The 2019 tour for Les Voiles St Barth started in Antigua for Tori and I to prepare Triple Lindy for the delivery to St Barths in the French Virgin Islands, the Les Voiles St Barths regatta and then the delivery to St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, through the British Virgin Islands.
We arrived in Antigua to be welcomed by our usual driver JB, who took us to the yacht where it was immediate action stations straight into work. We were entertained by the local expats in the evenings after a hot day at work, including “sundowners” at the Antigua Sailing Centre, St Annes, one of the mansions overlooking the yacht club and marina and dinner at Cloggys on the Antigua Yacht Club pier.
We embarked for St Barths, 90 miles away early one Wednesday morning and had a superb downwind cruise with our friends on the other Cookson 50 Kuka 3 and arrived in St Barth that afternoon in time to move into our new crew house and head out to dinner in one of the many waterfront restaurants in Gustavia harbour. St Barths was the beginning of where we saw true destruction of Hurricane Irma last year, with the yacht club being washed away and now a concrete slab is all the remains where North Sails set up their pop-up loft for the regatta.
The berthing in Gustavia is stern to Mediterranean type mooring, with our friends on Kuka 3 berthed next door, were we enjoyed the camaraderie between the various yachts. The Veuve Cliquot/Heineken/Mount Gay tent was a stones’ throw away from our berths and a relaxing location to spend an hour at the end of each days racing before retreating to the infinity pool of the main crew house.
Les Voiles St Barths was a great week-long event with one or two races each day in the clear waters around the islands of St Barths and St Martin, again in a constant 18 to 25 knots of wind. Triple Lindy eventually ended up third in Spinnaker Division 2 out of 12 yachts of various makes and models, with two Cookson 50’s, Class 40’s, IMOCA 60 and other yachts of these size area. The offshore start lines were long and relied on the navigators’ time on distance calls to not start early, in which we found out in one race, in which we were penalised to a third from a first.
The lay day of Les Voiles St Barths at Nikki Beach is famous throughout all of the crews that have ever competed. If you have been to St Tropez and know of Le Club 55, Nikki Beach is the Caribbean equivalent. There are such festivities as the swimming treasure hunt for Veuve Cliquot sunken into the bay in front of the beach, tug of war, raft racing and of course eating and drinking! Triple Lindy entered the treasure hunt, tug of war, eating and drinking competition, where the ladies of Triple Lindy actually the tug of war with Tori as the anchor and I am led to believe that we also won the most amount of champagne, rum and beer purchased (not everything purchased was consumed, of course).
The night that the regatta finished, the prize giving was held at the stage in front of the marina tent. Every yacht that received a prize was asked to bring all crew members onto the stage to receive their celebration white straw hat and prizes. Music adjoined each presentation and a fun evening was had at the prize giving.
Triple Lindy departed St Barths early the following morning and hoisted our practise spinnaker for the 90 mile leg past St Martin and onto the British Virgin Islands Virgin Gorda. We had two gybes to lay Richard Branson’s Nekker Island before laying into
Leverick Bay where we berthed for the night. Leverick Bay is opposite Yacht Club Costa Smerelda’s Caribbean annex, which is where we would have berthed, but unfortunately nothing of YCCS remains since Hurricane Irma and the YCCS annex currently has no future plans.
The next day we checked into the BVI’s and had a tour around Virgin Gorda. The island has been cleaned up considerably since the hurricane, but some houses are still not fit to live in and the once busy boat yard is now littered with the remnants of yachts that have been salvaged since the hurricane, but written off and have not been moved on yet. The BVI’s are very popular for cruising and charter yachts.
That afternoon we left Virgin Gorda to head to Pirates Bight on Nelson Island, the breeze eased below 10 knots for our first time since we started in the Caribbean this year, so we motored to Nelson Island, via the Four Sisters for a swim and a snorkel. We were hopeful to lose “HL” the navigator at this stop, but he returned to the yacht as promised. We arrived in Pirates Bight in the early evening and had dinner reservations in the only restaurant on the island. It was a good thing that we did not lose our navigator because he swam over to the charter boat neighbours with a magnum of champagne in his hands and was able to borrow their tender for the night to get to dinner and back. The neighbours ended up getting most of the galley stores, Triple Lindy shirts and a lot more alcohol, including the Calvados.
We headed to St John the next morning to check into USA in order to head to St Thomas to prepare Triple Lindy to be loaded onto the ship to Newport, RI. This is where our largest road block of the tour occurred. The, “very nice lady” at US Border Patrol decided that our Italian crewmembers had the wrong visa and had to go back to the BVI’s in order to get on a ferry to enter the USA. Fortunately, we hired the fastest boat on the island as our customs agent, so he quickly whipped Giancarlo and Issabella to the UK’s Tortola, in order for them get on a six-knot ferry to St Thomas to meet with the remainder of our team in the USA. The reports of Tortola were surprising in the fact that Giancarlo and Issabella said that Tortola has not cleaned up since the hurricane, so there are charter boats, cars, trucks and houses littering the hillsides.
Once we had Triple Lindy ready for shipping, we all started to retreat to our individual homes. New York, Rome, Antibes and Sydney for this delivery crew. Next is June, when we head to Newport to prepare for and do the Newport to Cowes Transatlantic Race which starts June 25th.
Stay tuned.
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