Tall ships!

Here we go!  We had a taste of the fast-paced sailing races the America’s Cup would bring to Bermuda’s waters during last year’s Foil Fest.  Now the full-scale sailing regatta has finally begun, kicking off with the opening ceremony on May 27th.

Josh and I were away for a football tournament over the opening weekend, but Jenn and Ryley were here to enjoy the opening festivities!  They took the ferry up to the AC (America’s Cup) Village in Dockyard for the first day of qualifier races, to check out the newly-built Village, and they stayed late for a Wyclef Jean concert – they spent about 10 hours up there!  I think the highlight for Ryley was catching a hat thrown into the crowd by an Oracle sailor, even if it is more Dad’s size… 🙂

We didn’t attend any of the racing during the first week after opening weekend; however as part of the AC there was a tall ships festival, where about 20 old ships from all over the US and Europe came to Bermuda and docked up in St. George’s, then in Hamilton.  We ended up going to St. George’s on Wednesday evening, and then caught them again in Hamilton on Saturday and were able to see most of the 20+ ships over both visits.  The kids were given little ‘passports’ which were stamped by each ship we visited; a good amount of them were open to have the public board to have a look around, it was pretty cool, there were some amazing boats here.

Flying boats

We spent the afternoon on the 2nd Saturday (June 3rd) up at the AC Village, Josh and I were keen to get up there to see what all the hype was about!  I have to say I am pretty impressed with what they have done up there, everything is (surprisingly) well organized from transport to the Village itself, it all looks and operates pretty well with plenty of huge-screen displays to watch the racing and speakers throughout the village to hear the commentating.  Guess these guys know what they are doing!  While there we saw four races in between tracking down the kids in the kids’ play area (!), all in all a great day.

Our next opportunity to experience the AC firsthand was today, as Ryley’s choir was performing in the Village (they did great)!  We thought it would be a good idea to make the most of the day so we took the afternoon off work as well and afforded ourselves a next-level experience with tickets to the Longtail Lounge, one of the main spectator venues with prime views of the finish line in the Village.  Despite getting the first rain we’ve had in a month, it was a great afternoon – we were under cover / inside after all, with drinks (like little bottles of champagne) and food included!  We were surprised at the end of the racing to find that the actual AC trophy was being displayed for about a half hour in the lower level, so we rushed down to get a selfie with the oldest prize in international sport and it’s fancy box. 🙂

Stay tuned for more updates / pictures as we have plenty more AC outings planned over the coming weeks!