It will?involve 154 high-class sailors from nine countries but, more important, next week’s SAP?World Championships here is creating a new axis for tourism involving an outreach programme embracing communities and schools.
Speaking at a press briefing Friday afternoon at the Barbados Yacht Club, the home of this year’s event, Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy said there would be huge tourism spin-offs when more than 400 high-end yachting personnel, family and friends arrive next week for the championships which begin Wednesday afternoon following Tuesday night’s opening ceremony.
Sealy said he was delighted that main sponsors SAP, a market and technology leader in business management software, would be involved in outreach efforts to expose their brand to schoolchildren.
“That is what it is all about, that the entire community can benefit. When we start to take advantage of yachting tourism [it will] create an entire new axis of tourism for Barbados because, the truth is, a lot of the business is incremental business, it is new business.
“These are people coming to Barbados who would normally be going to other destinations that are perceived as more sailor-friendly, so when we reach out and embrace this community, it is new business, it is growth and it makes sense,” he said.
The 505 sailing attracts high-end personnel in yachting, and Sealy said he was looking forward to major spend over the next two weeks.
“It is no secret that you tend to find the spend is a little greater from persons in this particular niche.
“The spend is very good on the ground, so the more of these vessels we can encourage, the better and that is why we are shifting to the outer basin of the Careenage and we are going to extend those moorings even further,” he said.
The minister also thanked the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) for bringing in last year’s champion Jan Saugmann, of Denmark, to defend the title he captured in France in 2012.
Former senator Peter Gilkes, who played a major role in Barbados landing the event ahead of challengers from Port Elizabeth in South Africa and New York in the United States, said the championships, featuring 77 boats, will be the biggest sailing event ever to come to these shores.
“This will be the largest dollar spent event ever done in Barbados. The connection between the BTA?and the sponsors is phenomenal,” he said.
Gilkes said the sponsors would be spending $800 000 to put on these championships, which will include the construction of a hospitality lounge for VIP guests.
“The construction team on site, employing carpenters, painters, [and] will result in money being spent within the Barbados economy. The budget for the flowers and plants is about $15 000.
“There has been no event done in Barbados’ sailing [sector] to date that would have yielded the results that this 505 Worlds will yield for Barbados. I think it will be a wonderful event.
“The 505 is a very popular class of boat. The 505 class linking with the SAP?and BTA sponsorship makes this event extremely powerful,” he said.
President of the International 505 Class Yachting Racing Association, Pip Pearson, of Australia, said this was a major triumph for Barbados as this was the first time that the event, now in its 58th year, was being held in the Caribbean.
Pearson said the sailors were keen to come to an exotic location like Barbados and much credit should be given to Gilkes in the role he played in promoting the island as an international venue.
He said the 505 dinghy (two-seater) was 5.05 metres long and added that outside of the Olympics, the 505 was the highest performance, most technical, dinghy.
Pearson said the racing, just outside of Carlisle Bay, would be on a triangular course over a 11 to 13-mile stretch with each race lasting about an hour and a half.
There will be three days of two races a day and three days of one race per day, for a total of nine races.
The experienced Ian Pinnell, of Britain, winner of 45 international titles in different classes, is one of the favourites along with six-time champion Wolfgang Hunger, of Germany, and Americans Howard Hamlin and Mike Martin, the 1999 world champions.