Bacardi Miami Sailing Week is back in the Grove

One of the biggest regattas of the year is back in Coconut Grove starting Sunday, March 4, when Bacardi Miami Sailing Week returns. Five classes will be racing all week, through Saturday, March 10.

The third annual running of Bacardi Miami Sailing Week will mark several milestones starting with the 150th anniversary of the Bacardi Company, as well as the 50th year that the Bacardi Cup is being held in Miami for the storied Star class which just celebrated its own 100th anniversary.

Among the notable sailors vying for the title are 2007 winner Hamish Pepper with crew Jim Turner (New Zealand) and 2008 Olympian Peter O’Leary and David Burrows (Ireland). Three of the top-seven finishers at the 2011 Star World Championship in Australia will also compete, including 2008 world champions Mateusz Kusznierewicz and Dominik Zycki (Poland) who finished fourth in Perth, as well as Eivind Melleby and Petter Morland Pedersen (Norway) and Xavier Rohart and Pierre-Alexis Ponsot (France) who were sixth and seventh respectively. Leading the American contenders are 2009 Star World Champion George Szabo (San Diego) who will sail the Bacardi Cup with Miami’s Magnus Liljedahl, who was both world champion and winner of Olympic Gold in 2000.

Racing for the Stars gets underway on Monday, March 5. Starting on Thursday, March 8, the Stars will be joined on Biscayne Bay by sailors in the Viper 640, Audi Melges 20, and Melges 24 classes, along with the J/80 class which makes its event debut following their successful participation in the 2011 Bacardi Newport Sailing Week. Racing, for all classes, will conclude on Saturday, March 10.