ANTIGUA SAILING WEEK
APRIL 25TH TO MAY 2ND 1999
Although PUMKIN had only been in the water for 11 weeks following our salvaging the boat, I was very keen to race her in the 32nd annual Antigua Sailing Week.
I must admit that although I'd been racing for 14 years, (mainly club racing around Antigua and a little in St. Martin), I hadn't done a Sailing Week for a few years and was nervous that I might be a little rusty in such a major event. The pressure was also on because of the boat's reputation having won second place in CRUISING III last year along with BEST ANTIGUAN BOAT, BEST CARIBBEAN BOAT, and the B CLASS.
PUMKIN in action - photo by Tim Wright
I hauled the boat a couple of weeks prior to the races, repainting the hull where it was damaged by hurricane Georges and giving her a nice new bottom. Up to that time Doug and I had concentrated on basic sea worthiness. As a result of our experience racing her in the Carlisle Bay race, we made alterations to sheets, shrouds, mast position, and safety lines to eliminate snagging and streamline maneuvers.
We normally fly twin headsails downwind. To this end we bought a new 1.5 oz nylon downwind floater. Both headsails are equal size 134% which keeps gybing simple. It's a small boat with a very light pole so maneuvers are fast and comparatively easy. Our one advantage was that we had the lowest rating of all 256 competing boats at 0.735 with twin headsail and pole so in principle we could be the last boat over the line and still win the race!
<-- Doug was only able to do the Sunday race due to developments at Jumby Bay and 10 days before the races I had only one confirmed crew member for the week......
John Firth, General Manager of Pillar Rock Condominiums. -->
John had helped Doug and I refloat the boat in February and his total sailing experience has been gained on Saturday club races since then. John is a fast learner and had mastered many of our racing procedures but two people don't make a crew and to be honest I was a bit worried. To my relief I was able to raise some excelent sailors through the internet and ended up with a strong crew to go with our great little boat.
<-- Andy Morris flew in from the UK one and a half days before race 1. Probably the most experienced racer amongst us, he proved to be perfect on foredeck and quietly took over as senior sail trimmer. With an excelent blend of competence and diplomacy he managed to steer the rest of us towards sailing better without a hint of condescension and quickly became one of our greatest assets.
Here he looks a little lobster colored after two days racing in hot Caribbean sun.
Andy's sailing experience included the 1999 Spring Series Lymington, 1998 JOG races, some of the RORC races, the Red
Funnel Easter Series and the Hamble
Spring Series. In 1996/7 he had taken part in a round the world yacht race called Clipper 96.
Canadian David Baird joined us from the Virgin islands and provided solid support in the cockpit. David has raced on and off for many years and crewed on MIRAGE which won this year's CORT series in Racing/Cruising. As quiet as he is competent, David was always in the right place when a sheet needed to be eased or a halyard needed to be raised. -->
Chip Adams travelled the farthest to join the crew, making the long haul from Seattle. Chip's racing experience was limited and the bulk of his sailing had consisted of cruising his Cascade 27 in Washington and British Columbia--about 14,000 miles singlehanding over the past 9 years. A self employed software consultant (among other things), who's other interests are aviation, ham radio, backpacking and river rafting he was been very efficient at tracking down stuff we needed in the US and even brought in a bunch of inexpensive golf shirts to which I added our Pumkin logo. Chip took many of the photos on this page. Unfortunately that means he wasn't in any!
My old friend Colin Jones, skipper of TORRIDGE was a late addition. Colin was one of
my first choices for crew. He had thought he might enter his own boat
but fortunately for me, he didn't and so at the last minute he joined
us. I crewed for him a lot of Saturdays last year and on the Classic Regatta 98 ( he won his class
this year). Colin has raced for 30 odd years and joined us as
auxiliary helmsman and #2 on foredeck. He's a Brit and manages a
local pineapple farm. His knowledge of local currents was a big help
and added to my own experience of sailing around Antigua's coastline.
