Bareboat Racing in the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival – Familiar faces return for the best week ever, part II
Posted in Charter Stories, Features
Team Miami, a name that stuck for a group of guys who got to know each other sailing in Miami, is back for its eighth BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival event chartering a Dufour 41 Brian McCarthy, who lives in North Carolina, is typically the registered skipper and notes they are a group of older guys – the average age of his team is close to 70 but they’re still racing hard and having fun. They do both the sailing festival and the regatta notes McCarthy. “We’re all in, we’re gluttons for punishment,” he laughs.
While the team’s average age has dropped from last year as the oldest guy on the team retired this past season – he was 88 – McCarthy notes that they have yet to knock Dr. Robin Tattersall, who is a consistent long-time winner in the bareboat classes, off his crown.
“Racing is really competitive in the bareboat class, and the race committee does a fabulous job setting up fantastic courses. It doesn’t get any better than competing against Tattersall and company, those guys are top notch sailors and we’re usually up there mixing it up with him. On the rare occasion that we have crossed the finish line ahead of them it’s a real cause for celebration.”
Team Miami has five on its team this year – they will live aboard at Nanny Cay and also rent a hotel room at the marina as well to offload some of the team.
“Five or six guys on board the boat gets pretty crowded, and Nanny Cay is fabulous, we love everything about it,” McCarthy comments. “The venue, the location, the fact that it is all situated right there in Nanny Cay, I love the entire venue; the schedule is great – you get the two feeder races which gives you the opportunity to get some fun racing in before the series and get to know the boat a little better. It’s just great all-around and it feels like coming home now we know all the racecourses etc.”
McCarthy relates a couple of particularly special BVI Spring Regatta Team memorable moments from over the years recalling one year when Tattersall took straight bullets for the entire regatta.
“We had one race that year when literally after two hours of racing on these 40’ boats we crossed with Robin’s boat ten seconds apart – it wasn’t even a boat length, and we were hull to hull at the finish line; that sticks with me and it gave us something to shoot for. When we finally did take a race or two from him a year or two later it really meant something. Last year was memorable for the brutal conditions – we sailed terribly,” McCarthy laughs.
Nonetheless Team Miami loves racing the charter boats; they’re not overly technical but the fundamentals of racing still apply to these boats, notes McCarthy.
“They’re quite comfortable and really a ton of fun when you’re match racing or one design racing against similar boats in your fleet without getting overly technical and without the challenges of mustering a larger crew to manage a spinnaker and everything that is associated with that, particularly as we are getting up there in the years! It’s a lot of bang for the buck. Of all the things I do in my life it is consistently my favorite week of the year. At the end of the day, we always have fun – you just have MORE fun when you do better!”
