Caribbean Direct: Blogs from St. Martin, French Caribbean

St. Maarten Carnival: Calypso Contest Eliminations Moved Back Into Carnival Village

2011-04-07T14:58:00.000-07:00

Calypsonians Call On

Politicians To Change

Former Junior Calypso Queen Little Roxy Scores Highest With Old Song

Lady Emerald

The Calypso Eliminations drew a total of 16 contestants on Friday evening April 1^st in the St. Maarten Carnival Village and for the most part it was serious notes on worrying topics. Worry about the political future of St. Maarten, rising taxes, high cost of living, politicians and current manner of politicking under the new status of “country” were other serious notes Calypsonians touched on.

This pre-Carnival event is really the Showcase of the Year, highlighting local musical talents, featuring a year in political review and social commentary, laced in satire and rich humor, and usually sung in very fast and funny rhymes.

Calypso Barbara

Calypso song judges were Claudius Wilson and Romeo Fleming with Ester Davis, as head judge

This year as part of a reorganization and amelioration efforts on behalf of the organizing Foundation, President of the SCDF, Stuart Johnson, noted in The

Lady Sha

Daily Herald newspaper last Tuesday that this year the Calypso Eliminations event has been returned to

Carnival Village although the official opening of the Village is April 25. Traditionally the Eliminations are held at another venue and only the Calypso song Finals are held in the Village.

SCDF President Johnson explained that they had warmed up the roads with two JumpUps, the Unity JumpUp and the Around Town JumpUp, and that the Village would be warmed up by the Calypsonians!

Mighty Challenger

Monitor

Many of the 16 Calypsonians also noted they were worried about the political future of the island, noting the political infighting during world wide poor economic times, more and more taxes, high food prices, government impartiality and wide spread nepotism concerning civil servant employment, etc.

The All Stars Band headed by Frank Gumbs, backed up each Calypso contestant with back up vocalists, including singer, Lavaune Henry. Marion and another gentleman joined the backup crew for Lady Emerald’s song and Baker Junior joined for Fish’s performance.

Chipman

Lady Emerald was the first to take the stage like a lioness and open the Calypso Elimination contest in the Carnival Village with her original and beseeching song “Do Something For the Children”.

After a break from the Calypso scene, Lady Sha took the stage like a ray of shining light and belted out her song “Country St. Maarten” with gusto.

Making a debut this year was Tall Stephan “Mighty Challenger”, more commonly known as the former Obeah man.

“The Monitor” firmly and peaceably made certain political points clear in his song “I Didn’t Vote For That.”

Calix

Youth Waves band member and Calypsonian, Andrew Richardson otherwise known as “Junior Baker” began his intro with the former DP radio advertisement jingle and then added a humorous view on political wrangling between the three political parties in his song “Call Sarah!”

“When you see him doing naughty things, Call Sarah,” Junior Baker sang with some strong feelings.

Junior Baker

Mighty Chipman dressed in a spectacular blue Carnival costume complete with hat, noted that “politicians are fighting on the street” in his song Chipmunk. Chipman also made a social comment on the “sheep effect” versus leadership and good governance.

In contrast with the political topics and angles, musical showman and previous Calypso King several times, Isidore York “The Mighty Dow” said “This Government Is The Best” in his song and set out his points for his case. Bystanders noted he had recently switched political parties. Is his vibrant red cap and coat perhaps a symbol for the DP red colors?

The eighth contestant for the evening was the Young Calix with his “Stand Up For We Country” which brought much applause from the audience of perhaps Calypso 300 fans. Also in the front of the audience was his Mother and Father, a former Calypsonian, singing and merrily cheering him on!

Calix’s performance was top notch in all aspects!

We thought the ninth contestant, Man George from Dominica, had the best music with originality, tuneful, rhythm and had a complete and finished sound. We also appreciated his song lyrics “They Call Him A Foreigner”! Man George's show of contentment, gratitude coupled with appreciation truly touched our hearts this evening. As he left the stage, he asked humbly “Please don’t call me a foreigner, it's too long now!”

