What's happening to the weather in the NE Caribbean? BIG winds are forecasted for the upcoming weekend, it should be interesting.
It's a blustery Wednesday evening in the BVI. Bands of intense squalls continue to rake the entire NE Caribbean with gusts over 35kts. Normally the BVI would be a more placid scene with visiting race yachts pulling into Nanny Cay at sunset after shaking down the race crew in the Sir Francis Drake channel. Instead there's barely a sail to be seen, even the bareboats have ducked for cover. The wind is forecasted to stay in the mid twenties until prizegiving on Sunday afternoon!
Ah well, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. What do we have in store for the IC24's? Well, so far this regatta season it is Fraito Lugo who is proving to be the man to beat. He took St.Croix, Culebra and last weekend he dominated Rolex. Three on the trot for the diminutive Puerto Rican and his seasoned crew.
Second favourite has to be Colin Rathbun and the 'B mobile' crew. They have been snapping at Fraito's transom culminating in a well deserved second place at Rolex. They are also on the cover of the new BVI phone book, the crew parctice hard and are reaping the rewards. Then we have Alec Anderson who took third place at Rolex helming Mark Plaxton's 'INTAC'. These guys sail hard, Alec is off to China this year for a snapshot of the Olympics, we all hope that he will be representing the BVI in Weymouth UK in 2012. Chris Watters, the RBVIYC sailing coach is also on board. Watch out for these guys, if they keep it clean they should be on the podium.
No discussion of IC24 racing would be complete without asking 'what about Robbie Hirst?' Well the rumour is that he will be teaming up with Andrew Waters (Concquerer) to form the MIO A team. They look great on paper but will the new crew gell in time for the weekend? At this point I'm not sure if Chris Rosenberg will be attending, his boat was chartered for Rolex. Chris Carrerri improved during Rolex but has been off the boil, there are a few new P.Rican IC24's coming and we even have 4 IC24's being chartered with one crew hailing from the Solent for a silver wedding celebration.
Despite the weather we could be looking at 20 IC24's on the start line.
Enjoy this shot of two of the finest talents, Robbie Hirst and Fraito Lugo fully broached, narrowly missing eachother last December during the 'Worlds'. It was a BIG gust!
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