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Last Updated: May 15, 2017 - 2:08:16 PM |
Resorts World Bimini hosts its first Offshore Powerboat Competition
BIMINI, Bahamas: The spotlight was on Bimini April 28 – 29 for the first annual Offshore Powerboat Competition. It was a beautiful weekend that saw 16 fast powerboats gracefully glide across the deep blue Bimini seas.
The thrilling event which brought thousands of participants, families and fans to Bimini was a partnership between Resorts World Bimini, The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism (BMOT) and The Bahamas Ocean Sports Authority (BOSA). In conjunction with the Offshore Powerboat Association (OPA). The competition is also scheduled to appear on NBC Sports Network TV on the East Coast, the Midwest and on the West Coast.
The competition was set on the legendary Resorts World Bimini property and 16 powerboats travelled from across the world to contend in a competition that was held outside of the United States, for the first time.
As fans gathered to watch the race from the best seat in the house, the Beach Club restaurant, competitors were preparing for an unpredictable race.
Prior to the race, Karl Steger, a driver for 2nd Amendment Powerboat team said when competing in a new place, expectations are often jumbled.
“Obviously being in another country, we don’t know what to expect in terms of water conditions, weather, the wind, all of those things take effect in how we compete in our class so we really don’t know what to expect. We hope for the best and we prepared for it and we hope to do well. We have high expectations for this race,” Steger said.
Steger like all the competitors planned to win but if he didn’t win would revel in the fact that he was in Bimini.
“The hotel is beautiful, the marina is beautiful, the waters are beautiful and at the end of the day, if we lose, we’re still here in Bimini. I brought my wife of two years and my son that is two years old and my sister to watch him and my mother in law to watch her down here to enjoy the entire experience. We extended our trip for another two days beyond our work experience to just enjoy Bimini and figure out what’s going on down here and just be like the people that are from Bimini,” he said.
Chris Barrett and David Defederico of Liquid Courage and Class 6 Winners expressed their gratitude that the race was held in The Bahamas.
“The weather separates The Bahamas from other places we’ve competed in. This place is paradise, my boat this morning wouldn’t go into forward gear as we left the dock and I thought to myself I’m not going to be able to race but then I said to myself, ‘It’s okay I’m in The Bahamas,” Barrett said.
His partner, David said the water was indeed a winning factor for the competition but it was the love they received he enjoyed more.
“The water was a big factor but most of all the people on this island, they just embraced us and said ‘Thank you, we want more,’” David said.
Johnny and Jason Saris of Saris Racing and the winners of Class 4 echoed the sentiments of their competitors.
“The Bahamas is prettier to compete in than anywhere else. With the backdrop of Bimini and Resorts World, it literally can’t get any better than that. But once the green flag goes up, it’s the same. It was a really interesting race course they had set up. But when you stop and you look around and you look at the beach, you look at the beautiful resort, the atmosphere and you think, wow I get to be in Bimini after this instead of I get to be wherever else that helps,” Johnny said.
Jason agreed that the race remains the same but Bimini is special.
“The race is the race, the ocean is the ocean although the water is much prettier down here, other than that the waves are the same. But after the race is over, the hospitality here is over the top, everybody has been so welcoming, so nice to us and it’s been an absolute pleasure to be here,” he said.
Edward Smith, President of the Offshore Powerboat Association (OPA) said being sponsored by Resorts World Bimini assisted majorly.
“The biggest benefit to it is being involved with a company as big as Resorts World, in any motorsport or type of sport. Sponsorship is huge and when you get a name like that attached to what we’re doing it helps us in all our other sites, in promotion and sponsorships,” he said.
The other side of it is to have an international race site where we’re actually out of our own country and bringing everything here is a big bonus for us. It’s beautiful, yesterday we had our boat in the water, we were just running some practice laps and we just stopped down at the end of the race course, got out of our boat and we were just lying on the deck, it was so beautiful.”
The results of the 2017 Resorts World Bimini Grand Prix are as follows: Super Stock – 1st S-1 FJ Propeller, 2nd S-55 Nick’s Creative Marine, 3rd S-12 Specialty Marine and 4th S-111 WSB Parts. Super Vee Lite – 1st 9 Phantom 9. Class 2: 1st 1 AMH Construction/Instigator. Class 3: 1st 302 2nd Amendment, 2nd V6 Strictly Business, 3rd V1 Wazzup Racing. Class 4: 1st 441 Saris Racing, 2nd 455 Nick’s Creative Marine and 3rd 424 Kinetic Animation. Class 5: 1st 518 RUFSTR Racing, 2nd 512 Specialized Racing, 3rd 513 Wazzup II. Class 6: 1st 671 Liquid Courage.
Hotels see 100% occupancy thanks to Bimini Powerboat Race
The first ever Bimini Offshore Powerboat Competition was a complete success and attracted thousands of guests to the islands. Donna Mackey, Senior Manager of Sales for BMOT said the competition made a significant impact on the island.
“There are several impacts of this grand Prix, we have the immediate effect of the hotel being 100 per cent occupancy both nights, we have golf carts rental, restaurants, increase volume of fuel being sold for the weekend so the community was impacted in a very wonderful economic way this week,” Mackey said.
With the competition airing on NBC Sports, Mackey hopes that the opportunity brings an immediate effect to The Bahamas.
“The long-term exposure through our NBC episode will also help us to raise the awareness and inspire visitors to want to come to The Bahamas from areas like Atlanta, New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Dallas. Those areas are the areas where this show will be screened and we so we hope to get the effects immediate of the monies in the economy and the secondary effect of visitors being inspired to come to The Islands of The Bahamas,” she said.
According to Vince Angelo, the General Manager of Resorts World Bimini although it’s hard to estimate the amount spent per person, the hotel was sold out on the weekend.
“The Hilton was sold out on Friday and Saturday night, the food and beverage sales were solid, as you would expect all weekend long based on the number of people. It’s hard to estimate spend per person but our F&B sales were in line with what we would expect with this many people on the island at the Hilton,” Angelo said.
Roger Berkon of Bahamas Ocean Sports Authority said this event is propelling the island of Bimini forward and will be back next year.
“Best of my knowledge, it’s been a tremendously successful event, it’s been a lot of fun, we’ve had no complaints, everyone can’t wait until the second annual. Bimini needs activity and we can’t rely on our history in Bimini, we have to move forward and this event I think is moving the whole island of Bimini forward and I’m very proud of the work that everybody put in. It was a huge team, a very large team of Resorts World Bimini, the village people in Bimini and everyone that had anything to do with the event so I’m very happy,” he said.
“We had 16 boats come and the reason we had only 16 boats was a logistical situation where all of us had a very steep learning curve on this event. This was the first annual, the corporate people, the people who make the decisions have decided there will be a second annual, we’re going to expand it up to 40 boats for next year and we’re all very excited.”
© Copyright 2017 by thebahamasweekly.com
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