Burton Beach Invitational Regatta (BBIR) is the largest junior regatta in the NW besides Regionals. Hosted by Burton Beach rowing club this regatta is held at the Jensen Point Park on the Burton Peninsula. Address is: 8900 SW Harbor Drive, Burton, WA. This regatta is designed to be an "athlete centered" regatta – primarily small boat races, with a schedule that should allow for our rowers to race in many reasonable combinations. This year, BBIR is by INVITATION ONLY. The coaches will select the rowers and will send an invitation for participation in this regatta based on the seats available in each boat entered to race. Please note that, athletes and parents are responsible for their own transportation to and from the venue and for making their own lodging arrangements. A small fee will be collected, and some snacks will be purchased for use on race day. However, no cooking or other food will be provided so parents will be responsible for feeding their rowers breakfast, lunch and dinner. There are many good coffee shops and restaurants in the Vashon town center.
No matter where you are coming from, whether it’s from Tacoma, or Seattle, you’ll need to catch a ferry to get onto the island. The team is planning on spending the night in Takoma on Saturday, March 21st. Once your rower is invited you need to book your hotel for March 21st in the Tacoma area. On Sunday morning we are planning on catching the Point Defiance Ferry at 5:55 am. You don't need to book for that one in advance, but I would suggest arriving at Point Defiance by 5:40 am. We will need to allow enough time to rig and prepare boats for racing. Normally the boats run on schedule, so plan accordingly. Here’s the ferry location: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Point+Defiance/@47.3060017,-122.5164022,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x549053a251e8967f:0xcf08fa43116509e0!2sPoint+Defiance+-+Tahlequah,+Washington!3b1!8m2!3d47.3197856!4d-122.5121937!3m4!1s0x549053774356b54f:0x4408050c7b4ba7d8!8m2!3d47.3060017!4d-122.5142135
If you decide to come from West Seattle, you need to catch the Fauntleroy ferry at 5:10 am.
The Coach/Information meeting will be at 6:45am in the park where we will learn about safety, racing rules, the warm-up/cool down pattern, beach launching etc. The course is only 1500m long, which will give us an opportunity to allow rowers to race in multiple races.
The regatta will end at around 2:50 pm on Sunday, March 22nd. We need to prepare the boats and equipment for traveling and after that we will be able to leave. There’s a ferry leaving Tahlequah every hour. Last ferry is at 10:55 pm, but perhaps we can all try to catch the 5:00 pm ferry. Here’s the schedule: https://www.wsdot.com/ferries/schedule/scheduledetailbyroute.aspx?route=pd-tal
We are excited to add this new regatta to the ORU spring schedule.