St Barths and the Bucket 17 53.956N 62 51.406W
Persephone... Cruiser/Racer
Nigel & Karen Goodhew...
Mon 20 Mar 2017 12:39
Against expectations, we managed to find a spot to anchor in a busy Gustavia harbour and almost as soon as the anchor was down, we were visited by Marko in the huge tender to L'Ondine...the Southernwind 100 we were invited to crew on for the St Barths Bucket superyacht regatta.
An hour or so later, we were collected by Andy, principal rib driver, to visit L'Ondine, which was anchored a couple of hundred metres away. The yacht is enormous. She is a 100 foot long sloop rigged fast cruising boat. Powered winches operate hydraulically and have 3 speeds. She has a simple carbon rig, with checkstays and although the whole boat is made from carbon fibre and epoxy, she still weighs in at more than 60 tonnes....the ballast keel is over 26 tonnes.
L'Ondine is Swedish owned, Maltese registered and is managed full time by her skipper, Ian. There is a full time chef, Emma and stewardess, Daniella. For this weekend, an eclectic race crew had been put together with a wide range of skills and experience in sailing, from J class crew members, sailmakers, superyacht tactician Igor and then Karen and me! Marko was on genoa and kite trim. My role was to support him and to run the checkstays, clear lines and generally make sure everything ran smoothly. More of that later....
The superyacht life is slightly surreal. The owner of the yacht is generally on board while we race, but does not touch a rope, wheel or anything. He has crew, us, to do all that!
Before it all started though we were treated, on Thursday night, and every night since then, to lovely meals in some of the best restaurants in Gustavia. It's all in the budget. The wine flows and the bill gets paid at the end of the evening and we all head off back to the boat. The owner, though, socialises elsewhere, is collected by rib in the morning with his guests, to arrive once the boat is ready, and leaves almost as soon as the sails are down after the racing.
The St Barths Bucket regatta runs over 3 days. It's a real spectacle as the participants are all stupefyingly beautifully prepared....perfection and opulence combined on the water. There are 5 J class yachts here competing in their own class. On L'Ondine, we are in the "Elegance" class, racing on handicap in a pursuit style, which avoids the potential for conflict and accidents which can happen in a standard line start.
I will say here only that the power of the yacht is awesome. The loads on the ropes are unreal...even the huge hydraulic winches occasionally couldn't cope and unloading them for tacks is a potentially very hazardous activity indeed. The foredeck crew have to manage huge spinnakers, which weigh several hundred kilos each...it takes 4 crew just to move them! Karen was a little spooked by the forces involved and the sheer size of l'Ondine so decided not to join the crew after all, as she felt she was unable to make a proper contribution so stayed aboard Persephone while we were out racing. It can be very dangerous handling all that power!
We scored an 8th place day 1, followed by 4 and 4 on the other days, and were 5th overall. Our class was won by Spiip, a larger boat, though there are question marks as to whether they sailed within the arcane and complex superyacht rules, but they also won the overall Bucket prize.
Coached and encouraged by our tactician Peter Bresnan, our team gained in confidence and performance as the regatta progressed and the owners seemed delighted...pledging to do more racing in future. We'll see.
For me, the experience was simply amazing....something I never thought I would do, so I thank Marko for setting up the chance and the owners, skipper and the international crew of L'Ondine for the wonderful weekend.
Time now to consider our next stop...Sint Maarten, to meet up with Steve and Brenda.
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