International events: photos and summaries

River Romp, Florida, 17-18 October

What a venue! What a day! Definitely a big River Romp!

In perfect wind conditions, the Edison Sailing Center in Ft. Myers hosted the opening event of the '2009-10 Regional O'bic Series'. The 2009 Junior Olympic Sailing Regatta held during the weekend of October 17th and 18th was a complete success from all perspectives. More than 230 kids and teens raced on perfect 8-13 knots winds in Optis, 420s, Lasers, Sunfish and, for the first time, on O'pen Bics.

Photos courtesy of Florencia Barletta

'This series shows how fast the class is growing here in Florida' said Tomas Nores one of the Dads present ' think about it...all this kids showed up for the first event of the first formal Series on a class that is only 3-4 years old and I understand there are more than 35 registered for the second event. This is great! We might be matching the kind of growth we have been seeing in Europe by now.'

On top of the non-conventional courses raced (Supercross with mandatory 360s and Spiderman trick, reaching figure 8s and Mystery Starts), the comment of the day was the LeMans beach starts. As the other classes were headed to their respective racing courses, the O'bic guys were running on the beach to mount their boat and head to the finish line set a mile away. 'I have not seen a Lemans start in years,' said one of the Opti dads in the beach.

The Results with 14 races completed were as follows:
1st- Geronimo Nores with 24 points
2nd- Lucas Gonzales with 36 points
3rd- William Mc Carthy with 46 points
4th- Jack Gower with 47 points
5th- Maximo Nores with 48 points
6th- Jose Armengol with 56 points

On the Freestyle event the winner team was: Lucas Gonzales, Jose Armengol and Franco Gonzales.

Following the growth of the O'bic one design class in the world, the first series of 6 different regattas has been coordinated between different clubs in the South East during the Fall '09 and Spring ‘10 seasons. The purpose of the series is to mix it up with the opti calendar and keep the kids well raced to end the season with the US O'pen Cup in the summer. And finally, choose a team to represent TEAM USA in the World O'pen Cup 2010 to be held in Europe at the end of Summer.

On top this first event held in Ft. Myers, the following are the confirmed races in the series up to date:

Event #2) Oct 24-25th at Fall Harvest Regatta in Miami Event #3) Nov 22nd at The Beach
Event #4) Jan 15th-16th at Mid-Winters in Shake a Leg in Coconut Grove
Event #5) Tentative Feb 28th - TBD
Event #6) April 9-10 Regional O'pen Cup at MYC