Participants in the Back to School Regatta. Photo>Dean "The Sportsman" Greenaway

TORTOLA—Light windy conditions did not affect Donte Hodge, a 15 year old St. Georges High School student sailing in the Optimist Class of the weekend Royal BVI Yacht Club 3rd annual Back to School Regatta.
Hodge posted 10 bullets for a 13 points margin of victory over Jason Putley who finished with 23 points.

“It took a lot of concentration, small movements and I noticed the other sailors weren’t concentrating, so I just concentrated more, had the boat speed and I just dominated,” he explained. “This regatta is a good idea and I think more people should be involved because it’s a good event and a lot of fun. I think more schools should definitely be involved.”

Sam Morrell, 9, of Cedar School, said he was surprised to win the Open Bics division. “My brother (Josh Morrell) is a really good sailor and he didn’t do that well, but I was first in every race today in my fleet, after I had a second and third on Saturday,” Morrell noted. “That was it really.”

Coach Chris Watters, who coordinated the event, said it was the kick off to the season. “We had a lot of the kids out from the summer program this weekend and a lot of them were new coming into racing after the summer camp,” Watters said. “Now they’ve come out, this is their first regatta and they did very well. The things they learnt this summer they took it to the race course. It was a perfect first event, super fun and short courses and now they’ll be able to get into the swing of regattas for the upcoming season.”

Watters said the sailing went well and the group of sailors who turned out performed well. He said light air characterized the regatta with winds at five knots max. “For this event, we always never had breeze for it and we didn’t have much wind. It’s a light air event and a nice little change up to the regattas we have been having of 15-20 knots.”

Watters said among the sailors was one from St. Thomas

Final results. Open Bics: 1. Sam Morrell, 14 points. 2. David Hirst, 26. 3. Josh Morrell, 30. James Nicholas, 30.

Lasers: 1. Indigo Collins, 11. Kier Bibby, 18.

Optimist: 1. Donte Hodge, 10. 2. Jason Putley, 23. 3. Jonathan Woods, 31. 4. Mollie Donovan, 34. 5. Scott McKenzie, 43. 6. Barney Nicholas, 64. 7. Rian Wook, 66. 8. Cambria Collins, 81. 9. Alex Bertmuel, 89. 10. Nico Hibbaid, 95. 10. David Carter, 105.

(Dean "The Sportsman" Greenaway is a freelance journalist. This story is not subjected to the approval of the BVIOC)

© Copyright 2008-9 BVI Olympic Committee

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