Summer 2006
sleeping on the boats begin by preparing lines, jibs and other equipment
and rehearsing their duties that they've done hundreds of times before.
They leave the anchorage and set out onto the open sea, where the race
will begin.
The press is buzzing around in small speedboats, coming up to the
yachts as they slowly tack and turn, waiting for the optimal moment when
they can turn on the starting buoy and set their sail. "The thing that you
want is to get out there first, that's pretty important. Because if you can do
that, you can steal wind, meaning that your sail will be updraft of all the
others. That will slow the other boats down. And you want to use your sails
strategically, cut the jibs efficiently," jereme Thaxton, a professional sailing
photographer, explains to me. Sure enough, the massive spinnaker-class
boats circle restlessly until the starting gun fires off, catching one lucky
boat at the right place at the right time. The others play catch-up to the
boat now setting off for the finish line of Marigot on the French side of the
island. It's amazing to see these ships—masts and sails the size of football
fields—set off in a rainbow procession.
Then comes the bareboat classes, five in all. I pay special attention to
Sail and the City competing in the Bareboat 4 class. They do well, coming
on strong through the first turns, but then something goes a bit awry;
somehow one of the boats has caught the buoy and it dragged off the
course, causing confusion. It's a strange sight seeing boats going in
different directions as skippers yell orders to their crews to evade the other
boats, to avoid having wind stolen. Sail and the City gets caught up in this
mêlée and, like most of the other boats, gets stuck in dead wind for a time.
"Dead wind sucks, you just have to wait it out," Thaxton states, shaking his
head. Valuable hours pass like this. Luckily, the other bareboaters have a
better day of sailing. Sail and the City comes in fourth that day and hopes
that protests will put them in third. "I must say, they're doing great, I'm well
impressed," Annelies Damen, captain of Sail and the City, says proudly of
her crew in a thick Australian accent, which she must have picked up
somewhere along her global boating travels.
By the next day, the races are over, the winners declared, and the
protests decided. Titan has won the Spinnaker 1 class as many had
predicted, and the battle of the swans in the Spinnaker 4—Swan Benelux 1
and Swan Benelux 2—was a bit underwhelming; the two boats came in No.
4 and No. 5, respectively. Sail in the City came in No. 4 in their class. They
accept the outcome with aplomb and grace. "We'll be back next year," says
Van Vessem with a mischievous smile, "better than ever." With the roar of
soca music in the background and an adoring crowd partying away, the
sailors join in the fun. This is one boat nobody wants to miss.
The 27th annual St. Maarten Heineken Regatta will be held on 2, 3 and 4
March 2007. Meet you there.
The crew of Sail and the City
