ZEMI FORM MEETS FUNCTION

MALCOLM MCKEON DELIGHTS IN THE CHANCE TO RACE HIS OWN DESIGN BALTIC 110 ZEMI AT THE ST BARTHS BUCKET.

- SAM FORTESCUE

Sailors make a beeline for the tiny Caribbean island of St Barth every March to join one of the most hotly anticipated events in the superyacht racing calendar. The Bucket Regatta is legendary for its sailing and socialising, but imagine taking part on a boat you'd actually drawn yourself. Well, for the renowned yacht designer Malcolm Mckeon, this is no mere fantasy.

"I think I've been going to the Bucket Regatta for almost 20 years," he told us. "Sailing conditions are ideal for racing superyachts with interesting courses around the outlying islands. For most of those Buckets, I've had the pleasure to race on yachts I designed. I'm quite often invited on the newly launched yachts as I've already built up a relationship with the client."

This year was no exception, as Mckeon was invited back by the proud new owner of 110ft Zemi, delivered by Baltic Yachts late last summer. It was only the second outing on the racecourse for a high-performance bluewater cruiser that Mckeon had conceived with a marked turn of speed and a full carbon fibre layup. And like many of the big yachts on the Caribbean circuit, she'd participated in the Superyacht Challenge in Antigua just one week earlier.

"I'd have already been aboard for the final sail trials - so it's not as if I haven't been on the boat before," says Mckeon. "Joining a client aboard their yacht after delivery is more a social thing, really. But it's nice to see how the boats compete on the racetrack and how well they are sailed. You certainly get a much better feel for how the boat performs than on sail trials - I suppose the sail trials are more about making sure that, within reason, the boat performs as per the design and as intended. But once you start racing, it's more about fine-tuning performance."