With just over two months to go, plans for Stanford Antigua Sailing Week are well underway. Entries to this annual Caribbean jamboree, which are slowly, but surely starting to filter through are expected to reach record numbers or at least topping last year’s 186 entries.

This year’s event scheduled for 29 April- 4 May marks the 40th anniversary and with extensive support by headline sponsor Stanford International Bank, Yachting World (gold sponsors), and some significant changes to the racing schedule see previous news story here the event promises to be one of the best yet.

As well as the changes to the race format, the organisers have opened the doors to multihulls which have been absent from the event for many years. According to Neil Forrester – chairman of the organising committee – there is now a serious group of racing multihulls from Guadeloupe and BVI planning to compete including a 60ft trimaran. Racing multihulls will race in Division A and cruising catamarans will race in Division B. First to sign up in multihull section is John Winter who’ll be racing Fat Cat an 80ft cruising catamaran from the USA.

Other interesting entries so far include Volvo Ocean Race winner ABN AMRO One, the Swan 60 Spirit of Jethou skippered by the owner Sir Peter Ogden and the locally-based Andrews 70 Renegade. There’ll also be an old 12m – Geronimo – from St Lucia. According to Forrester the V060 Pindar will be there, the Open 60 Artemis with skipper Jonny Malbon at the helm, plus hopefully a contingent of Class 40s from Guadeloupe. Forrester is also hoping that Titan 12 the Andrews 70 will be on the startline to defend her Yachting World Round the Island Race title, although he’s not sure if the owner, Tom Hill, will be onboard.

The other good news for competitors is that Forrester has confirmed that cumulative, rather than race-by-race, results will be available immediately after the racing.