It was great having him along and 
whenever I suspected that I wasn't getting good "velocity
made good" it was a real boon being able to put him on the helm to
see if he could do better (especially in choppy Atlantic seas)
I (Nick Maley) completed the crew as skipper but with so many good sailors on board, and limited experience of the boat, I felt my main contribution was tactical. I'm an ex-Vice Commodore of the Jolly Harbour Yacht Club, but I suspect that I got the job more because no one else wanted it than for my sailing prowess. Having said that, I've taken part in the Saturday club racing at Jolly Harbour since the club's inception and this was be my 11th Antigua Sailing Week (10th as skipper). I know most of the courses, where to stay out, where to go in and my starts are generally fairly good.
The Races
We assembled at Jolly Harbour at 9.00 am Saturday and after some final adjustments to the boat , sailing up the coast to Falmouth Harbour where Race 1 was to commence. At the Skippers briefing at 5.30pm I got my first blow. We were removed from Cruising III where the boat was so successful last year and put up into Cruising II.... probably the most competitive cruising class. when I saw a 49 foot Crusader and a 50 foot Beneateau in the class my hopes for our (recently in a tree) fat little C & C Trapper 27 were dashed. None the less I determined to do my best for the little boat.
Race 1 was mainly a downwind race. After a very good start we made encouraging progress around the course. My understanding of our "corrected" position (our placing in the class after the application of the handicap rating) it was clear that we were around 3rd in our class of 21 boats with three quarters of the course complete. But our fortunes were abruptly changed... as we sailed into the most freaky weather of my racing experience. We were engulfed in a huge black squall which reduced visibility to a few yards as we navigated the reef filled waters around Sandy Island and subjected to 50 minutes of torrential rain. I have never been so cold in the Caribbean.
It's amazing how reliant you become on good visibility in the Caribbean and after meandering through the squall and a few frustrated outbursts at our (my) lack of efficiency in such conditions we crossed the finishing line in 7th place.
SailingWeek.com have some
great photos from each day's racing with comments about conditions
and competitors.
Here are
the photos for race 1.
256 racing boats anchored at Dickenson Bay. The one nearest the Warri Pier is PUMKIN.
Race 2 didn't start so well as we were covered on the start line by the much bigger boats in our class. Positioning on a start line is crucial to a good result as a boat in "bad air" can take minutes to recover and in the final placings seconds often count after hours of racing. The starting tactics of the previous day were less effective as other competitors adopted a more aggressive start. We tacked into clean air early, separating ourselves from the rest of the fleet. It was a risky tactic but as the second smallest boat in the class I didn't want to be continually competing for air. The tactic proved good and after a few miles we reached the windward buoy alongside the two Bermuda 40's in our class.
Downwind we hung on like a bulldog, making full use of our new North Sails floater.
Rounding the last buoy I was expecting a short beat to the finish but the buoy was positioned in an area where the island's windward and leeward breezes meet in turbulent air and choppy sea. After constant headers, tacks and more headers I was beginning to feel that we were throwing our lead away. The bigger boats were less troubled by the chop and I feared that they would leave us behind but as we considered our position relevant to the rest of the class I realized that some boats were doing much worse than us. SCOUNDREL (a local boat that we compete with regularly) had been having a great race. They were clearly beating us up to the last mark... but in the chop they had sailed into a hole and by the end of the last leg we were some 20 minutes ahead.
I didn't know what to expect as I approached the results board at Jolly Harbour and was satisfied by 6th place under the circumstances. Remarkably, if we had been in the class we had expected we would have been leading Cruising III with a second and a first. As it was we were placed 9th in the entire cruising fleet.
Check out the official sites race 2 photos by Tim Wright
Four big boats were separating themselves from the rest of Cruising II..... ABRICOTINE the 49 foot Centurion, DESPERADO a 44 foot Sigma sloop with a comparatively low rating, ESPRIT DU NORD a 50 foot Beneteau and SARABANDE a 44 foot Swan. At the risk of being accused of sour grapes I really couldn't imagine what our Trapper 27 was doing an the same class as these impressive yachts.
As I considered our placing I was told that PUMKIN had been named as part of the
Antigua Cruising team and we were in a fight with Great
Britain and Sweden for the team trophy! My team mates, Bernie
Evan-Wong's HUEY TOO and Hue Bailey's
HUGO were both doing well but we were up
against some formidable performers. I was worried. considering the
four big boats leading our class I couldn't see how we would ever
rise above 5th place and I was expecting the next race..... almost
totally to windward to be a bogie for
us.
