5th BACARDI® Newport Sailing Week presented by EFG Bank

Newport provided great sailing conditions for the inaugural day of the 5th BACARDI Newport Sailing Week (BNSW) presented by EFG while fog ruined Sunday's on water activities. The J/70, Viper 640, VX One and Classic Day Sailing classes all took part in this year's event with 44 teams racing. Thank you to all of our Race Committee, Regatta Staff, and competitors for a great event!

The BNSW kicked off with the opening of the Sailing Dreams Light Photography Exhibit, which took place on Friday, June 26th at Bowen's Wharf a very popular location where locals and tourist mingle together. Sailing Heals brought cancer patients from local hospitals to sail on 2 sailing vessels generously offered by volunteers; an association BNSW is very proud of.

Also on Friday BNSW hosted a Registration Cocktail Party in which all racing participants registered for the regatta and enjoyed the BACARDI hospitality supported by Torresella wines and EFG Bank.

Sunday night June 28th, over 300 people attended the Awards Dinner and Ceremony, where plenty of food and BACARDI Rum was served. All classes received awards for the top 3 finishers along with some special awards.

The J/70s completed 5 races over the 2-day BNSW event. Finishing 1st in the 11 boat fleet we had Tim Healy on Helly Hansen. Finishing 2nd was Heather Gregg on Muse, and 3rd we had Bruno Pasquinelli on Stampede.

5 races were completed on the Viper 640 course with 13 teams competing. Winning the BNSW was Thomas Loutrel on Choppy Seas. Danny Pletsch, on Blackout Proposal, followed them in 2nd, and then Malcolm Gefter, on Celeritas, in 3rd.

With 12 competing teams, the VX One also raced 5 races in the BNSW. Team Riptide won their class with skipper Chris Poole. Finishing 2nd was Kill Bill with skipper William Griffin, followed by Cruzan Kiwis with Emily Brennan in 3rd.

Making their BNSW premiere, the Classic Day Racer fleet sailed 2 races with 8 competing boats. Winning the events was Mischief with skipper Walter Bopp. In 2nd was Aquila with Geoffrey Davis, and in 3rd was Firefly with Alan Silken. These first three boats were Herreshoff S Class one-design boats.

Everyone is already looking forward to the 2016 regatta that will take place in Newport from June 24th to July 4th and we look forward to seeing you all then.

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