A Great Start to Key West Race Week

By Kelly Stannard

Key West has been kind to me so far. All around I’ve had a wonderful time down here. Racing is exciting and close, and the social scene has also been a blast. I must say I’m incredibly lucky that Bora (Gulari) and the team asked me to come down to crew with them in the regatta. Everyone on the team has been great and supportive when it comes to getting me up to speed and teaching me what I need to know to about sailing a Melges 24. I've even acquired a new nick name... Biscuit. I’ve grown to become quite fond of.

It helps when you are learning from the best. I can’t think of a better way to spend the week before my last semester of senior year starts.

We’ve had terrific finishes. We have five bullets in the first five races! It doesn’t get any better than that. Yesterday the forecast came through as promised with excellent breeze for day one. The team was pumped to get out there and get racing after the few days of practice. We flew out of the gate sprinting and pulled in two first place finishes. We won racing for the day and were able to edge out our closest competition, Blu Moon. Our sponsors, North Sales, West Marine Rigging, and New England Ropes, have also played a key role in our success.

Today, the breeze was a little lighter than yesterday and much warmer. Tomorrow’s forecast doesn’t look ideal, so the race committee made the decision to push the start time an hour forward and we sailed three races today. I was thankful for the warmer weather and was able to just wear shorts, which I haven’t had the luxury to do since day one of practice. It allowed for me to get some sort of tan on my pale New England winter skin, well maybe more like a slight sunburn but I’m not complaining.

Follow all the action this week in "the Keys" on the event website.