Teams competing in the 4th annual Nanny Cay Nations Cup enjoyed a vigorous days racing in the St Francis Drake channel just off Nanny Cay Marina. Early morning squalls had cleared away by 8am leaving the entire NE Caribbean under a strong and steady trade wind flow bang out of the East.
Racing got underway shortly after 9am with 8 of the 12 teams getting a baptism of fire. After three races each of the teams counted two results which produced a 3-way tie. Defending champions Peter Holmberg along with brother John (Team Ondeck USVI), BMobile(LIME) BVI and ‘Hirst Brothers’ BVI shared the lead with 4 points a piece.
It should be noted that the vastly experienced Holmbergs were being challenged by a pair of youngsters. Alec Anderson (17) helming for BMobile and Don Tae Hodge (15) at the helm for ‘team BVI’. Robbie Hirst sailed with Alec last year and narrowly lost out to the Holmbergs on the last run of the last and 20th race…this year he and brother Mike invited Don Tae to take the helm with David Hirst (12) and Ryan Wooldridge (9) also in the crew.
Race 4 saw a big collision on the start line. It was a chain of events that started with a big shift that left some starboard tackers unable to clear the pin end of the line. Poor ‘Black Pearl’ got the worst of it being holed midships while Latitude 19 snagged a shroud which parted and snapped. This meant that both teams returned to the dock unable to continue racing. Race 5 started with the Canadians taking out the spare boat and the Irish taking a breather. Now Team Antigua shed their rudder after the upper pintle completely sheared off. The tough conditions had started to take a toll.
The matrix format of this event normally allows non-stop racing with teams rotating and having breaks ashore. With three boats down race officer Chris Haycraft decided to call a lunch break. In short order brand new pintles and gudgeons were fitted to ‘INTAC’, ‘Lat 19’ received a new shroud and poor old ‘Black Pearl’ was hastily patched up with a rocket mix of polyester resin and biaxial laminate. Chris H ended the lunch break with a terse briefing to all skippers that roughly went along the lines of ‘that’s it, no more spare boats…keep it clean!’
Despite the delay the race committee managed to rattle off 4 more races to make it 9 in all for the day. Hardly a cloud in the sky, steady 20 knot trades, a big crowd ashore loving the action and live music supplied by the talented Last Resort’s Al Broderick starting at 4pm.
At the end of play a couple of protests were sorted out and the results for the day were posted. BMobile/LIME are in control, BVI are on their heels with the Dutch, Canadians and the USVI (Ondeck) close behind.
The weather looks like ‘more to follow’ for tomorrow.
Bring it on!
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