Photo by Larry Stott
On Saturday, January 19th, the Anguilla Youth Sailing Club hosted the 5th annual Anguilla Dinghy Regatta in Road Bay sponsored by Anguilla Aluminum. Competitors from Puerto Rico and St. Maarten joined a contingent of 19 Anguillian sailors for a competitive day of racing. With boat racing as the national sport on Anguilla, the local youths take great pride in hosting and competing against our neighboring islands. Three classes comprised the fleet including Optimists, Lasers and 420’s. In the morning, prevailing winds up to 20 knots ripped through Sandy Ground. Luckily, a quick rainstorm leveled the conditions to a comfortable 10-13 knots for the remainder of the day and made for a great regatta.
With several different classes, the course was laid out as a trapezoid to avoid the fleets getting in each others way. A long beat upwind followed by an offset jibe mark, leeward mark and reach to the finish made up the race course. Setting the pace in the Laser fleet was the highly regarded Rhone Findlay from St. Maarten. Not even another Laser capsizing on Rhone’s boat at the start of the second race could slow him down as he finished with 6 first prizes. The Optimist class was divided by age into the Gold and Silver fleets. Matt Pemberton from Anguilla utilized his top notch starts and tight roll tacking to finish the regatta in 2nd place, the top Anguilla competitor in the Opti fleet. Not far behind was Kemani Gumbs whose downwind boat speed and windward heel catapulted him into 3rd place. Leonardo Knol from St. Maarten placed 1st in the Opti Gold. Anguilla swept the 420 class with skipper Shemorie Richardson and crew Incosee Richardson finishing in 1st place and Jemall Hughes and Anfri Connor following in a close second.
Special thanks to Anguilla Aluminum for assisting in sponsoring the regatta, Mango’s Restaurant for providing the prize bags and Anguilla Native Stone for offering the trophies. Coming up for the Anguilla youth sailors are regattas in Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and St. Barths. The AYSC looks to build off the momentum of this regatta and continue its success abroad.
– Contributed