This photo (also by Tim Wright) shows PUMKIN ducking the stern of RUBIN, a 47 foot Jeaneau also in our class -->
I started Race 3 really badly. I was used to making a two minute approach to the line but with such a small boat my approach was being dictated by the bigger boats. I know I had got it REALLY wrong when two "right of way" boats forced me to reach down to the buoy with 40 seconds to go and with leeward boats coming up below me we went over early. Although we thought we dipped back over the line we were called back and I gave away 4 minutes to the restart. The sea was VERY choppy and half way up the Atlantic coast we swapped helmsmen to see if Colin could get more speed from the boat.
As we sailed toward English Harbour an ominous plume of black smoke spread across the horizon as one of the competitors met a disasterous end.
Despite the poor start we finished 7th and were beginning to think we were finding our rut in the class. Race 3 photos.
We were unsure of the points system being used for the team trophy but despite excellent performances by two Swedish boats TCHINCHO and NADARELLA II, and British OYSTERCATCHER XXII, the Antiguan team were ahead on both class and fleet points due to great performances by my team members who were 1st and 3rd in Racer Cruiser Non Spinnaker.
After my disastrous start to race 3 I
determined to try a new approach for
Race
4. I tried a favorite strategy of legendary Sailing Week
co-founder Jol Byerly.... a long slow approach very close to the wind
which assumes right of way and forces faster boats to keep clear. The
sea was very lumpy that day and it seemed like other boats in our
class didn't want to get too clubby. The result was a PERFECT start
for PUMKIN! We were thrilled as we
tacked into shore of Falmouth ahead in clear air. But fate has a way
of bringing us down to earth.
Considering that PUMKIN had been in a tree only 11 weeks previously we were really putting her through her paces and only 3 minutes into a grueling, predominantly windward, race our only starboard winch dismantled itself, littering components all over the cockpit floor. Unable to tack, we scrambled to find parts and jerry rig a block to allow us to use the port winch on either tack. My reactions were too slow and by the time we tacked back we were way out to sea and had lost 6-8 minutes on the rest of the class. We made no other errors but despite good downwind performance we ended up in the middle of the class at 11th place. We had slipped all the way to 19th in fleet and Bernie left us in no uncertain terms that he felt I was letting down our team. We had the British team beat but the Swedes were poised to win the trophy. We needed a good result on the last day. Race 4 photos.
I approached Race 5 with a heavy responsibility. We had rebuilt the winch the previous evening. The sea was calmer and the wind light as I attempted to repeat the start of the previous day. The other boats weren't giving us as much room but o my delight we were rewarded by another PERFECT start. After a short windward leg we were reaching out toward Guadeloupe at a distinct disadvantage to boats rated for spinnaker such as SCOUNDREL. They were just holding their chutes where twin headsail boats couldn't. SCOUNDREL gained 6 minutes on us on that one 5 mile leg.
Reaching back we sailed high before bearing away and hoisting the floater. That kept us in touch with the rest of the class and after a short dogleg we were at the Curtains gate... the downwind mark at the west end of Cades reef. Beating back we used our combined knowledge of the coast to gain lifters wherever possible. We knew we couldn't beat the big four that dominated our class and I was pretty sure SCOUNDREL had beaten us so I was content with 6th place.
The result pulled us up 10 places in fleet to 9th again and we finished 6th in class. Best of all we just pipped the Swedes for the team trophy (after much discussion over the scoring system) and wandered off to the Admirals Ball for the prize giving. Race 5 pix from the official site.
Cruising back to Jolly Harbour ......
For those interested in the class standing you will find it here. Layday photos are here.
The official site,
SailingWeek.com, has done a
great job of presenting official results and many of
Tim Wright's photos. Jay
Rainey deserves a slap on the back. Do visit them and take a look....
maybe sign up for Antigua Sailing Week
2000!
All in all it was a fantastic week. We left ourselves some room for improvement next year with the encouragement that we would have won Cruising III if they hadn't pushed us up a class.
I want to thank the Sailing week committee and the Antigua Hotels Association for providing such a great event and...... finally I must say a hearty THANK YOU to my crew who never gave up... even when the going got really tough... and without whom I would have had no hope. We came together as a bunch of strangers with a common interest.... and through this one uncommon experience, we left as lasting friends.
