Log of Sea Wings

14 April 2009

At Anchor

Prince Rupert Bay

Portsmouth, Dominica, WI

Lat 15 34.7445 N

Long 61 27.6620 W

Close Encounters Of The Racing Kind

It was a 53 nm run from St Kitts to St Maarten and we had a glorious sail. Hard to weather we averaged over 7.5 kts in 7-10 ft seas and 15 kts of wind. We slipped anchor around 7 am and were having a cold one in Great Bay by 2pm. It was a good way to get pumped up for the Heineken Regatta only a few weeks away during the first week in March.

Our plan was to meet our long time friends Scott and Jan who were sailing down from the states and race the regatta on a boat chartered by another old friend Don Reeder who was flying down for the event. We stayed at Dock Maarten Marina which had changed dramatically since our last visit in the summer of 08. New finger piers, boat lifts and new slips had appeared and we were looking forward to our stay awaiting the arrival of our friends for the race.

We were once again shown the warmest of hospitality by our friends Michel and Kathy who own Dock Maarten. They always treat us as family and we cannot tell them enough how much it has meant to us. And this includes their extended family who have made our visits to St Maarten memorable experiences. Housing a mixture of commercial and private vessels, Dock Maarten has a lively ‘resident’ population of boat owners, employees and visitors that keep life there fun and interesting. From our next door neighbors, the captain and crew of the day charter ‘pirate ship’ Lord Sheffield to our cross dock neighbors Jim, Jimbo and Dana who took us along on their beautiful motoryacht Caribbean Dreamin for fantastic trip to Saba, there was always something fun going on and the days in the marina passed quickly.

An often delayed item on our project list was a set of dinghy ‘chaps’, a canvas cover for the tubes of our dinghy to protect the rubberized fabric from UV rays and give it additional abrasion protection. We took advantage of our marina time to finally get it done and it turned out to be even more of a pain in the derriere than we had envisioned. There was little info on the internet to help us on how to do it and what we did find said it would take 2-3 days to complete. Including the time it took to find paper to make a pattern, it took us 8 long, hot days to get it done. Our plan was to use the canvas from our old bimini and other odd pieces

of fabric we had aboard to make boat look old and worn and, hopefully, less desirable to dinghy thief’s.

Getting enough paper for a pattern for a 10 ft dinghy pattern turned out to be more of a problem than we anticipated. After hours and miles of searching for kraft paper we finally settled on solid color wrapping paper we found in a local department store. We carried our bundle of rolls back and after an hour or two of pattern making realized how short we were and the next day we bought again as much paper. The pattern making along took more than two days and we were the talk of the marina as we made it in the shade of a breezeway which was the main entrance to the marina and the place all cruise ship passengers passed on their way to and from their day excursions from the marina. Lyn spent the rest of the time cutting and sewing the fabric, fitting and refitting, and generally bemoaning the fact that her hubby had said it would be a quick and easy project. But it all came right in the end and we now have a set of chaps just like all the other old salt cruisers.

Finally everyone arrived and the regatta was upon us. We put Sea Wings in full dress for the occasion, with signal flags flying fore and aft for the week of the event. This is an internationally know regatta with people and boats coming from around the world to compete. One of our marina neighbors was a German built rocket ship called a Pogo 40 that sailed from Germany for the event and was sailing back to Europe after the regatta to compete there for the rest of the season. A large number of the competing yachts are charter boats which sail in ‘bareboat’ classes. The numbers are so large that some of the bareboat classes are actually one design as there are enough boats of the same manufacture to form a class. Our boat was a chartered Cyclades (Beneteau) 43 from Moorings and we sailed in Bareboat 4 which was a one design class for this boat. By the time everyone arrived we had a crew of 10 to sail the boat and we looked forward to a great three day regatta.

The wind had been howling for nearly a week and a north swell of 3-4 meters was scheduled for the first two days of the event. We picked up the boat at the Moorings base in Oyster Pond and crashed and banged through the channel between the reefs off the entrance to the pond. In any kind of N or E swell, this entrance can be treacherous and the charter companies normally bring a captain on the boats to get them in and out of the reef. With so many boats (they bring charter boats from other bases in for the Heineken event) going in and out this was not possible so everyone was on their own. Fortunately our trip out and back in again was uneventful.

It is a very colorful event with even the charter boats having sponsorship logos plastered all over their hulls. With over 200 boats racing at the same time the multiple starts are tense and chaotic, often leading to fouls involving broken fiberglass. The first race was around the island starting on the more protected south side and proceeding clockwise around the island. It was blowing in the 20’s with gusts well into the 30’s so the starts were more tense than ever. We got a clean, if not spectacular start and began our chase of the handful of boats that got away ahead of us. Others were not as fortunate as two boats were dismasted in another start.

