Sunfish sailor Jurgen Schneider from Curaçao won the Budget Marine Cup during the fourth edition of the Aruba Rembrandt Regatta that was sailed in Aruba this weekend. 33 sailboats competed for this cup at Eagle Beach, while about 50 optimist sailors, wind surfers and kite surfers competed in their divisions as well. The sailing conditions were ideal for a close completion during the 50 races that were sailed on August 10, 11 and 12 at Eagle Beach.
On Friday, August 10, the regatta started in gale force winds with the traditional Round Aruba race that was won by the Dash from Curaçao with captain Remco van Dortmondt who had also won the 2010 race. Only three yachts could finish the Round Aruba race: Dash, Screaming Eagle and Monsoon.
On Saturday and Sunday, yachts, sunfish, beach cat, optimists, wind surfers and kite surfers competed. For those who still had energy left, there was a 5k running competition organized by ARRUWAC and a 1k and 2k swimming competition. On Saturday the sailing conditions were ideal with a strong and steady wind, on Sunday the weather changed because of the remainders of tropical depression 7: rain, gusts but also period without wind were a guarantee for surprises in the competition.
In total over 160 participants from Aruba, Curaçao, Saint Martin and the US took part in the regatta, and hundreds of people followed the competition from the beach. The regatta Beach Tennis competition was a success with about 300 participants competing for their ITF ranking. Regatta organizer Eric Mijts was especially pleased to her that several tourists told that they come to Aruba especially for the Aruba Rembrandt Regatta, according to him a good sign as this illustrates the great value of the event for Aruban tourism.
In the yachting class Dash with captain Remco van Dortmondt won the races, the second place was for the Aruban yacht Eva Luna, captained by regatta organizer Eric Mijts, and the third place was for Screaming Eagle with captain Svan Schneider. Father and daughter Martin an Nicole van de Velden grabbed the first place in the Beach Cat class, followed by Francis van Baaren and Henk Hankart. Rob and SilGrijpma came in third. Jurgen Schneider from Curaçao convincingly won the sunfish competition, the second place was for the well-known Aruban sailor Richard van der Wal and the third place was for Gareth Weber from Curaçao. Jurgen Schneider was so impressed by the regatta competition that he donated his afl. 1000 award, sponsored by Budget Marine, to the Aruban Sunfish Club.
For the second time the regatta also featured optimist completion, organized by sailing school SYWA. The first place in the optimist starter group was for Vivian Hankart, only eight year’s old, followed by Ivan Nora-Delgado and Alaxander van der Velde. The advanced optimist races were won by Matthijs de Kool, JortHartmans came in second and Nathan Winterdal was third.
PechiPechacek did a hattrick by winning the windsurfing competition for the third time in a row, beating the field with Maki Wiggins in second and Philip Kervel in third position. Ethan Westera won the pro kids wind surfing, Aron Etmon from Curaçao was second and Matthias Verploeg third. In the super kids wind surfing competition the first place was for Curaçao: Jean-Paul da Silva took the first place, Sam Keffener was second and Sjoerd Hoek third.
The organizers of the regatta look back at a successful fourth edition with a lot of international participants and good competition. About twenty volunteers have put all their energy in the success of this regatta and everybody looks forward to next year’s jubilee edition. Regatta sponsors Budget Marine, Café Rembrandt, Amstel Bright, ASD, Studio Advisory, Power Systems and ADCTRA took care of the essential financial and material support for the regatta. The results and pictures can be found at http://aruba-regatta.com .
