Rob Melotti Reports on a Weekend of High-performance Sailing at the Biggest Regatta in the Caribbean
Bearing away at the windward mark, off Anse Marcel at the northern tip of St Martin (French side), it was a relief to finally relax my grip on the guardrail, as the deck of the Volvo 70 SFS II returned to the horizontal for the first time in nearly an hour. For the second time in two days I found myself at the windward end of the Anguilla Channel, the five-mile wide wind funnel that separates steep-sided St Maarten from low-lying Anguilla. The previous day, with just seven others aboard R-Six, a 66ft luxury carbon catamaran, I had been free to roam across the entire expanse of the vast deck, trampoline and saloon. In contrast, squeezed onto the rail with 20 others aboard SFS II, I had spent most of the day hanging on for dear life at extreme angles of heel. R-Six was the yacht I had been looking forward to racing for weeks, but the Volvo 70 I will never forget.
Now in its 37th year, the annual St Maarten regatta, lavishly sponsored by Heineken, is a four-night music festival on top of a weekend of great sailing. This year’s event saw 164 yachts across the maxi class, three multihull classes, seven Caribbean Sailing Association (CSA) handicap classes, three bare boat classes, the Melges 24s, the lottery class and an ocean racer class for former Volvo yachts. Following on three weeks after the RORC Caribbean 600 and finishing a week and a half before the start of St Barth’s Bucket, the St Maarten Heineken claims to be the largest warm-water regatta in the world (although numbers are down on the 250-plus boats it attracted a decade ago). But what draws so many yachts to this uniquely crowded Caribbean crossroad?
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2017 من Yachting World.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2017 من Yachting World.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Nikki Henderson- Want to be a better skipper? think like an instructor
Recently I was fortunate enough to find myself on the bow during a race. Well, I thought it was fortunate but appreciate that sentiment could be up for debate... I don’t get so much opportunity to play on the pointy end these days. It was fun!I was readying the symmetric spinnaker for a bear away set. Having just fed the sheet and guy around to the starboard side and under the jib, I was bracing myself in some sort of yoga-starfish position. Right foot braced on a stanchion, left foot on the pulpit, my core muscles just about keeping me upright as I rolled the lines around to make sure they weren’t twisted before attaching them to the clew.
NIKKI HENDERSON
WHERE DO YOU FIND HANDY BILLY WHEN YOU NEED HIM?
MATTHEW SHEAHAN
IS OLYMPIC SAILING ACTUALLY HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION AS A SHOWCASE OF THE SPORT FOR BOTH COMPETITORS AND SPECTATORS?
Building fleet for Baltic Sea Race
The second edition of the Roschier Baltic Sea Race, a 635-mile race out of Helsinki, Norway, saw varied conditions and a new benchmark course time set.
New cruising charter 'Odyssey'
Charter company Dream Yacht has launched a new round the world supported cruising programme for yacht owners which draws on the company's extensive network of charter bases.
Mixed fortunes at Marseille
The Paris 2024 sailing regatta saw mixed fortunes for many favourites - some confirming their dominance, others crashing out as variable winds played havoc.
The yacht Bayesian
Bayesian is one of Italian yard Perini Navi's 56m series, originally named Salute.
Seven dead in superyacht sinking
Seven people are dead following the sinking of the superyacht Bayesian, a 56m/184ft British-flagged Perini Navi, off the coast of Sicily.
5 EXPERT TIPS HELENA DARVELID ON MULTIHULL CONTROL
Performance multihull racing is growing hugely in popularity. Helena Darvelid shares some key learnings with Andy Rice
PALMA'S FUN FACTOR
FUN ON AND OFF THE WATER IS AN UNBEATABLE COMBINATION AT THE SUPERYACHT CUP PALMA, WRITES PHIL RILEY