Scrub Island Invitational Turns On Another Great Party!

BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival 50th anniversary celebrations are well underway, with another day of perfect racing conditions for the 6th Annual Scrub Island Invitational, an 11 NM race to a spectacular finish off Scrub Island. Five racing divisions set off at 10am, with an easterly breeze of 15 knots.

Today’s winners are:
CSA Racing Division: Pata Negra, Lombard 46, chartered and skippered by Dr. Laura Schlessinger (Calif.,
USA).
Performance Multihull: Coco de Mer, Gunboat 66, owned and skippered by Angus Ball
(Portsmouth, UK).
Cruising/Performance Cruising: Jenk, J/105, owned and skippered by Remco van
Dortmondt (Curacao).
Bareboat: Team Merlin, Moorings 45, skippered by Charlie Garrard (Mass., USA).
Cruising Multihull: La Novia, Leopard 50, owned and skippered by Georges Coutu (Dominican Republic).

The J/105 Jenk has raced the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival just one time previously and today the team thoroughly enjoyed scoring a win. The crew, a group of friends from Curacao and Bonaire, sailed Jenk from Curacao to St Maarten for the Heineken Regatta and will sail the boat back to Curacao after BVI Spring Regatta. They sail together as often as they can, although rarely do they get an opportunity to sail in as bigger fleet as they did today, noted main trimmer Marinus Woedemom.

“Today was super, especially because we won our class; the breeze was super good and I also like to sail
around islands because it makes it challenging, it’s better than sailing around buoys,” he said. “We don’t
have a lot of boats to race against at home so this is much better, but we do train about once a week
and do races in Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao when we can. We’re ready for racing in the Spring Regatta
this weekend, the boat is in good shape, we have a new mainsail and today we went fast and so it’s all
good!”

Michael Schoonewagen, General Manager of Scrub Island Resort, Spa & Marina: “It’s a great honour to
host the Scrub Island Invitational and to be able to show sailors our new facilities that specifically serve
boaters. We have a lot more space in our marina than last year, we now have a guest petrol station on
dock C of our marina so boaters don’t have to leave the island to get gas or diesel, and we have just
bought Marina Cay Island and we are re-establishing the restaurant that was there before, which should
open in May.

Schoonewagen has worked at Scrub Island Resort, Spa & Marina for three past years and is thrilled to
see boating activity increase dramatically in the last 12 months, with the past year being the best year to
date for Scrub Island.

“The past 12 months have been the busiest ever in the history of the resort, there are so many more
boats around – it’s packed! Scrub Island is a very unique place and somewhere that feels like home, the
staff are fabulous and it’s just a beautiful place to be!”

Thursday is a lay day for competitors – racing resumes on Friday with day 1 of the BVI Spring Regatta. – Michelle Slade