St Maarten Heineken Regatta - Overall
by Dick Johnson 5 Mar 2006 23:14 GMT
3-5 March 2006
No wind on the final day of the Heineken St Maarten Regatta © Tim Wright /
www.photoaction.com
A first time for everything
Sunday dawned, for some anyway, with clear blue skies and a distinct lack of wind. Those who didn’t quite make it to watch the sun rise over the Caribbean Sea missed the glorious sight of the birth of a new day, but in the full measure of time those stayabeds proved to have the last laugh.
You have to appreciate the St Maarten Heineken Regatta organisers, they really do have the wellbeing of everyone at heart.
They got the racing fleets, the seven spinnaker classes, the five bareboat classes, the three non-spinnaker classes, the two multihull classes, the beach cats and the open class, out of bed in time for their scheduled starts, first off at 0900 local time, just in case there would be enough wind, and mustered them at the committee boat.
The problem then was that the wind gods went on holiday. Aeolus, Fujin, Vayu and especially Hanuman, the son of the wind gods, they were all off at the beach with their buckets and spades and didn’t want to be disturbed. After all, it was a Sunday. . .
At 1000 local time, the joint Principal Race Officers Tony Blachford, now broiling nicely in the sun, and local man Andrew Rapley, already nicely browned, gave in.
First to see the N over A code flags and hear the radio announcement were the bareboats, the cruising multihulls and the open class. They weren’t going to have much fun with their heavy boats in no wind. Better to give them a chance to take in some of the other attractions of the island, the golf course, the beach, the butterfly farm, the diving and snorkelling, of course the restaurants and bars – and especially the pharmacies where plenty of aspirin is available for throbbing heads. Remember, we told you that the organisers have the wellbeing of everyone at heart.
Thirty minutes after the abandonment for the heavier boats, Andrew and Tony conceded defeat on behalf of the spinnaker classes, the racing multihulls, beach cats and the three non-spinnaker classes.
That the decisions were greeted with cheers instead of boos was in large part due to the excellent communication between the fleet and the Race Committee. Throughout the regatta the VHF radio channels for race control have been alive with timing countdowns, information on who was OCS during the minute before the start – and just who was OCS at the start and had to come back – and much more. Today the RC even read the weather forecast out over the radio, and kept the waiting boats informed minute by minute of how their thinking was going.
So that was St Maarten Heineken Regatta 2006. In fact, thanks to the two windward/leeward races on Saturday followed by the race to Marigot, the spinnaker classes got in four good races, everyone else apart from the bareboats three, and the bareboats sailed two.
The weather is of course not usually like this in the Caribbean, and especially in St Maarten, so 2006 will go down in the annals of St Maarten’s Heineken Regatta as only the second year when racing was abandoned for the day, for the first time since the early eighties.
One good result from the abandonment of racing is that the prize giving will go ahead on time, perhaps for the first time since the early eighties. In modern times the sheer size of the regatta and the logistical exercise in having it operate from three separate venues on three separate days means that getting the people, the computers, the results and the winners in the same place at the same time, in the Caribbean heat, sometimes takes more time than is strictly allowed. This year, no problem.
Some items of note in respect of outstanding performances include a number of clean sweeps in the bareboat class: Van der Valk Hotels in bareboat 1, Gruppo Sportivo in bareboat 2, Allegheny Gal in bareboat 4 and Silver in bareboat 5.
Sunshine in non-spinnaker 2, Selene in non-spinnaker 3, Affinity in spinnaker 5 and Lazy Dog in spinnaker 5 also did the clean sweep bit, the spinnaker classes perhaps being the toughest trick to pull off as they had to sail four races to the bareboats’ two.
Yesterday, Numbers was reputed to have found an un-charted obstruction on the western side of the island. They met a hard bit of something 13ft under the surface with their keel – which goes down 15ft. It took a while to get the dark blue boat with the whites stripes sailing again. Lets hope that the Alinghi America’s Cup team members who were aboard Daniel Meyers’ Farr 60 don’t do anything like that when sailing off Valencia later in the year once the America’s Cup ACTS get going once again in May.
Sailmakers didn’t earn much this weekend, though North Sails reported one job that paid for the weekend shift, a rip in Peter Harrison’s 115 foot schooner, Sojana’s spinnaker. This was no ordinary nick, but a whole 120ft of stitching, longer than the boat itself. As Sojana had three sailmakers aboard at the time – though from two different lofts – we expect that there was plenty of advice on how the job should have been done.
Concurrently with this regatta, the BVI spring regatta and Antigua week, runs the Caribbean Big Boat Series. This race series is attracting more and more boats each year and at St Maarten the total was nine sailing in two classes There would have been two more, but they pulled out with damages prior to arrival.
In the CBBS racing division Tom Hill’s Titan 12 won with four first places, Daniel Myers’ Numbers beat Bill Alcott’s Equation with straight seconds apart from the final race when they swopped places.