The first leg was a very short windward leg and the first rounding was mayhem with lots of shouting and close quarters in the high winds. We had a close call as we lost speed when we tacked and slapped rigs with another boat. No harm, no foul called and we were on our way around the island. Don was driving well and the trimmers were handling the puffs well and with no reefs we began to move up. The real seas started as we began to turn north around the island and as the course took us over some shallow water, the waves kicked up short and steep. It made a rough, wet ride for us but the photo ops were great for the following photo boats. We made our first tack toward the north end of the island and settled in for the upwind leg between St Martin and Anguilla as the fleet began to separate a little. Our second tack was just east of Marigot and we headed through the fleet on starboard tack.

Not five minutes into this tack a port tacker in our class came bearing in on us and we knew he would have to dip our stern as we were slightly ahead of him. He did not make his move fast enough for us and as the gap between us diminished with alarming speed we al began shouting “starboard!!!!!!” in unison at the top of our lungs, followed quickly by “starboard you f_c_ing idiots!!!!!!!” but the other boat could not turn down without dumping the main (which they didn’t) and we knew impact was imminent. Don screamed for a tack but it was too late and it only made the impact a little more glancing that a direct hit. They crashed into us with the loud sound of breaking fiberglass. Scott and his son Ryan were jumping over the deck calling them every name, and then some, in the book, but a quick glance around showed everyone else, save for the two helmsmen, flat on the deck on cockpit anticipating the rigs coming down.

The next wave pulled them off us, but with all sails up on both boats she hit us again with both rigs smashing into each other with a loud metallic sound that kept everyone down on the deck. We spun around and now beam to beam we raked down her side, our rigs crashing together for the second time and our boom crashing into her upper shrouds. As a testament to Beneteau building a strong boat, both rigs somehow stayed up and we separated.

We now lay in the path of the fleet coming at us on port tack. We waited a moment or two to see if the rig would fall and then got up and made the quick decision to retire the boat as we did not know if the rig would stay up in the strong winds and seas and we did not yet know the extent of the damage to the hull. The sails were dropped and we began to motor back to the start area. The hull was cracked and the hull/deck joint at the point of the first impact was crushed in about 4 inches. We called the Moorings team who were located in Simpson Bay near the start and alerted them to the damage. They advised us to come in and anchor near them and they would send an inspection team over to access the damage. This turned out to be a longer wait than anticipated as there were several damaged boats ahead of us getting the same inspection. It reminded of an insurance claims center for damaged cars, one coming in after another.

We did not get good news, although the hull was OK to race, they thought that with three hits to the rig and the high winds and seas, they would not allow us to continue with the regatta. So with only about 2 hours of sailing, our regatta was over. Dejected, but now drinking heavily, we headed back the 4 miles or so to the marina. As we went, we began to see the carnage from the day’s events. Two boats came by with crew working at the top of the mast. One had its genoa in tatters. A Melges 24 came by under tow with its mast tied to the deck. Another chartered boat in the marina had its bimini askew and only one jib sheet and did not leave the dock for the next two races.

As we lamented the events of the day we wondered if the boat that hit us (a crew from Holland) was just stupid and ignorant of the rules or were just playing chicken in hopes that we were ignorant and would tack away even though we had rights. We checked the results after the regatta and found out that they were allowed to continue after taking a dnf for the first race and finished the last two with a first and second in class for seventh overall in class. So the bastards were playing chicken and when they saw we knew our rights it was too late to take the boat down to dip us. And as we were a half boat length ahead of them we wondered how well we would have finished if they had not hit us. Fuc_ing bastards.

An aside regarding the carnage for Heineken weekend. The weather continued to blow and the north east swell continued into the next week. One of the competing charter boats, a 36 foot Moorings, was swept onto the reef while trying to enter Oyster Pond to return the yacht on Tuesday. It sank in less than a half hour, fortunately with no serious injuries.

We stayed another two weeks after the regatta enjoying our time with friends old and new. We hoped that Scott and Jan might join us for a while as we headed south, but they were tired from their schedule driven run from the states and elected to stay in St Maarten for a while. So it was off to Guadeloupe with an overnight stay in Nevis on the way. We could not have had two nicer days of sailing and the 120 nm passed all too quickly as we arrived in Deshaies, Guadeloupe and looked forward new adventures on this large, French island.

Fair winds and better racing,

Lew and Lyn

s/v Sea Wings