Mighty Dow

Also holding several previous Calypso King titles, the Mighty Repeater came out with his strong song “I Do” where he asked the head of the United People’s Party of St. Maarten, Theo Heyligher if he would “take Sarah as his loving wife” noting the relatively new political power sharing agreement between UP and DP parties, in the last St. Maarten election. “Here comes the bride, she’s not wearing white, she is wearing red,” the Mighty Repeater sang. He was not amused although the words in his song were extremely clever and satirical!

New on the Calypso scene, the young Mighty Pepper, sang his original song with several political comments about the Belvedere housing project “deals”.

He also made a sharp comment on how people follow or the sheep effect that has allowed government to govern with self interest at heart.

Fish The Mega Boss

Alberto Arrindell “Fish the Mega Boss” noted on his song that the key to dealing with politicians is “I must lock them up and send them to jail”! Fish’s clever and passionate lyrics made the audience chuckle several times.

Man George

Mighty Pepper

Calypso Junior queen, Roxane Webster “Little Roxy” surprisingly did not sing an original song and instead sang an old famous Calypso song that was pertinent to today’s affairs on St. Maarten and also around the world. She noted that fighting and arguing is counterproductive in moving forward and to “count your blessings, my people” and to appreciate we have now today.

Repeater

Veteran Calypsonian and Calypso junior coach of many years from her home in St. Peters, Calypso Barbara wrote her song about the melee (latest gossip scandal) on the village and the Calypsonians, as well as the various scandals of impartiality that befell DP councilor “Maria” last year and that “she was glad to stand up to her” in the face of what is right. She also sang that “she told the prosecutor she was vexed!”.

Kirk Williams “Mighty Kirk” hit the stage like a bomb and had his audience cheering in agreement with his clever song “More Music No Justice”.

King Barrow sang his song “For Better or Worse” noting that politicians’ “bank books getting big”! Barrow also noted that politicians are “treating people like dirt” and have “no respect for life”.

As the All Stars Band members packed up instruments, we were treated to a replay of all the Calypso songs of the evening. Two radio stations broadcasted the event live and one TV station crew were on hand to film.

Calypso songs were judged according to rendition 20 points, lyrics 30 points, melody 30 points, presentation 10 points and originality 10 points.

Little Roxy

The DJ announced that the 10 contestants for the Calypso Finals scheduled for April 28, were King Barrow with 218 points, Lady Emerald with 230, Mighty Kirk with 230 points, Mighty Challenger with

239 points, Baker Junior with 242 points, Fish with 249 points, Mighty Repeater with 252 points, Mighty Dow with 254 points, Young Calix with 257 points and Little Roxy with top score of 260 points.

We noted that no foreign Calypsonians had made finals and thought privately that Man George’s performance should have made the final, with his original song, great and clear voice, beautiful music arrangement and his social comment on what’s like to be a foreigner in sweet St. Maarten. We also thought that Lady Sha with her catchy song “Country St. Maarten” and Calypso Barbara, and her song “Maria” should have placed in the finals.

Mighty Kirk

However over the years we have all attended many Calypso Elimination contests and the fact that there is always controversy concerning the judge’s judgments that continue weeks after the event on the radio waves and TV discussion shows, and we do accept the judge’s scores as final.

But the shocking question was how the winner, Little Roxy, made the top score with someone else’s famous Calypso song according to the competition rules?

King Barrow

And may we recommend due to the high level competition that all judges have musical professions, thus musical expertise and a first rate knowledge of music?

We would like to add that we were very excited by the calibre and standard of the Calypso Elimination contest this year, it was a great show and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening, listening to good songs and music, plus sharing some laughs with old friends!

Please see the 2011 St. Maarten Carnival program here http://www.stmaartencarnival.net/

Video Interview With Musical Super Star Wcylef Jean On St. Maarten

2011-04-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

St. Maarten's Audrey
Jack Interviews Wyclef
What Does Wyclef Have To Say?

