Charleston Race Week concludes with final event

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)- Today was the last day of Charleston Race Week.

The award ceremony took place Sunday afternoon and crowned a winner in each class..

For a few days out of the year, Charleston becomes the center of sailing.

“The logistics of it are phenomenal,” race director, Randy Draftz said.

For this year’s race week the sailors and volunteers got to spend pre and post-races on the USS Yorktown, an addition Draftz said made a huge difference.

“This is the first year we’ve done it on the entire aircraft carrier, so it’s just been spectacular. The post-race events have been spectacular. If you can imagine 1,500 people spread out throughout the ship,” Draftz said.

Draftz says the only hiccup has been the lack of wind in the Charleston harbor.

“With all the sun and the heat, the breeze doesn’t really develop into what we call a seabreeze. The city heats up and it basically just sucks the breeze into the harbor. So both days we’ve kind of started late in the day to get racing but once it’s there it’s pretty magic,” Draftz said.

He says other than that, it was smooth sailing, and they’re already in preparation mode for next year, ready to make it even bigger and better.

“Everyone asks when do you start planning? Well, we started planning a couple of months ago. What we’ll do is take everything from this event, debrief, and make it better for next year,” Draftza said.