I was lucky enough to get on a boat for the Antigua Classic Regatta last week. The vessel in question is Nordwind, built in Germany 1939, she is 85ft long and a pretty nice piece of history.
The crew on the boat was quite a mix, with nine different nationalities featuring in the crew of eleven. The racing was fun, with over 50 classic yachts ranging in size from 26ft to 203ft, all sailing around just offshore from the entrance to English Harbour.
We got third in our division, so we were happy, but unless you win there is always the view that you could have done better. But I had a blast so I am happy!
As a side note, Duran Duran made an appearance for the regatta. They did a film clip for one of their songs in the 80's in English Harbour, on a yacht called Eilean. Since then, she went a little unloved and fell into disrepair, until a couple of years ago where it was shipped to Italy and brought back to life. She made her homecoming debut at this regatta and there was a big who-har about it.
As for Nordwind, they leave for Newport RI in the coming weeks before taking on the North West Passage (goes over the top of America from Nova Scotia to Vancouver). In doing so they will become the oldest yacht ever to complete this, as well as one of the only yachts to circumnavigate the American Continent, having rounded Cape Horn a few years ago. So good luck to them!
I would like to thanks Hans and Alex for giving me the chance to sail on Nordwind, she is a lovely boat and still has plenty of miles left in her!
Ears: Duran Duran - Rio
The filmclip filmed in the area in the 80's, this is not the norm on a boat!
Me
Hernan
Hans, Alex and Myself
Toto on trim.
Essential in the Caribbean
Morning
Tuiga
Nordwind
Elena
Coral of Cowes
Pigeon beach
Elena
Happy Hans
Happier Valentine
Trying for the speed blur, it was a bit too sunny though.
Tuiga chasing
Tuiga on the hip
Elena
Crew Photo
Duran Duran, not sure what you think; but I think Roger may be in the middle of some relief here......
We came across this little festival purely by chance.
During a taxi ride home from St. John's last week we had a discussion about what there is to do on the island. After being here for around four months, we kind of said we had done everything worth doing;
Cabby - "Have you been to Half Moon Bay?"
Me - "Yeah"
C - What about Zip Lining?
M - Yeah, we have pretty much done everything on the island.
C - Oh, so you have done Devil's Bridge
M - No
C - It is really incredible and one of the best things on the island to see!!
M - Cool, I will check it out on the weekend.
The reason we hadn't already been to Devil's Bridge was because we had heard it was pretty average, but I wasn't going to say that to old mate!
So over the easter long weekend we did have a car for a few days, and with the idea of going to Stingray City we did make our way over the east coast of the island. However we bailed on the stingrays after realising we had missed the last boat for it, and as we were in the area thought we may as well check out one of Antigua's wonders.
Going down this dirt road there seemed to be a lot of traffic, so I was getting a little excited to think it was actually something impressive. It was, just not in the natural way I was expecting.
The photo's below probably tell the rest of the story. But I did enjoy watching many fathers trying to teach their sons how to fly a kite, with the kids having no interest or a very short attention span to the task. Then there were other guys just enjoying the moment with no one around them........ It's the simple things I guess.
The St. Barth's Bucket is probably the biggest superyacht regatta of the Caribbean Season (actually I can't really think of any bigger regatta's anywhere in the world to be honest). We we one of the 48 boats to take part in it this year and it was definitely a highlight of my time on the boat so far! The regatta is held over three days, with one race each day, roughly 23-26nm in length. Once again it was a handicap start, and we were unlucky enough to be one of the last boats to start each day (usually over an hour after the first boat had started!).
Each day the course was different, the three courses being, "Around the Island", "Other way around the Island" and the "Wiggly Course" which took us winding around a number of offshore rocks and reefs just north of St. Barth's.
Once again was a trimmer and I definitely enjoyed every minute of it, even if it was a bit full on at times! There was one run we did off the start line on the second day with the Genoa up for 20 or so minutes where we averaged well over 16kn on the leg. It was especially cool having Josh to call my trim for this leg, the two of us being the only people on the leeward side of the boat while she punched through the water at mach 10.
Overall it was an awesome week of sailing, with steady breeze between 12 and 20+ knots, some good close racing and plenty of smiles.
I was planning on making a video of the week, and had some awesome footage thanks to Mark, Alexis, Cam et al. However a little accident with my hard drive hitting the floor has pretty much meant that footage is no more, at least until I get somewhere a bit more technically advanced than Antigua. So for now some photos will have to do.
Ears: The Mountain Goats
Really impressive clip I think.
Thanks to Hannah who did take most of these photos......
Casper, Willsy, Fede, Mario and myself.
The view I had on said 16kn reach.
Jim
Afterguard
Rail
Marie crossing ahead, just.
Mark of the course
Kite hoist
Paolo calling kite trim
Hurry up!
Me on layline trim....... Tony overseeing?
Simone.
Alexis at home
Grande Lexi!
Gordon and Casper
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Casper in action
Salperton
Federico
Josh
Line-up, when you think that the average size of these boats would be over 140ft it is quite impressive.
Kite drop = game faces
Our navigator Prof in the office.
Federico
Yours truly
Simone
Foredeck
Crew Photo: Made up of Italians, Kiwi's, Poms, Aussies, French and a Uruguayan!