While final races of the 31st annual St. Maarten Heineken Regatta were en route on Sunday morning and in preparation of the grand concert to celebrate and close the Regatta, International musical star, Wyclef Jean, was interviewed by local media at the St. Maarten Yacht Club.
Wyclef sang in concert for the sailors until 3pm on KimSha Beach in Simpson Bay that night!

As I raced on Synergy with Captain Lea and Team-Wave Sunday, I was unable to attend, so here is St. Maarten's talented Audrey Jack and her video interview with Wycleff!

Please click to View Audrey's Video Link:
http://www.vimeo.com/21296485

Audrey R. Jack is the Executive Producer and Host of The All Access Show.
Please see more on www.morebacchanal.com

St. Maarten Heineken Regatta 2011 Winners And Awards

2011-03-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

Wycleff Jean Sings From The

Heart For Sailors Until 3pm

Green Steps And Clean Regatta Bronze Award

St. Maarten Heineken Regatta sailors dance with Wycleff

Despite the wind gods non cooperation and there was serious expansion of CSA racing classes to accommodate a high entry level of brand new designs of serious racing yachts and which was subdivided by Race Committee officials to create an exciting CSA 1R and CSA 1C classes for the first time ever. This notes that St. Maarten Heineken Regatta has become a favourite among regional and internationally based racers and is fast becoming even more popular among professional European, US and American sailors who note the event in their racing calendars.

In concert Sunday, Wycleff Jean sang to the sailors until 3pm

Whether the news of this event is spread word of mouth and or via the great promotions yearly by St. Maarten Heineken Regatta officials, a great work has been done. And we say this in response to the feedback we received from sailors in the event who emphasized the good St. Maarten Heineken Regatta organization and friendliness.

Wycleff Jean sings to a responsive audiance!

“At the end of the weekend everything was a complete success, there were no major incidences on or off the water. It went smoothly and for the competitors looking in, it was well organized, which is our main goal at the end of the day,” St. Maarten Heineken Regatta Director, Heather Tackling noted with some satisfaction on Monday, March 7.

Clean Regatta And Green Steps

Heather confirmed that the Sailors for the Sea, ocean conservation group have again awarded the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta a Bronze award for Clean Regatta status, for green and environment conservation efforts.

This year Heavenly Water joined the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta in a sponsorship for the first time and donated drinkable water for event and at the same time launched green steps forward to introduce eco-friendly water bottles with bright green biodegradable cap. The new Heavenly Water plastic bottles are made entirely from plants and leave no toxic residue behind after they have ‘biodegraded’.

“Heavenly Water and Good2Go have come together to introduce biodegradable water bottles to the island – a first, not only for St. Maarten but for the entire Caribbean. In fact, only a handful of companies worldwide so far have produced eco-friendly water bottles, so Heavenly Water should be heartily congratulated on their innovative development,” Heather explained in her press release on http://www.heinekenregatta.com

Heather added that “Residents and visitors alike are voicing growing concerns about the number of discarded plastic bottles that are appearing in our oceans, lagoons, on our beaches and around our countryside. The problem of plastic pollution is becoming a huge issue for St. Maarten and just to emphasize that point, a beach clean-up in Nettle Bay last August, collected almost one ton of plastic bottles in just three hours!”

This is a stunning figure, in fact Heather noted that “worldwide, 30 billion plastic water bottles are thrown away every year. That’s over 8 million a day or around a hundred bottles per second.”

Drinkable water in biodegradable bottles can be bought from selected stores on St. Maarten or check http://www.heavenlywaters.com!

Winners, Cups and Beautiful Yachts

For the team’s contribution to charities, the Goldendog Cup was awarded to the all girl Dutch team headed by Marieke Poulie on Sun Odyssey 44i, Something Hot, in Bareboat 3 class. These dynamic young ladies work for Heineken in different countries such as the Netherlands and the Republic of Panama, and have been participating in the regatta since since 1997. In 2008 this crew won the award for "Most Fun" team and in 2009 the team ended in the 2nd place in the same category. Last year the Something Hot girls won their class for the first time!

