A NEW CHAMPION will be crowned when the United Insurance J24 Match Racing Championships get under way today at Carlisle Bay.
With defending champion Mike Green of St Lucia not attending this year’s sailing event, six local crews will do battle with high hopes of ending the year on a winning note in the season-ending event.
During a Press conference at United Insurance’s headquarters yesterday, president of the J24 Club of Barbados, Greg Webster, acknowledged that the harsh economic climate had resulted in fewer entrants from overseas.
He said this had led to a decrease in the number of participants for the two-day event, with only six teams so far having confirmed their participation, down from the 10 teams which took part in 2011 and 2012.
However, Webster said he still expected some keen competition, especially between Williams Industries’ Hawkeye and Isis, two former winners of the competition.
The other four boats are Banks Esperanza, Impulse, Glory Days and Maximum.
“Unfortunately, because of the economic times over the last 18 months we have seen a reduction in the number of competitors taking place last year and the year before,” he acknowledged.
“Traditionally we have had eight to 10 competitors . . . but to be fair, in the past 12 months we had competitors from Grenada, St Lucia, Puerto Rico and the United States in two of the match racing competitions that United Insurance also supported.”
He revealed, though, that as part of an innovative strategy for next year, they would be changing the dates of their event.
Webster also pointed out that they had already communicated with those overseas teams and their associations in an effort to increase participation for next year’s championships.
United Insurance’s underwriting manager for Barbados, Carl Norris, in pointing out that this was the company’s fourth successive year of sponsoring the event, said United was once again pleased to partner with the J24 Club to host the race meet.
The competition gets under way from 9 a.m. and will run until 3 p.m. today and tomorrow. (RB)