Event Briefing
Just so darn good (and every single time)
Pinnacle regatta, marquee event, premier race series, you choose... but Sperry Charleston Race Week sort of crept up on the international racing scene and now it's impossible to overlook
When you put a boast out there, you’d better back it up. And that’s just what the people who are behind Sperry Charleston Race Week, the largest multiclass gathering in North America, do. For the better part of the past decade, they’ve billed their event as “a regatta unlike any other.” Fortunately, the claim rings true. Race Week, as locals refer to it, has evolved to become a fixture on the US sailing scene. For four days in early spring. Competitors from throughout the US and around the globe make an annual pilgrimage to this coastal city in the southeast. During the day, it’s top-level competition with some of the world’s best racers competing. Off the water, it’s equal parts mad party and sailing industry conference. Think Mardi Gras meets Dussel-Boot meets Cowes Week, but on an intimate scale.
This April, Race Week will 76 SEAHORSE
celebrate its 25th edition, and the organisers have every intention of commemorating their silver anniversary in fitting style. In part, that means living up to the reputation they’ve established for regatta innovation.
In past editions, the organisers representing Charleston Ocean Racing Association have introduced new classes (RS 21s and M32 multihulls in 2019), new formats (pursuit and hybrid-pursuit courses in recent years) and novel entertainment aspects, including a late-afternoon pro-am competition. This year, longtime event director Randy Draftz and his volunteer corps have a few additional twists in store. For starters, the event will serve double duty as the ORC North American Trophy regatta, as well as a pre-Worlds tune-up for the Melges 24 Class - the 2020 M24 Worlds takes place here two weeks later.
Above: Sperry
Charleston Race Week features a four-day programme of top-level competition in large fleets and draws some of the world’s most talented
professional sailors as well as a very high standard of amateur competitors
‘Each year in the off-season,’ says Draftz, ‘our steering committee tweaks the programming so that we offer additional value for our participants. I think regulars at Race Week expect that because we’ve done it for over 20 years. A lot of the people who compete here know that we make every decision with the competitors’ interests in mind. That outlook is essentially embedded in the DNA of this regatta.’
Draftz isn’t just paying lip service to this notion. In 1998, after the regatta’s third edition, the organisers opted to move Race Week from mid- July to mid-April to take advantage of more consistent seabreezes at that time of year. They were also seeking to diversify the entries by attracting racing yachts that characteristically migrate from the Caribbean up the Eastern Seaboard at that time. And, in the early 2000s, the organisers intentionally froze entry fees for
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