Get ready to party in Chester

Hosted by the Chester Yacht Club in the picturesque South-Shore Nova Scotia town of Chester in mid August each year, Chester Race Week is Canada’s largest annual keel boat regatta and plays host to more than 140 boats from up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

Many know Halifax-based Peter Wickwire as a champion J/24 skipper – he won the J/24 One Design class at Chester Race Week 2013, is Nova Scotia’s reigning J/24 champion and is the reigning CYA Canadian Match Racing Champion.

But a big win racing an International One Design (IOD) boat in Bermuda in May has him dropping his J/24 Sunnyvale for the IOD Squall for Chester Race Week 2014. “I love learning how to compete in different boats, it keeps sailing interesting,” explained Wickwire.

Wickwire is the first Canadian skipper to win the coveted Vrengen Gold Cup (14 race International One Design class) at the 2014 Bermuda International Invitational Race Week on May 3-9, hosted by the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. He is looking forward to applying his Bermuda experience during Chester Race Week, and will compete against his friend, Rick Thompson, the Bermudian who introduced Wickwire to the IOD class in Chester last year. Indeed, Wickwire’s race week boat Squall, is one of Thompson’s two IODs.

Thompson will be racing the IOD Mighty Mo and he is what’s known as a boating class “builder”, someone who advocates for and promotes the growth of a class of boat racing. “Rick is ‘Mister IOD’ both in Canada and Bermuda, and the class owes a lot to him,” Wickwire added.

Racing is August 13-16, Wednesday through Saturday, with a busy party schedule that includes two nights with music from Hopping Penguins, an epic party band that mixes reggae, soulful ska, straight ahead funk, rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Videos below…

Event website: http://www.chesterraceweek.com