Top women in Grenada

New perpetual trophy for the Grenada Sailing Festival Port Louis Racing Series

Budget Marine Grenada, a long standing sponsor of the Grenada Sailing Festival, will be extending its involvement in the annual event by initiating and presenting a new Perpetual Trophy at the next Festival, to be staged from Friday 29 January to Tuesday 2 February 2010.

The Budget Marine Trophy will be awarded to the most outstanding female sailor participating in the Grenada Sailing Festival Port Louis Racing Series, four days of international yacht racing based out of the Festival’s Home Port – Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina. Nicholas George, Manager of Budget Marine Grenada, explained: "The Company has long been a great supporter of the promotion and recognition of talented female sailors, and we are very pleased to bring this to the Grenada Sailing Festival. The aim of the Budget Marine Perpetual Trophy is to acknowledge and encourage sailing talent, spirit and ambition in our many female sailors, and will not necessarily go to the one over the Finish Line first."

The Trophy is a beautifully crafted wall-mounted Chronometer, which will be displayed permanently in the Budget Marine Grenada Store in True Blue. Each year the winner’s name will be added to an engraved plaque under the Chronometer, and a picture of the presentation featured in a Grenada Sailing Festival Photo Gallery also in the Store.

For the first time the 2010 Grenada Sailing Festival will offer not one, but two week-ends of great sailing action. The organisers plan to take the ever popular event to a new level, and expand and grow both elements that make the Festival such a success - the international yacht racing and the traditional work boat regatta. By staging the sailing over two week-ends , the Festival will provide more interesting and challenging racing for all participating sailors; more chances to share and exchange different sailing experiences and more fun and entertainment for supporters and visitors.

For the second year running, yachts taking part in the Festival’s Port Louis Racing Series will all be able to dock at a ‘Home Port’ – Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina, the island’s newest world-class marina facility, which will have some 160 slips available for yachts of all sizes. Racing will start and finish from this base, and there will be new, longer courses, including an extended South Coast Ocean Triangle, providing more challenging racing to attract bigger yachts and the strongly competitive crews based in the Region, and provide challenging top quality racing and an early Sailing Season ‘Tune-Up’ to the international yachts visiting the Caribbean for the Winter.

As always, there will also be four days of great parties Grenadian-Style. The new-look Victory Bar at Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina will be ‘the place to be’ for Finish Line Limes, end of race Happy Hours, and a new selection of After Race Parties, including the Mount Gay Red Cap Party and Festival Farewell Prize Presentation Gala Dinner. True Blue Bay Resort’s Dodgy Dock is still on the calendar too, when the popular Festival venue hosts Monday night’s party.

Exciting sailing action continues on Saturday and Sunday 6 & 7 February when the crowd-pulling Grenada Sailing Festival Digicel Work Boat Regatta comes to Grand Anse Beach. Exciting new plans will twin this spectacular week-end of racing with the island’s Independence Celebrations to make a fun event which will be a great attraction to locals and visitors alike. There will be all-action competition on the water between the sailing communities of Carriacou, Gouyave, Grand Mal, Petite Martinique, Sauteurs and Woburn, plus great live entertainment, games and activities for the children, arts and crafts on sale, and food stalls with all the best traditional dishes on offer. Plenty of participation and action and something for everyone to enjoy.

As well as Budget Marine, the organisers would like to thank all Festival sponsors and supporters: Port Louis; Camper & Nicholsons Marinas; Digicel; the Grenada Board of Tourism; American Airlines; British Airways; Boval; Colombian Emeralds; Mount Gay Rum & Heineken with Bryden & Minors; FLOW; ScotiaBank; True Blue Bay Resort; Spice Island Marine; United Insurance; Coca Cola; Horizon Yacht Charters; Island Dreams Yacht Services; Courts; Deyna’s Tasty Foods; Grenada Electrical Contractors; Southern Electrical; Steele’s Auto Supplies and Renwick & Thompson