The CBBS cruising division was well populated with boats as diverse as Belle, an IY60, Team Atlantic with a Swan 60 and at the other extreme, the 115ft Sojana. The final order was Clay Deutsch’s Swan 68 Chippewa winning from George Gamble’s Belle, with the very pretty Wally 77 Carrera, Alex Jackson, in third. The Wally turned heads whenever she passed – especially when she gift wrapped herself in a spinnaker drop gone wrong – and also endeared her crew to the organisers with their unfailing politeness and courtesy. They can come back any time.
What follows are the overall results for the regatta, while the daily results can be obtained from the web site: www.heinekenregatta.com.
But first, the prize for first Bareboat overall out of all the classes went to Gruppo Sportivo, Cees-Jan Bartmanns in bareboat 2.
And then the big one, the Most Worthy Boat of the Regatta prize: in fact a repeat of last year with Spinnaker 5’s Lazy Dog, Sergio Sagramoso from Puerto Rico winning every race in a hotly contested class.
Now, Robbie Ferron is running the prize giving in his usual fashion, hardly needing the PA system. The winners are coming up to the stage in response to Robbie’s enthusiastic exhortations, collecting their trophies and huge bottles of Heineken. The first bands have played, the smoke from five thousand barbecuing chickens and ten thousand burgers drifts across the sands of Kim Sha beach. Offshore the anchor lights of the scores of boats anchored in Simpson Bay twinkle and the eyes of the sailors twinkle too as they watch the girls go by. Soon it will be time for the headline band Ozomatli, the last Heinekens on the island will be supped and then, for another year, the regatta will be over.
It’s been serious sailing for two days, serious fun for all three, but it’s time to say farewell and see you all next year. The 2007 St Maarten Heineken Regatta is only 362 days away; start making plans!
Class by class Results:
Bareboat 1: I, Van der Valk Hotels, Bob Zeeuw van de Laan NED; 2, Roam, Malcolm Brown USA; 3, BVI Yacht Charters, messers Otis and Duranty USA.
Bareboat 2: 1, Gruppo Sportivo, Cees-Jan Baartmans NED; 2, Jasmin, Don Reeder USA; 3, The Giants, Bart Landa NED.
Bareboat 3: 1, Team Golden Dog, Jeffrey Sochrin USA; 2, Gabes Babes, Gaby Rappange NED; 3, Fortis Bank, Johan Postma NED.
Bareboat 4: 1, Allegheny Gal, John Wimer USA; 2, Sea Breeze, Larsen Soren DEN; 3, Zeilen 2, Dana van Beek NED.
Bareboat 5: 1, Silver, Rob van der Veken CUR; 2, Berengere, Scott Lorette CAN; 3, Pelican Pat, John Pinheiro USA.
Beachcats: 1, Dauphin Telecom – Snickers, Pascal Marchais GDP; 2, Demeco Outremer, Birgit Krahe GDP; 3, L’Etabli, Marmolejo MAR.
Multihull 1: 1, Free Air Racing Team, Llewellyn Westerman STC; 2, Tryst, Patrick Turner, STM; 3, Triple Jack, Richard Wooldridge TOR.
Multihull 2: 1, Rocketeer, Ken Winters USA; 2, Windsong OC, Michael Hyland USA; 3, Torridon, Don Spence CAN.
Non-spinnaker 1: Three Harkoms, Christopher Lloyd IVB; 2, Disco Inferno, Matt Abbiss GBR; 3, Rapajam, Ralph Johnson BAR.
Non-spinnaker 2: 1, Sunshine, Hans Lammers ANT; 2, Blue Peter, Lawrie May ANT; 3, Huey Too, Bernie Evan-Wong ANT.
Non-spinnaker 3: 1, Selene, Duke Steinemann USA; 2, Nimrod, Simon Lambert GBR; 3, Ondine, Jarbas Guimardes BRA.
Open class: 1, Goeie Mie, Ton Deegenaars NED; 2, Stroumph, Jean-Michel Valade STM; 3, Bullicio, Marius Dealessandri STM.
Spinnaker 1: 1, Titan 12, Tom Hill PUR; 2, Rosebud, Roger Sturgeon USA; 3, Equation, Bill Alcott.
Spinnaker 2: 1, Chippewa, Clay Deutsch USA; 2, Lolita, Frank Savage USA; 3, Belle, George Gamble USA.
Spinnaker 3: 1, DSK Comifin, Danilo Salsi ITA; 2, Plenty, Alexander Roepers USA; 3, Slippery When Wet, Peter Peake TRI.
Spinnaker 4: 1, Affinity, Jack Desmond USA; 2, Avocation, Hank Schmitt USA; 3, Kinship, Tom Selldorf USA.
Spinnaker 5: 1, Lazy Dog, Sergio Sagramoso PUR; 2, Kick ‘em Jenny, Ian Hope-Ross AHO; 3, Shamrock V, Thomas Mullen USA.
Spinnaker 6: 1, Lost Horizon II, Jamie Dobbs ANT; 2, Carib Natufit, Frits Bus SXM; 3, Bruggadung, Paul Johnson BAR.
Spinnaker 7: 1, Finn, Diederik Demesel BEL; 2, Budget Marine, Tony Maidment ANT; 3, Vanille, Phillippe Herve FRA.