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Wheeling, New Martinsville regattas bouyed by merger

Racers compete on the Ohio River at a previous Wheeling Vintage Raceboat Regatta. The event is combining with New Martinsville’s regatta in 2025. (File Photo)

WHEELING — The two biggest vintage raceboat regattas in the Ohio Valley will join forces this Labor Day weekend to provide an even bigger event along the Ohio River.

The Wheeling Vintage Raceboat Regatta will combine with the New Martinsville Regatta this year for an event in New Martinsville, Wheeling Regatta Co-Chair Debbie Joseph said.

The move was made, she said, for a couple of reasons. While the regatta has been blessed with great sponsors through the years, it had been difficult in expanding that sponsor base. Expanding the volunteer base for the event also had its difficulties.

“That’s difficult for every nonprofit and every event that’s organized today,” Joseph said.

It was near the end of last year’s Wheeling Regatta that Joseph and her husband and co-chair Dr. Dan Joseph started discussing the future of the event and floated the idea of combining with New Martinsville with a small contingent of that regatta’s board. That led to a meeting late last year with the entire New Martinsville board, which the Josephs said resoundingly agreed to take the baton.

Dan Joseph said the work the New Martinsville group had done to improve its event over the years showed how serious they were in accepting the task.

“It has been so impressive,” he said. “These guys, months and months before their next event, the group of them are out there cutting down trees, cutting branches back, filling holes where they took out tree stumps.

“We inherited Heritage Port, beautifully done,” Joseph said about the home of the Wheeling Regatta. “They’ve been building their facility year after year. That’s man hours and pure labor. You can’t put a price tag on that.”

The Wheeling Regatta will donate its equipment to the New Martinsville Regatta. The New Martinsville event also will adopt Easterseals as its beneficiary. Proceeds from the Wheeling Regatta have gone to Easterseals since the event began in 2006, with more than $115,000 raised for the organization.

Also, WesBanco has signed on as a major sponsor of the New Martinsville Regatta. It was the first sponsor for the Wheeling Regatta at that event’s inception.

The move is bittersweet for the Josephs, as the Wheeling Regatta had been a 20-year project for the couple. They first discussed in 2005 the possibility of a vintage raceboat regatta in Wheeling at Heritage Port. The first event was held in 2006 and, outside of one COVID-19 cancellation and another due to weather, it had been a Labor Day weekend staple since then, welcoming dozens of vintage raceboats each year. The Josephs have always appreciated the support that the City of Wheeling and the rest of the community has shown for the event.

New Martinsville, though, has its own storied history in the sport. The current New Martinsville Vintage Regatta takes place at the same area of the Ohio River as the original New Martinsville Regatta from 1938-2003. Numerous world speed records were set on that stretch of the river.

The Josephs said they’ll be around to help however they can for this new combined endeavor, as they want to see the New Martinsville Vintage Regatta continue to grow.

“That was always our thought, to do something to bring New Martinsville back to the prominence it had in boat racing,” Debbie Joseph said. “This event is doing that. It has the potential to surpass Wheeling and be a better event.”

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