Gold found in Nantucket - Sailors for the Sea

Gold found in Nantucket

 August 20, 2014  | By: Oceana

We would like to congratulate Nantucket Community Sailing for earning a Gold Level Clean Regattas certification for the running of Nantucket Race Week. This was the sixth year in a row that the event has participated in the Clean Regattas program and fifth time event organizers have reached Gold Level certification! 

An impressive achievement to say the least, but once certain Best Practices are put into place, it can be easier to just repeat them every year. For example, Nantucket Race Week requires boats do not pump any discharge overboard – to protect their coastal waters from nutrient overload. They do so by handing out dye tablets every year – for skippers to put in their holding tanks, so that if they did pump overboard – everyone would know. By educating skippers about the issues discharge can create in the past with the video below, they have raised awareness about the issue and had a consistent policy and plan from year to year.

The race also reduces its carbon footprint by integrating solar powered lights into their evening events and by having sponsor t-shirts made of recycled water bottles. Additionally, all single use service-ware used at dinners are made from compostable materials.

What is even more exciting is that Nantucket Race Week shares all of this information on their website – a great way for competitors to know about any changes ahead of the regatta – and for other race organizers to adopt these Best Practices at their event.     

And to cap off a great week of racing in Nantucket, two of our staff were lucky enough to race with Sailors for the Sea sponsor Tempus Fugit, who took second in the Sail Nantucket Regatta and Line Honors at the Opera House Cup.

To learn more about how race organizers implement best practices year after year, check out the Nantucket Race Week case study and view the Clean Regattas page on their website