring fleet from Cowes, England won the Vrengen trophy four years ago. Perennial competitor Jan Petter Roed from Norway rounds out the former winners. He is looking to regain the magic that won him the event some time ago. 

Bermuda’s 2012 overall series champion Patrick Cooper will be headlining the hopes of the Bermuda fleet. George Cubban from Bermuda is very familiar with sailing here as part of the local IOD fleet. He is keen to test his skills against the foreign competitors. The IOD class races from Sunday, April 28 to Friday, May 3.

For the first time ever during BIIRW the very active Optimist fleet will be running a sister regatta, the AES Ltd. Optimist BIIRW. 

“Inviting the Optimist fleet to be part of BIIRW seemed like a natural progression of the event,” said RBYC Rear Commodore of Sailing, Leatrice Roman. “The island’s kids are so enthusiastic about being out on the water.”