series win over last year’s winners
Michael Cannon and Neil Harvey in
KHS&S Contractors. Octogenarian
Herbert Münzel, who has participated
in Antigua Sailing Week more than 30
times, was h in KH&P Curacao.
e Double-Handed Class had
just one race each day and all three
competing boats managed at least
one race win. ings might have been
di erent if David Kinsey’s Oyster 49
Buckaroo hadn’t started ve minutes
early in the third race a er some
confusion with start times but, with no
discard applying in a ve-race series, this
all but handed overall victory to Freebird.
e Club Class also had just one race
each day. is class was introduced in
2017 to make Antigua Sailing Week
“more accessible to less serious racers
at a lower cost”. No downwind sails are
allowed and a progressive performance-
related handicapping system is used.
Six boats initially entered this class but
they were joined for the last two days by
three others who had started the week
in the CSA classes before it was decided
that they would t better in the Club
Class. While there were no more than
three handicap race winners in any other
class throughout the week, Club Class
had four, perhaps not surprisingly given
the handicap system in use. Although
Steven Schmidt’s SC70 Hotel California
Too won line honours in every race,
on handicap she su ered and overall
victory went to Ian Galbraith’s Oyster
53 Jigsaw with Jon Constantine’s Feeling
39 Imagine of Falmouth second.
Group A consisted of seven Caribbean
Sailing Association (CSA) classes, six
for monohulls and one for multihulls.
Just three multihulls competed in their
ve-race series, and this was dominated
by Robert Szustkowski’s HH66
catamaran R-SIX which had a clean
Above
GP42 Phan
chases Ker 46
Lady Mariposa
close into the
rocks below
Shirley Heightssweep of victories, with Stephen Bourne’s
Rapido 60 trimaran Ine able second.
e Antigua National Sailing Academy
was formed in 2010 to encourage local
children to take up sailing and to pursue
sailing-related careers. More recently
the Youth to Keelboat Programme
(Y2K) was set up to give opportunities
for young Antiguan sailors to compete
in Antigua Sailing Week and, in 2019,
amongst the 40 who took part were the
entire crews of two Cork 1720s racing in
CSA Class 6. One of them, NSA Spirit
helmed by Jules Mitchell, won four of
the rst ve races but, in the rst race
on the penultimate day, she broke her
rudder and had to retire. It so happened
that the other Cork 1720, NSA Valiant,
damaged her mast in the same race but
a er her helmsman Joshua Daniels saw
what had happened to Spirit, a hasty
on-water rescue operation took place
with Valiant’s rudder being transferred
to the other boat. is allowed Spirit
to take part in the next race which she
won, along with the following day’s nal
race, giving her a comfortable series
win over Raymond Magras and Patrick
Bernier’s Dufour 34 Speedy Nemo.
In CSA Class 5, there was a close
battle for overall victory between Jonty
and Vicki Lay eld’s J/11s Sleeper and
the ST37 Holding Pattern, owned and
sailed by Sir Richard Matthews who
was competing in his 40th Antigua
Sailing Week. In the end Sleeper won
by a seemingly comfortable four points
but with three of her margins of victory
at 12 seconds or less on corrected
time it could have gone either way.
Amongst Sleeper’s crew was 11-year
old Antiguan Shannoy Malone who
has been racing with the Lay elds since
he was seven and will be competing
at the Optimist World Championship
to be held in Antigua this summer. e Oyster 48 Scarlet Oyster –
owned and skippered by Ross Appleby
taking part in his tenth Antigua Sailing
Week – comfortably won CSA Class- is class had the closest race of the
whole regatta when, on the third day,
Liquid and Andy Middleton’s Beneteau
First 47.7 EH01 Performance Yacht
Racing were rst equal on corrected
time. ey ended the series in second
and third places respectively.
Adrian Lee’s Swan 60 Lee Overlay
Partners II clinched victory with a
race to spare in CSA Class 3 with
Mark Jagger’s CNB Bordeaux 60
eia of London second. With a non-
excludable disquali cation (following
a port and starboard incident resulting
in serious damage) amongst her
results, the Farr 65 Spirit of Juno did
well to claim third place overall.
In CSA Class 2, the Ker 46 Lady
Mariposa, skippered by Dane Jesper
Bank, was another boat which claimed
overall victory with a race to spare
while four other boats were, at that
point, tied for second place. But it was
Adrian Fisk in the Lombard IRC 46 Pata
Negra who won the last race to make
sure of the runner’s up spot followed
by Jeremy orp in the GP42 Phan.
August 2019 Yachts & Yachting 37