The bustle of race day in the harbour of Gustavia
I went in early to check us out of St. Barts as we planned to leave after the start of the first race to go to Sint Maarten. After taking my life into my hands negotiating superyachts, race dingies, superyachts dingies, spectator dingies, film crew dingies and the crush and swell at the dingy dock I arrive at the Capitainerie, shaking slightly by unscathed. Luckily the younger friendlier assistant that had visited our boat by RIB was on duty and didn’t ask for any extra paperwork though did charge us 22 Euros for anchoring two nights.
The majestic Maltese Falcon cruising the azure waters of St. Barts
There was a real party atmosphere in St. Barts though and activity everywhere, some of the boats were heading out already and there were a lot of people in crew uniforms on deck looking busy with sails etc. It really is impressive just how many crew they have on these big racing yachts. Some are old classics like the old J-class of the Americas Cup fame and others are carbon fibre fat head sail modern racers. Some just looked like luxury cruisers with such big coachouse/deck saloons you can’t imagine that they are competitive although according to the programme the organisers insist that it is the winner of the party that counts in the St. Bart’s bucket. Can’t imagine convincing someone who has spend multimillions of pounds on a yacht and a crew of 20 plus to race it that it is not the race winning that counts, but still…
Competitor yachts circling the Les Saintes rocks – the start line for the St Barts Bucket
We had by chance ended up opposite the start line on our boat so we watched them all circling, then hosting sail and finally building up speed to pass over the line to a horn from the start boat. To be honest it was very confusing at first what was going on and it was certainly sometime after 11am when the first boat started, however it was fantastic to see these enormous yachts undersail. Especially the futuristic Maltese Falcon, for whom even sail handling is automated as they are deployed on wires and the booms rotate to wind so he didn’t even have to circle round, merely hove-to but adjusting the angle of the foresail.
The last starter – ICAP racing yacht – note the large crew on deck
The start took about two hours and we left to landward of the last competitor a fantastic super racer with an amazing number of crew. We crossed the bay under motor with just the genoa up when we hooked our first fish, another barracuda and within literally 5 minutes of releasing him we had a Crevalle Jack. As we headed north to pass to the west of Ile Fourche to cross the 15 miles to Sint Maarten I saw the first of the competitors coming round the north of the island. The speed that these things travel I soon deduced that we were about to be on the race track, so decided to bear off and take us further west. We did get to see them travelling downwind with spinnakers (very large light head sails) then dousing those to turn round Ile Fourche and head back into Rade de Gustavia.
Crevalle Jack
We were also passed by another Mahe 36 on our way to St. Maarten only the second we have seen since leaving La Rochelle and the first under sail. They were obviously less excited than us and didn’t even wave. We were soon in to Simpson Bay. St. Maarten where we dropped our anchor outside the lagoon in beautiful clear blue water, surrounded on all side by hotels, this is really a different side to the Caribbean as we now head into the more touristy islands to the north west.
The St. Bart’s Bucket race rounding the Ile Fourchue
No comments:
Post a Comment