The 15th annual Village Cup Regatta, a friendly competition between Mather Hospital and the Village of Port Jefferson, will set sail on Saturday, September 7, 2024.
Presented by the Port Jefferson Yacht Club in partnership with the Village of Port Jefferson, the Regatta raises funds for Mather Hospital’s Palliative Medicine Program and the Lustgarten Foundation, the largest private funder of pancreatic cancer research in the world.
Last year’s Regatta raised more than $100,000, which was divided between Mather Hospital and the Lustgarten Foundation. The event has raised almost $960,000 over 14 years and is poised to reach $1 million in donations this year.
The Regatta consists of Yacht Club-skippered sailboats divided into two teams representing Mather Hospital and the Village of Port Jefferson. Employees from the Hospital and Village, along with village residents, help crew the boats, which race in one of three classes based on boat size.
The festivities begin in Harborfront Park in Port Jefferson Village at 10:00 am, where you can purchase shirts, commemorative hats, nautical bags and mugs. The Memorial Parade of Boats begins at 11:00 am at the Port Jefferson Village dock. All sailboats participating in the Regatta will pass by the park dressed in banners and nautical flags on their way out to the racecourse on Long Island Sound.
Following the Regatta, a celebratory Skipper’s Reception and presentation of the Village Cup will take place in a restored 1917 shipyard building that today serves as the Port Jefferson Village Center.
To sign up as a crew member for the Mather Hospital team, contact Cindy Court at 631-476-2723 or ccourt1@northwell.edu.
To sign up as a crew member for the Port Jefferson Village team, contact Sylvia at 631-473-4724, extension 219 or email clerk@portjeff.com.
The Yacht Club initiated the Regatta primarily to call attention to and support efforts to combat pancreatic cancer, which had claimed the lives of two of its members.