It was Peter Peake’s Reichel Pugh 43, Storm, who stormed the Australian crew on the Cookson 50 Jazz aside in CSA 1R and scored a bullet Sunday, to capture CSA IR cup. Besides the tough competition between the Reichel Pugh 43 and the Cookson 50 throughout the 3 day regatta, beginning with Gill Commodore’s Cup on Thursday, Oyster Catcher remained in 3^rd place during the 4 consecutive races, as did Genuine Risk in 4^th place and the Volvo 60 crewed by a Lithuania team, Ambersail in 5^th place.

We would like to note that we really enjoyed watching the professional level of competition in this class, it was hot and tense with skillful maneuvers.

Wendy Schmidt’s Swan 80, Team Selene, won the CSA 1C cup for the second consecutive year however the race classer winner of the day was Bill Alcott’s new Swan 601, Aquarius! Team Selene also won the Best Swan trophy!

CSA 2 class winners INTAC crew

Mark Plaxton’s Melges 32, INTAC, walked off with the CSA 2 class Cup with 4 straight bullets and the Captain Andrea Scarabelli of Melges 24, Budget Marine, placed 2^nd overall with a three 2^nd places and one 6^th place.

The CSA 3 class cup went the Spanish team aboard the Swan 77, La Forza del Destino, who also managed a class win of the day as well as a bullet in the Friday race.

Philippe Falle’s Beneteau First 50, Hydrocarbon Logic, scored a bullet Sunday and also took the class cup for CSA 4 and also the Best Head Boat trophy. (Head boat meaning charter racing yacht)

Otre Vez

The CSA 5 class cup went to the American team aboard the William Coates’s J122, Otra Vez. We noted that this J122 crew sailed a fine race and managed to maintain an overall boat speed over the light winds during the 3 day weekend regatta event.

CSA 6 class was dominated by locally based teams from St. Martin and quite a number of crews from St. Barths!

Vanille

Speedy Nemo and Lil'E St. BarthsCom Sunday

The French St. Martin team headed by Philippe Herve and his Beneteau First Spirit 300, won the CSA 6 class cup along with a class win that day. St. Maarten’s Ian Hope-Ross on the Beneteau First 36.7 placed 2^nd overall while Raymond Magras, and his St. Barths team on the Dufour 34, Speedy Nemo placed 3^rd overall. Raphael Magras on his Xyacht, Maelia, placed 4^th overall and the black 9.5 metres, Fox’s Shark Requin, Lil’E St. BarthsCom placed 5^th!

Bobby Velasquez’s Beneteau 45F5, L’Esperance won CSA 7 class cup with two 1^st places and a 2^nd place Sunday.

De Wilgen Vastgoed

Klaas van Duuren’s x612, De Wilgen Vastgoed placed 2^nd overall in CSA 7 and won the SOL Cup for Fastest Non-Spi Around the Island on Friday.

Tanner Jones’s Antigua crew on the J30, Blue Peter walked away The Best J Boat trophy and the CSA 8 class Cup with a 1^st the Friday Around the Island race, a 2^nd place Saturday and class win Sunday.

Sandy Mair’s Soverel 30 from Antigua, Streaker placed 2^nd overall respectively!

In Lotterie class overall winner was the yacht from Turkey, Ekber Levent’s Beneteau First 38, Tzigane!

Phaedo becalmed Sunday

Phaedo crew on Saturday morning at the SMYC

In the three multihull classes, Lloyd Thornburg’s new orange Gunboat, Phaedo scored 3 consecutive bullets and won CSA 1C. Patrick Turner’s Dick Newick, Team Kahunas also scored 3 consecutive bullets and the Russian team on the VPM Lagoon 500, Nikiforov, won Multihull 2 with two first places and one 3^rd place Sunday.

For all Bareboat classes, please see Results at http://www.heinekenregatta.com!

Concert photos of Wycleff Jean curtesy of Tom Zinn photography www.tomzinn.com and INTAC crew trophy curtesy of http://www.HeinekenRegatta.com, thank you!

See you-all there next year!!!

