Junior sailors revel in Mayreau Fun Day

The Mayreau Junior Sailors hosted their 2025 Fun Day on Monday, in which 39 junior sailors from St. Vincent, Bequia and Mayreau demonstrated their skills.

The sailors, aged 8 to 27, participated In three classic races in Saline Bay: a round-the-island race; a sail, capsize, bail and sail race; and a number of other fun races.

This full day of activity was part of the 2025 St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sailing Week.

“It was absolutely delightful to see such a vibrant junior sailors club on Mayreau now, particularly after their clubhouse and most of their fleet of boats were decimated by Hurricane Beryl last July,” President of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sailing Association, Jenny Trumble, said.

“I was overjoyed to see 24 Mayreau sailors aged 8 to 18 compete in the Optimist boats, locally known as box boats. This bodes well for the future of their club, along with the 7 more experienced sailors who compete in FJs and Sunfish.”

Kai Dasent-Marks, 14, of St. Vincent, dominated the classic Optimist boat races, coming in first in all three.

His teammate, Joshua Weinhardt, 13, took two seconds and a third and Drake Gooding, 15, of Bequia, took one second and one third.

In the round-the-island race, featuring FJs and Sunfish boats, Joshua Osborne, 21, of St. Vincent in one of the Mayreau FJ boats, led the pack with Kai Marks-Dasent and Weinhardt as crew. Stephon Forde, 25, captained the Mayreau crew who placed 2^nd in a Mayreau FJ, with Kenny Jr. Forde, 16, and Jeremiah Forde, 15, while third place was taken by Norfrick Baptiste with his Mayreau crewmate Samarah Forde, 20, in a Sunfish.

“It really was a pleasure to host sailors from St. Vincent and Bequia here on Mayreau,” President of the Mayreau Junior Sailors, Helen Forde, said.

“Our young people really cherish continuing our tradition of sailing and enjoy competing with young sailors from other islands.”