The Cayman Islands Sailing Club hosted the 2013 Compass Marine National Laser Championships on the crystal blue waters off Seven Mile Beach over the weekend.  Twenty sailors competed in seven races over the two day regatta, enjoying the challenge of the moderate but shifting wind conditions.

The Laser is an Olympic class boat and one of the most sailed classes worldwide. The regatta, which features a handicap system, allows all three categories of Laser sailors to compete for the overall championship, providing the opportunity for youth sailors to rate their skills against their more veteran counterparts, and making the event accessible to sailors of all levels.

Raph Harvey, Head Coach at the sailing club, put on an accomplished display for spectators on the beach, winning every race to secure the overall championship title and win the standard Laser class.  Competition was fierce and close for the remaining podium places with second place going to Club Commodore Mike Farrington and third to Pablo Bertran, who out-sailed his youth team-mates to top the 4.7 category.

Richard Murphy, competing in his first regatta since moving to Cayman, provided an element of the unknown and narrowly secured the Radial class title, by one point, ahead of Tomeaka McTaggart.

“We have been planning a regatta on Seven Mile Beach for some time and it proved to be a perfect venue”, explained Mike Farrington. “We race nearly every weekend in our home waters of North Sound but we are a bit secluded. This allowed many more people to see that we have a healthy racing programme.”

Coach Harvey was in full agreement. “It is a logistical problem to get the boats over here and set a decent race course, but thanks to Compass Marine we overcame that and Race Committee did a fantastic job to provide near perfect racing. It has become a feature of all club racing recently that the kids are up there with the adults and well done to Pablo taking third overall. We are already looking forward to bringing next year’s event back to Seven Mile”.

Full regatta results and information about other events hosted by the sail club can be found at www.sailing.ky or on Facebook: Cayman Islands Sailing Club and National Sailing Center.