Team Wave/Synergy Donate US$ 2,500 To Safehaven

2011-03-30T08:28:00.000-07:00

Team Wave Ladies Use Creative
Ways of Fundraising With Success
Cheque Handover On International Women's Day

Synergy

As part of an extensive fundraising effort by Team-Wave during St. Maarten Heineken Regatta, the female sailing team triumphantly presented a cheque of US$2,500 to Safehaven Director, Loyola Seymonson on International Women's Day, on Tuesday morning, March 8, aboard the catamaran, Manukai, in Simpson Bay Yacht Club.

"Team WAVE's goal is to highlight the need to support mistreated women locally and internationally," TeamWave Captain, Val Doan said. "There is a worldwide epidemic of violence against women, whether through domestic abuse, rampant rape or exploitation in war torn and third world countries. By competing with our all-female crew and raising funds, we are creating a global awareness and asking the public to join us in our efforts." http://team-wave.info/nb.html


Agnes Waakraam, Val Doan, Loyola Seymonson, Maike van Mameren, Claudia Delahoy

"We have to relocate as the roof is leaking. We have found a nice location and we need money for rent. We have to relocate the shelter as we have clients inside, there are pots and pans everywhere (when it rains) and we have been very blessed by government and businesses, so when Lea sent me an email - we were so very pleased to hook up with (yacht) Synergy and we are so very happy to work together (with Team-Wave)", Safehaven Director, Loyola Seymonson said cheerfully on Tuesday morning.

Vanessa, Lea and Denise

The raffle organized by Team-Wave was drawn on Monday evening at the St. Maarten Yacht Club and the top prize, a yacht haulout was won by the Captain of the 70 metre expedition ship Sherakan, Sietske, who is Lea de Haas's daughter! And Sietske donated her prize to her Mother, to allow Synergy to benefit the haulout! The second prize was a duffle bag for the weekend.

Synergy crosses the Requin, Lil'E St. Barths

Team Wave Captain, Val Doan, said that she donated Team Wave T-shirts and bought hundreds of raffle tickets as well as the entire Team Wave crew who also made personal contributions.

Val noted with appreciation the initiative taken by Team Wave member, artist Helen Mussell, who raised a grand total of US$900 by selling her delightful paintings during an art evening held at the St. Maarten Yacht Club just before the Regatta. http://www.helenmussellart.com/index.php

Winch lady Vanessa, Lea, Denise, Maike and Val

"Lea de Haas also raised US$800 in contributions by selling wrist bands, raffle tickets along with donations from friends and family," Val continued. "Our sponsors included St. Maarten Ship Yard, Divi Little Bay Hotel, KFC, Liz Claiborne, Fountain of Health shop, Budget Marine, jewelry designer Mac Miller and Deju Vu restaurant. And we raised US$200 by selling Team-Wave bracelets."
"We had fun, it was really nice," Val added softly.

Are The Wind Gods Busy Elsewhere?

2011-03-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

The Rain Shower That Followed Us

Light Breezes And Lots Of Holes

Misty rain and a half hour delay for the first start of the races along mirrored seas was a first challenge confronted by race crews and the race committee officers gathering Sunday morning in Marigot Bay for the last day of St. Maarten Heineken Regatta 2011 racing.

The Most Worthy Performance Cup for Sunday races was awarded to Eggert Schuett on the Harmony 51, Team Hamburg in Bareboat 1.

De Wilgen Vastgoed

The Colombus Cup for Best Bareboat Overall went to Hans Robert Nitsche's Dufour 45S, See You Later, in Bareboat 4.

The Spirit and Style Award was awarded to Albert Boorsma's Freizen Boys.

Team Margolis on the Seacart 30, Blanca won the Panama Jack Cup for fastest multihull

Klaus can Duuren on the X612, De Wilgen Vastgoed, in CSA 7 class won the SOL Cup for Fastest Non-Spi Around the Island on Friday.

Ralf Steitz's Dubois 90, Genuine Risk, won the Windward Island Bank Cup for the Fastest Spi Around the Island Friday.

