Brent Burrows and Chris Sands made history for The Bahamas as they represented the country at Charleston Race Week 2014. The duo was accompanied by teammate Stefan Kuehn over the course of the three-day event. The team managed to come away with a third place finish in the J/22 Class; all three of the young men are members of the nationally ranked College of Charleston Sailing Team.
Charleston Race Week is North America's largest keelboat regatta, featuring hundreds of boats and thousands of sailors from all over the world. The J/22 fleet included top-notch sailors such as Aden King and Arthur Libby, and played host to extremely competitive sailing with four of the eight boats in the fleet claiming a bullet in at least one of the races.
"We were all very pleased with how we sailed as a team. It was a good feeling being able to keep with the veterans at the top of the fleet, and even finish first in a couple of races. We were a bit worried headed into the event that our lack of boat time and minimal time together as a team would hurt us - but we managed to sail a consistent series and work together well on the boat," said Burrows.
"It was a tough first day, but we posted some low numbers in days two and three to keep us at the top of the fleet. We're really looking forward to continuing to sail the J/22s and represent The Bahamas."
The Bahamian team got off to a rough first day indeed, but managed to rebound on the second day and managed to hold onto its position on the third day. They claimed two first and two second place finishes over the course of the 10 race series.
The Bahamians finished as the top charter boat, and top College of Charleston boat; they had two other boats competing.
"I couldn't be more proud of Chris Sands, Brent Burrows and their teammate, Stefan Kuehn, with their tremendous performance at Charleston Race Week. For them to jump in a boat they hadn't sailed a week before, sail in a wide range of challenging conditions against a tough & proven group of J/22 sailors, and finish a solid third is tremendous," said Director of Sailing at the College of Charleston Greg Fisher.
"They worked hard in their practice sessions before the event, and were diligent in their pre-race preparation. It had to be special for Chris, a top starter on our varsity dinghy team, and Brent, one of our best on our varsity offshore team to be able to sail together again and finish so well."
The trio said it would like to thank Mr. John Lawrence with Windermere Corporate Management for his generous support, the Bahamas Sailing Association, and Greg Fisher for his support in providing a boat.

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