‘Great vibe... now let’s race’

The moment has finally arrived for Bermuda’s top young sailors as the IODA North American Championships (Optinam) gets under way today on the Great Sound.

Twenty Bermudian sailors will do battle with 160 rivals —featuring some of the best in the world — in the prestigious event, which this island is hosting for the first time since 2002.

To whet your appetite, Royal Bermuda Yacht Club’s Sailing Director Thomas Herbert-Evans gives you his lowdown on the BER team...

There has a been a great vibe amongst the Bermudian sailors this week. 

A park full of boats and sailors trickling in plane by plane, and with it the pressure mounts on every competitor and they realise that the event is about to begin. 

The BER team consists 20 BER sailors from RBYC, SBC, RHADc, SPBC and St George’s Dinghy Club.

For many they are tried and tested at this standard of Optimist sailing having been to many international events before, however there are a few that are certainly green to these events and are looking to have a pop at the top shots.

Jordan Etemadi, Felix Cutler, Micah Thomas-Raynor, Tayte Stefaniuk, Sammy Dill and Tre Maxwell are probably the least experienced in terms of regatta attendance but watch this space. 

 I hope the regatta will be a great learning regatta for them and springboard them on to many more international events where they can proudly represent Bermuda. 

Heavywind specialists

On the other end of the scale we have Benn Smith and Peter Dill who are the heavy wind specialists, although are capable of putting together top results if they can get under way in the lighter stuff. 

Then we have Chase Cooper who is a great all-rounder preferring the light to medium weather.

Others who have shown great performances are Matilda Nicholls and Campbell Patton. Although very young, they are very sharp sailors and if they get into a rhythm could be posting some great results.

George Buckley had a great Digicel Pre Regatta, fending off team Singapore and is looking forward to getting back into ‘the zone’.

There are many other great sailors in the team, who could post a top result — they include Alice Reeves, Joe Arrowsmith, Yannick Hillier, Ceci Wollman, Mikey Wollman, Camille Chin-Gurret and Thomas and Adrianna Penruddocke.  

It is important that each sailor’s expectations are well measured. There is a really tough field out there. Good luck to them all. n

For profiles of all the Bermuda sailors go to www.bermudasun.bm story headlined ‘20 reasons to cheer on Bermuda’.