Genuine Risk

Early that morning sailors packed the Marigot waterfront dock waiting for the water taxi crews to drop them on their aboard yachts. The race course started in Marigot with a downwind leg to buoys off Bay Rouge point and up the coast to Simpson Bay, after rounding one of two buoys to a downwind finish.

Today for me was a very special day, as I was joining an all girl Team Wave aboard Lea Haas’s 1975 Admirals Cup contender, Synergy, a Frers 49 custom design.

Synergy crew in discussion before the start

Team Wave & Synergy

St. Maarten Heineken Regatta officials waived the entry fee for Synergy and Team Wave this year, to assist the team’s fundraising efforts for St. Maarten's Safehaven.

The team collected private donations, organized a raffle, sold the blue Team-Wave bracelets and in addition Val organized a successful clothes drive before leaving the BVI, also to benefit Safehaven.

Team WAVE’s goal is to highlight the need to support mistreated women locally and internationally.

“ We like to give back to the communities where we race, which is why our logo is the wave, and we try to keep that wave rolling, and we race to raise awareness,” Val noted.

Team Waves Captain, Val

“Lea is a mentor to me, she is a great role model for all women, she sails Synergy single handedly and works tirelessly for Team Wave with her boat, time, money and effort,” Val said.

Synergy 2006

In 2006 Team Wave joined forces with Lea on Synergy to win their Class and Division in the Centennial Newport-Bermuda Race. Synergy placed 12th overall out of fleet of 250 yachts and they were first all female in the 100 year history of the race to do so. In addition Team Waves and tactician for Newport-Bermuda race, Captain, Val Doan, was the first woman to win the Navigator’s Award!

The original Team Wave included lady First mates that Captain Val has trained during the last 25 years and of which 10-15 of these ladies are all skippers in their own right, which is one of many facets of what makes Team Wave so special. http://www.team-wave.info

Val is based in the BVI, skippering a private yacht. What’s next for Team Wave? Well, there’s BVI Spring Regatta of course and the Team Wave ladies have been given a sponsored catamaran to race!

Synergy Captain, Lea de Haas with Formula 40, Soma

Synergy

Bill MCCowan was the first owner of 49 foot Frers Synergy and won the de Guingand Bowl in 1975, in preparation of the Admirals Cup race. Denise Holmberg, Team Waves’s present tactician, is also a previous owner of Synergy, before Lea renovated the Frers 49 following hurricane damage in Simpson Bay Lagoon.

“It was very very nice, excellent,” Lea commented gently with a smile. She was watching the girl crew in action, removing and folding Kevlar sails, drying the rained on spinnaker and installing jib roller reefer after the race Sunday, in preparation of Synergy’s imminent charter.

“She is a hard boat to race with big sails. We have a lovely crew, all good women on the ball who help where they can. This is fun for me, relaxing, which allows me to do what I do best (driving),” Lea added.

What’s next for Synergy? A charter and then Azores in May Lea said with a smile.

Synergy on Saturday

Sunday Race on Synergy

After waking up to a flat mirrored sea at 6am and as I drove my car down from the East side of the island after 8pm, I could see no change, light breezes rippled small patches of sea but for the most part, the sea was flat and shiny, with massive patches of wind holes throughout the Anguilla channel.

The water taxi crew dropped me on board Synergy just after 8H30 am as all the girls were on deck preparing to get under way. Lea graciously welcomed me as did Team Wave Skipper, Val Doan. A little while later, Val designated me to join the foredeck crew under Claudia.

Nikata snags start buoy

When I got on the foredeck, I eyed this large genoa that I was to fend off as it travels around the baby stay during tacking with plenty humility, asking to myself when was the last time I was on a big boat, besides the 54 feet wooden yacht, Ramage, that I grew up on! Sails of a 50 footer just don't compare to a sails of my 6.5 metres mini-transat! During Synergy’s first tack, when the genoa surprised my nose, I was amused and it made me more determined to do better next time!

Following a second delay of the start due to breaths of wind and finally after the setting of the start buoy according the Race officer instructions, the big blue Swan 82S, Nikata, snagged the buoy around her rudder and drifted off slowly to leeward until the buoy tender came to the rescue, following several urgent calls from other boats reporting the matter to the race committee boat on the VHF radio.

