Bequia Easter Regatta 2008 - Caribbean Compass

APRIL 2008 CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 14
REGATTA
NEWS
Sunshine and Swans Love Budget Marine
Valentine’s Regatta
The 16th Annual Budget Marine Valentines Regatta
held February 16th and 17th saw 20 boats racing in
four classes in perfect weather on the outskirts of Five
Islands Harbour, located next to Jolly Harbour,
Antigua. Jolly Harbour Yacht Club once again hosted
the regatta, which was sponsored for the 16th year by
Budget Marine Caribbean Chandleries. “The boats,
including three big Swans who promise to return with
friends, were a tremendous sight, and the thought of
up to six Swans battling it out next year is awesome.”
reports JHYC Commodore Brian Turton.
The Club’s Youth Development Programme was
helped with EC$2,000 raffle money raised during the
Regatta Evening, which over 200 people attended at
Jolly Harbour Golf Club. JHYC, already working with
the Junior Achievers Club, is now actively involved
with the Antigua Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme
with plans to take children to Guadeloupe and
Barbuda this spring.
In Racing One Class, a battle was fought between
the two Swan 56s Deneb and Albireo. The crews rep-
resented the talent of Antigua (Stan Pearson/Neil
Forrester on Deneb) and that of Guadeloupe (Albireo
was skippered by John Burnie). The racing never
lacked excitement, and the local crowd was delighted
by the Antigua win.
In Racing Two Class, Shawn Malone on Likkle Hugo
won over Bernie Wong’s High Tension b-mobile and
Sven Harder’s Flying Tiger. In constant close combat in
Cruising Class, Colin Jones’ Cydia took the honours.
However, the most competitive class was Cruiser
Racer Class in which very close and mixed results produced
an unlikely winner for those who believe that
races are won by equipment and not by sailing skills.
The ten-boat class included many modern designs
with carbon sails, carbon masts and the newest
equipment. But the winner was a long-keel boat with
an aluminum mast and sails past sell-by date, made
by a little-known sailmaker. The class and overall winner
was the Rhodes Bounty (41 feet long with a
27-foot waterline) Sunshine, whose skilled crew and
skipper Hans Lammers repeated previous regatta
wins. Second in this class was Geoffrey Pidduck in Biwi
Magic, and Rick Gormley, the modest sailor from Jolly
Harbour with only a few years of racing under his belt,
came in third on Elethea.
Three races were run on each day, giving a total of
six to count. All races were windward-leeward with an
offset buoy. Race officer Stephen Parry from the
Solent directed the racing, and Will Rudd would have
done the protests if there had been any. Brian Turton
‘The Swans… were a tremendous sight, and the thought of up to six Swans battling it out next year is awesome’
led an onshore events team that produced lively parties.
At the prizegiving, Budget Marine Sponsor spokesman
Robbie Ferron explained how Budget Marine was
particularly enthused to sponsor racing that is constantly
interesting, challenging and still easily manageable
for Caribbean sailors.
JODY SALLONS-DAY
Double Bullets Hit Target in Budget Marine
Commodore’s Cup
As a prelude to the 28th St. Maarten Heineken
Regatta, the Commodore’s Cup race filled seven classes
with 47 boats and kicked off the Heineken action on
February 6th, in St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles.
In staunch easterly winds of 25 knots, the sailing was
spirited and images memorable. There was Elandra,
the Beneteau First 40.7, wiping out at the leeward
mark and struggling with a spinnaker takedown as
many of her competitors slipped past, and MAD IV,
the Grand Soleil 50, suffering the same mishap with
her kite flailing away at the masthead. No one who
saw it will forget the sight of the Melges 24 French
Connection in a near-knockdown with her big red
asymmetric spinnaker in the water as her crew scrambled
to windward to try and get her back upright!
But no crew had more of a handful than the team
aboard the J/109 Vrijgezeilig, which faced not one
but two fire drills: a spinnaker that exploded into three
sections and, worse, a man-overboard situation when
a crewman went into the drink after yet another
broach. Happily, the soaked sailor was swiftly recovered
and Vrijgezeilig resumed racing.
In order to keep the carnage to a minimum, the
race committee chose to conduct a pair of races,
rather than the three originally scheduled. Typically,
before and after the brief, passing squalls, there were
patches of light air and holes in the breeze, with plenty
of opportunities for substantial gains for savvier crews.
Several teams proved they were at the top of their
games, winning their respective divisions with a pair of
victories: in Spinnaker 1 Benny Kelly’s TP 52, Panthera,
stood atop the field with consecutive bullets; in
Spinnaker 2, Clay Deutsch’s perennial campaigner,
the Swan 68 Chippewa, matched the performance
with a straight-set victory. Carlo Falcone’s plywood
rocket, Caccia Alla Volpe, won the 11-boat Spinnaker
3 class with a first and a second. Arnaud de Meillac’s
A40, sailing styl’caraibes, recorded the same score to
win Class 4, narrowly beating Sergio Sagramoso’s
Beneteau 40.7, Lazy Dog. In other action, the division
winners in the remaining three Commodore’s Cup
classes were also decided by crews who posted a
pair of victories: Robert Armstrong’s J/100 Bad Girl in
Spinnaker 5; Clive Llewellyn’s MAD IV in Spinnaker 6;
and Ian Hope-Ross’s Beneteau First 36s7 Kick ‘em
Jenny in Spinnaker 7.
World Champion Wins Inaugural Casa De Campo
Sponsor Challenge
Showing the match race skill that led to his being
crowned as the reigning World Champion, Team
Pindar’s Ian Williams from Great Britain has won the
Dominican Republic’s first Casa de Campo
Sponsor Challenge.
Ian and his team of Denis Cartier, Sue Harvey and
Mick Byrne bested US Virgin Islands native and Alinghi
alumnus Peter Holmberg in an exciting first-to-threepoints
series held on February 15th in the harbor at the
Casa de Campo Resort. Also assisting Ian in the practice
rounds were Jim Read, Jose Rodriguez, and
Eduardo Otero. These six and six others racing with
Holmberg attended a match race clinic in the morning
held at the Casa de Campo Yacht Club, then followed
theory with practice out in the club’s J/24s.
While the scores went three-to-one in Williams’ favor,
the racing was close throughout as these two veterans
of the World Match Racing Tour sparred in a tight
course area set by PRO Pete Lawson and his team at
the mouth of the Casa de Campo Marina. Conditions
were perfect with shifty eight- to 12-knot tradewinds
providing plenty of opportunity for close action. This
action was a little too close at times, with collisions
occurring between boats, rocks and marks.
—Continued on next page