Panerai Hosts Opera House Cup

Panerai Hosts Opera House Cup

The second event of the North American Panerai Classic Yachts Challenge circuit wrapped up on Sunday in Nantucket, MA. Winning the prestigious Opera House Cup trophy and a Panerai 8-day Radiomir timepiece was local contender Equus, from the Spirit of Tradition class, owned by Wendy Schmidt.

This year’s regatta, which consisted of 56 boats from four different racing classes, marks the 39th Annual Opera House Cup held in Nantucket, which started in 1973 after a group of local sailors sitting in the legendary Opera House restaurant decided they needed to host a regatta for classic single-hulled wooden sailboats. Restaurant owner Gwen Gaillard handed them a champagne bucket as a trophy, which is still used today. This highly-anticipated event attracts some of the world’s most beautiful sailing vessels and affords the owners and crews an opportunity to enjoy the Island’s elegant hospitality and its beautiful surroundings.

Sponsored by OfficinePanerai for the seventh consecutive year, the event is hosted by the Nantucket Yacht Club, GreatHarbor Yacht Club and the Nantucket Race Week Committee to benefit Nantucket Community Sailing.  This year Panerai brought the iconic life-saving ship Nantucket Lightship into the harbor to host a private event to kick off the Opera House Cup in support of Massachusetts GeneralHospitalCancerCenter, and its affiliate Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

The event also served to officially launch a new charity tie-in to the Panerai Classic Yachts Challenge, Sailing Heals, a recently launched non-profit organization which provides days of healing and respite on the water for patients and their care-givers who are going through, or are in recovery from, cancer treatments.

The final leg of the Panerai Classic Yachts Challenge North American Circuit is the Museum of Yachting Classic Yacht Regatta (September 2nd – 4th in Newport, RI).