By BVI Platinum

Rayne Duff was the overall winner in the Optimist championship fleet finishing 21 points clear of 2nd place and also winning Blue Fleet as Virgin Islands youth sailors tackled the Cruzan Open Regatta in St Croix last weekend.

Nathan Haycraft won White Fleet and finished 6th overall, while James Rajic-Knight finished 11th and Maxwell Reshetiloff finished close behind in 12th.

The Optimist Green Fleet was won by Ryan Lettsome who finished comfortably 23 points ahead of second place. Anya Reshetiloff finished in 4th place with Nicolas Haycraft in 9th out of 20 boats.

Thad Lettsome finished 2nd in the Laser class and even though he was sailing with a radial sail, he only finished 2 points behind 1st place who was using a Standard Full Rig which is much larger than the Radial.

The first day of the event started off with the race area set just inside the reef in Teague Bay with light, but very shifty winds.

The team responded very well and was able to quickly adapt to the conditions which showed with wins in the first race from Duff, Thad Lettsome and Ryan Lettsome.

The Friday before the event, a Moorings Catamaran, which was generously donated to the sailing team for the weekend by Moorings, was loaded up with 7 Optimists and 1 Laser sail boat before making its 6 hour journey across to St. Croix.

Conditions were perfect for the journey with flat seas and great weather making it a comfortable trip across.