Last Saturday took place the 6th edition of the Bart's Bash organized by the Sint Maarten Yacht Club (SMYC), in which around thirty sailors participated in five different classes. The Bart's Bash is a global nautical event, established in memory of Olympic gold and silver medalist Andrew "Bart" Simpson, who died of a sailing accident during a training session for the 'America's Cup.
If at the world level thousands of sailors participate on different types of boats, in Sint Maarten, the sailboats engaged were Laser, Optimist, RS Vision, Laser Pico and Sun Fast 20s. The purpose of the event is to raise funds for the Andrew Simpson Foundation, or a project chosen by the organizing club, which this year decided to dedicate the funds raised to a sailing program for young people from the islands of the Bahamas affected by Cyclone Dorian.
The various activities put in place during this regatta raised funds, so, in the morning, a car wash collected US $ 575, and The Goods, a pop-up store collected US $ 135. In the afternoon, the prize pool was completed with a raffle and additional donations of US $ 600, which raised the collection to US $ 1310. An amount that will be devoted to sailing programs for young Bahamians, because for Michele Korteweg, director general of the SMYC, one should not underestimate the importance, for the young people, to have fun and go back to sailing, "we saw it ourselves, here, two years ago during cyclone Irma".
In the competition of the day, in the Optimist category, the young Emma Lennox won first place, which bodes well before her trip, at the end of the month, to the North American Championships. Louka Williams finished first in the Laser Pico category, while in the RS Vision category, the duo Jean Morton and Mathijs Detering dominated their opponents for a day. Six boats participated in the Laser class and Christopher Cilliers took the victory. For the last category, concerning the Sun Fast 20s, Garth Steyn takes first place in his class. _RM
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