These pages record a
personal insight into racing in various local events. There's nothing
like a day of competitive fun, though we don't win as often as we
would like. Boats compete via the Caribbean Yachting Association
handicap which allows boats of varied designs to compete. Of course
we ALL think that OUR rating is far too high!
Valentines Day Regatta 99
Carlisle Bay Race 99
Queen's Cup & Independence Day Race 2000
The Round The Island Race 2000
Antigua Sailing Week 99
Antigua Sailing Week 2000
VALENTINES DAY REGATTA
AT JOLLY HARBOUR YACHT CLUB
On Sunday 7th of February 99, one day after she was salvaged, we took PUMKIN on her first tentative sail ... a third of the way around the island, from Seatons where she was beached to Jolly Harbour where we now keep her. Six days later, after a swift refurbishment of the running gear we took her for her first race. Since I'd never raced PUMKIN before, I had no regular crew. John Firth, General Manager of Pillar Rock Condominiums, who had helped us salvage the boat, adventurously agreed to race for the first time but I couldn't help thinking that someone who had sailed more than once before would be good!
I put up a notice at
Sunsail
Colonna near my home
Aiton Place in
Hodges Bay and attracted Richard Gormley, a marketing consultant from
the UK, who was on holiday there. Rick in turn recruited two other
British holiday makers.... Paul, a farmer, and Dawn, his midwife
wife.
Sunsail
Colonna Beach Resort provides sailing holidays for sailors of all
standards and although the guys hadn't raced much before they proved
to be of great help on our first outing.
Considering that my tourist crew were staying at a hotel with some pretty new sailing equipment they viewed the battered PUMKIN with wary apprehension and I could tell that they were not completely convinced as I extolled her virtues. Into the bargain none of them had ever flown two headsails before (and I hadn't flown them on this boat) so the whole experience would be an adventure for us all.
There were 5 boats in Cruising class. My old friend Colin Jones was racing on MAGIC BUS, a fast 34 footer. My other friend Lawrie was racing Wanderlust, another good contender. The rest of the fleet were 40 - 50 ft and as the wind was really building I suspected that the little boats would be hard pressed.
There were 5 races over two days. We didn't see the fastest boat on the first race but a foul on MAGIC BUS on the second race won it a disqualification and put it out of the running. The races were hotly contested with wins for different boats on different races. Some good sailing by Wanderlust on the second day put him ahead of us by one point in the standings as MAGIC BUS slipped to one point behind. We hadn't won, but I was VERY pleased considering that the boat had been in a tree only 6 days before.
FROM ENGLISH HARBOUR & JOLLY HARBOUR
The 1999 annual Carlisle Bay race began with two starts, one at English Harbour and the other at Jolly Harbour. Competitors in both races pausing for a beach party at Carlisle Bay before drunkenly racing back again. Turnout was not as good as might have been expected, maybe some non starters were recovering from Jumby Bay the night before, but it was a great day of sailing and frivolity.
We raced from Jolly Harbour where we keep PUMKIN. Wind was very high which was a clear disadvantage for the smaller, lighter vessels. Despite pushing the mighty Torridge beyond the start buoy and forcing the all wooden antique 14 toner to take a slow turn to restart, Colin Jones was determined not to be defeated. After crossing the line two minutes late Torridge majestically powered through the waves to a resounding victory, even beating the racing boats overall.
It was PUMKIN's
first venture into the Atlantic since she was washed ashore in
hurricane Georges and the pounding exposed a few weaknesses in her
rigging that resulted in us taking a one mile detour before it was
safe to tack back to shore. After a few minutes aloft in a makeshift
boson's chair I secured the rigging and we joined the other revelers
on the beach.
As we were leaving the beach to race back a freak accident washed Wanderlust ashore. she floundered for some moments before being rescued by a passing power boat and, a little shaken up, only just made the start.
The race back was hotly contested. After an early lead (over the other CRUISING CLASS boats) by PUMKIN, the mighty Torridge finished about 2 minutes ahead of a stiff battle for second place between us and Wanderlust, which I am pleased to say we won.
My pleasure was a little dampened when I later discovered Wanderlust had broken her centerboard when she was beached. She didn't race again for some weeks
FROM ENGLISH HARBOUR & JOLLY HARBOUR
At Last! We won! (Cruising Class)
The wind was light to moderate. That helped. We had a VERY clean bottom which helped even more! We, Judy & Wolf (above) plus John, out pointed the competition to win the feeder race from Jolly Harbour to Falmouth Harbour on the Friday.... then on the Saturday we did the same thing to win The Queen's Cup to Green Island. On the Sunday we raced back for The Independence Day Race . After a good start the bigger boats sailed over us but we soon recovered and won for the third time in 3 days. There are MANY distinguished sailors in Antigua who have quietly thrashed me over the past 14 years... but this day was ours.
