All participants in the St. David's Lighthouse or Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Divisions are encouraged to enter the Onion Patch Series, which includes the New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta June 14-15, the Newport Bermuda Race, and the RBYC Anniversary Regatta June 27.  Yachts need to register for the Onion Patch through the Bermuda Race entry system, and need to submit an endorsed IRC certificate for dual scoring under ORR and IRC in the Newport Bermuda Race. 

Yachts may compete in the Onion Patch for individual honors as well as three-boat team prizes.  This is a great opportunity to form a team from your local yacht club and compete for a prestigious international trophy.   

To do well in the Onion Patch Series a yacht does not need to win trophies in the individual races or regattas.  To become an Onion Patch winner, the yacht and her crew must demonstrate a broad range of capabilities and skills, and do consistently well through a variety of conditions and challenges.  Ultimately, the Onion Patch rewards strong, capable all-round performance: a true demonstration of a yacht's depth of performance, a crew's seamanship, and of boat handling superiority.  

Crews include family Corinthian crews competing against the professionals.  Interestingly, the more amateur crews in the smaller yachts have fared well in the past. This reflects the fact that the series is a combination of ocean racing, windward-leeward, and point-to-point around the buoys day racing, a structure that tends to level the playing field.  

The Onion Patch measures overall performance in three diverse regattas: 

• The NYYC Annual Regatta, June 14-15
• The Newport Bermuda Race, June 20
• The Anniversary Regatta of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, June 27

New for 2008 will be posting of local Bermuda crew available for Friday's races (their local knowledge will be valuable) to replace crew that have returned to the mainland before the Friday racing in Great Sound Bermuda.

Registration for the Onion Patch Series is part of the Bermuda Race registration process.  Simply fill out the Onion Patch registration form in the registration section of the Bermuda Race web site.  There is a $100 registration fee payable online for the series.  No additional paperwork is required.  Registration for the New Yorkk Yacht Club Annual Regatta and the RBYC Anniversary Regatta is at www.nyyc.org. 

See the Onion Patch web site for more information.

Questions about the series should be addressed to Onion Patch Chair Richard Shulman.