Taking a few days off
and heading down to Antigua to race wooden boats is a treat, even by our
standards. Our annual pilgrimage to the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta
sponsored by Panerai combines our passion for racing with a love of wooden
boats. The event, which is one of the largest gatherings of its kind in
the World, blends competition with a wonderful celebration of traditional
sailing.
The starts are jammed with drop dead gorgeous boats including
elegant schooners, racing sloops and traditional wooden working boats. We
race aboard Zemi, a 40' sloop built on the beach in Carriacou in the Grenadines
by the renowned shipwright Alwyn Enoe. The Carriacou sloops form a
virtual one-design class within the regatta. The racing is tight, and the
post-race camaraderie, fueled by Mount Gay and local Antiguan rum, is
boisterous. The boats are traditional in every way with just two winches,
a long boomed mainsail and a genoa. You sweat in the main sheet by hand
and the spinnaker pole is a length of bamboo. There are no instruments.
It's all about boat speed and tactics. Local knowledge is king, and
with a boatload of Antiguan's there is no shortage of tactical opinions,
occasional disagreements and plenty of jokes. Oh yeah, everyone is on the
lookout for fish too. (Antiguan's, the lot of them, all love to fish).
Zemi was off the pace on day one of the regatta but we pulled it together
and posted solid 2nd place finishes in the remaining three races, including an
excruciating 5 second margin on corrected time in race #2. We had all
conditions from squally 30-knot squalls with 15-foot seas to gorgeous 15-knot
trade winds under blue skies. Rain or shine we were comfortable in our
HIHO Suntek shirts!