<---- John and Wolf racing back to
Falmouth Harbour. (Huey Two in background). John is trimming the pole
not looking at a seagull.
Previous PUMKIN ---->
owner Tommy Paterson
awards us the Queen's
Cup (& rum of course!).
FROM ENGLISH HARBOUR & JOLLY HARBOUR
Well
our tired and battered 25 year old Trapper 500 almost did it
again......
26 boats set out to circumnavigate Antigua on Saturday 22nd Jan 2000. There were 13 in cruising class ranging from Pumkin to 70 footers. The first problem my sailing partner Doug and I experienced was that our crew didn't show up. Having waited till the last minute to set off for the line and were two minutes from the start when our two colleagues scrambled aboard from a dingy. All things considered our start was OK and we were the fourth boat as we headed out of Antigua's Falmouth Harbour.
The wind was blowing 15 - 20 knots as we ran about 8 miles to the first mark carrying two headsails. Most of the bigger boats, some up to 65 feet, went out for a 1 knot current a mile or so offshore. We went out about half a mile then gibed back to pick up wind acceleration close to the coastline then skimmed the edge of Cades reef. Staying in seemed to pay off against the bigger boats and we were second around the down wind buoy. Although I was thrilled with that our main rival was just behind us. Torridge a 41 foot classic with a rating only just above ours was sailed by my old friend Colin Jones, a veteran of these waters. Torridge is a heavy boat and I felt we should have shaken him off more in order to stay ahead.
The next leg was a (6 mile or so) reach and the bigger boats QUICKLYcame into their own. The wind held at 18-20 knots and Torridge passed us in a minute, Over the next 40 minutes half the fleet followed. Despite our GPS telling us we were doing between 7 & 8.4 miles per hour, (we lost the instructions on changing it to knots), by the end of the reach Torridge was over a quarter mile ahead.
Fortunately the wind dropped back to 15 knots as we went into the beat. Now we could stop spilling the main and. as we feathered the gusts, pointed 5-8 degrees higher than our competition . Incredibly we clawed back Torridge's lead, passed him, and were only the 5th boat to cross the line.
Overnight standings had us in first place on corrected time, 3.5 minutes ahead of Torridge and over 10 minutes ahead of third place. We parties at Spinnakers on Dickenson Bay where the Miss Round the Island competition was held. This classic beauty pagent has become a tradition as each boat entered a crew member in drag! There were some headaches the next morning.
That night.... a cold front moved in and the wind built. Ribbit, one of the racing boats broke loose and was found the next morning 28 miles towards Montserrat.
We sailed out to the line in 20-25 knots knowing that we had a 3.5 hour beat ahead of us and desperately trying different sail combinations to find our best speed. I didn't like any of them as none retained our pointing advantage. Once on the line beyond the reef seas were 6-8 feet and I was sure the bigger boat would soon eat up our lead. Sure enough the faster big boats shot off and even the slower ones eventually caught and passed us. 2.5 hours into the beat found us third to last in the fleet (elapsed time). We were flying a storm jib with full main but as the wind built to over 30 knots, and the seas ros to 10-12 feet, we were forced to reef down for half an hour. We dropped back to last in the fleet and were very relieved when we could crack off the sheets and bear off a little. I knew that reaching wasn't going to improve our position any and feared we would plunge to 10th on the second day (corrected time). Once the apparent wind was 100 degrees off the nose we poled the storm jib to weather and hoisted our 135% nylon floater to lee..... now we were flying! We managed to pass a couple of the boats that had gotten by us earlier before getting back to Falmouth and hobbling off to the Antigua Yacht Club clubhouse to lick our wounds.
The results were based on combined corrected times of day 1 & 2 so I expected a mid fleet placing. To be honest I was grateful not to have broken anything, especially on a windward shore. Our spirits were a little subdued as we tucked into the BBQ and downed a few rums waiting for the official results.
As they announced the results in reverse order we gradually became more elated. They passed 5th place and still hadn't named us. We were shocked to discover that we had held 2nd behind Torridge who had won that day. I guess our lead the first day had been bigger than we thought!
We partied into the night.
