Yachts & Yachting – August 2019

Above left

Glorious

conditions

all week

Above centre

Volvo 65

Ambersail2

Below left

Race start outside

Falmouth Harbour

Below right

TP52 Zingara

won the Round

Antigua Race

caused signicant damage to the leach

of Scallywag’s mainsail and her backstay.

Zingara didn’t come o lightly either,

as she lost her wind instruments, but

despite that she was the rst boat home

and also won on corrected time. Pamala

Baldwin’s J122 Liquid was second overall

and rst in class CSA2, while Michael

and Chloe Hough’s Spirit 64.5 Chloe

Giselle won CSA3 and Philip Asche’s

Swan 44 Freebird won Antigua Sailing

Week’s inaugural Double-Handed race.

e format for the rest of the regatta

was ve days of racing, with one race

on the rst and last days and, for

most classes, two on the other days.

e twelve classes were divided

into two groups, each with its own

committee vessel providing windward

starts from one of two positions:

Rendezvous (just west of Rendezvous

Bay and with a course area mostly

to the west) and Windward (just

east of Falmouth Harbour and with

a course area mostly to the east).

Four new marks were laid at this

year’s event, giving the Race Ocers

more options for longer-leg coastal

courses and windward-leewards.

Group B included three classes of

charter boats. ese classes have strict

rules with regard to certain items of

equipment to prevent charterers from

removing or from bringing anything

on board in an attempt to enhance

performance, and white sails only are

permitted. Bareboat 1 was particularly

hard fought with just a point separating

the rst two boats by the end of the

week. Although last year’s winner,

Alexander Pfeier sailing KH+P

Bavastro, won more races than Gerd

Eiermann’s KH+P Odin II (including

the last race by just 17 seconds), the

latter’s consistency, with no result

worse than second, proved decisive.

Going into the last day, the winners of

Bareboat 2 and Bareboat 3 were already

determined. Peter Zauner’s Tintoret

had already clinched Bareboat 2, but by

winning the last race, Nicholas Jordan’s

Ananda ensured that she took second

place overall one point ahead of Jakob

Oetiker’s KH+P Botero. In Bareboat 3,

Hans Steidle, sailing KH+P Barbuda

with his two sons and their friends,

won the last race (her 6th race win) for

good measure ensuring a comfortable

FEATURE ANTIGUA SAILING WEEK

ALL PHOTOS: ED WHITING/FROM THE BLUE

T

he 52nd Antigua Sailing

Week took place in the

almost guaranteed idyllic

sailing conditions that this

Caribbean island consistently

provides: glorious sunshine, warm force

ve winds and big rolling seas (one of the

competitors, who has been taking part in

this event since 1992, said he could only

ever remember one race to be postponed

due to lack of wind). Eighty-nine boats

took part, with the sailors coming from

twenty-one dierent countries as far

aeld as Peru, Russia and Australia.

e week started with the Round

Antigua Race – sponsored by Peters

and May who had transported many of

the competing yachts to the event – for

which the two biggest boats barely made

it to the start line. Sir Peter Harrison’s

115 Farr ketch Sojana withdrew before

the start when she fouled her propeller;

and as the Dovell 100 canting keel SHK

Scallywag, skippered by Australian David

Witt, approached the line to windward

of three smaller yachts, her vast wind

shadow caused one of them – the TP52

Zingara (Conviction) – to come upright,

as a result of which Zingara’s masthead

36 Yachts & Yachting August 2019 yachtsandyachting.co.uk