Team Waves’s tactician, Denise Holmberg, ensured a good start position for Synergy.

Synergy crew and Vanille

On puffs of wind, Synergy would catch up to Vanille and as the breeze ebbed, Vanille would glide by with her blue spinnaker reflecting a magnificent blue shadow on the sea.

As the fleet of big and small racing classes of yachts bunched up by the first mark with colourful spinnakers, the yachts that had already rounded the mark inched forward with many sails hanging loose, meaning no wind to fill them. I was pleased that this buoy was not for our CSA class 6!

The rain came in like a curtain from the south-west by Bay Rouge with a new wind direction as we turned on a southerly course to round the island by Plum Bay. The girls pulled out rain jackets for the second time and eyed the sky with some frustration.

Tiny gusts of wind pushed the fleet of smaller classes

of yachts with spinnakers flying, to close in the

distance to the bigger yachts and eventually we caught up to the multihull and bareboat classes just past the airport in Maho.

As Synergy is an old IOR design, her weight allows to glide longer than the smaller boats and this allowed us to catch up to the red Melges 24, Budget Marine and the orange Gunboat Phaedo.

It was a game of patience to grab each puff of wind and glide forward, before the boat stops dead in the water.

Synergy on Saturday

Eventually the squall did a turn and came back, turning the breeze inshore and spinnakers began to collapse and most crews dropped spinnakers to keep close to shore where the wind was.

Other yachts kept their spinnaker and headed more south to keep wind in the chutes for speed.

It seemed that there was more wind offshore however these yachts tacked back inshore as the inshore breezes remained erratic and variable.

Coming up to the last buoy for the downwind finish, we saw two bareboat crews frantically pulling out fenders as the two bareboat yachts drifted together just 10 feet short of the buoy.

As Synergy rounded the last buoy for the downwind finish, the breeze ebbed again. Following a spinnaker run and a gibe, Synergy glided over the finish line with three other yachts, to place 13^th on corrected time Sunday, with a 9th place Friday and in the two races held Saturday, a 15th and 11th place respectively.

So were the Wind Gods elsewhere?

You might well ask, as during the awards ceremonies the Captain Morgan’s Cup for the Most Unworthy Performance, was awarded to these same Wind Gods!

10 Knots For First Race And Winds Lighten For Second

2011-03-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Most Worthy Performance Cup

Won By Something Hot Girls

The Most Worthy Performance Cup for the second day of racing of the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta was awarded to the all girl Dutch team headed by Marieke Poulie on the Jeanneau Odyssey 44i, Something Hot, in Bareboat class 2.

Sojana and Oyster powering around windward mar

Racing divisions CSA 1 to 6 enjoyed two very different races on Saturday, beginning with a windward-leeward course race in the morning and in the afternoon, the entire fleet raced from Great Bay, St. Maarten, with a downwind leg around the island to buoys off Anguilla, Anse Marcel and Tintamarre according to class courses for multihull and bareboat on Saturday race courses with the finish in beautiful bay of Marigot, French St. Martin.

Selene

Previous Heineken Regatta winner, Team Selene aboard the Swan 80, took two class wins for the two races held for CSA 1C, and the charter mega yacht Swan 82S, Matt Hardy on Nikata scored a 2^nd and 3^rd place. Brian Benjamin’s Carbon Ocean 82, Aegir placed 3^rd place and a 5^th place respectively.

Jazz

Upsetting Storm’s first place on Friday, Mike Broughton’s Jazz crew blew away the competition to score 2 bullets for the 2 races held in CSA 1R on Saturday. Peter Peake's Reichel Pugh 43, Storm placed 2^ndin both races while Richard Matthews, Oystercatcher maintained 3^rd place with two 3^rd places.

Mark Plaxton's Melges 32, INTAC, scored two bullets in CSA 2, Budget Marine maintained two 2^nd places as well as Jordon Mindich’s J125, Aunt Jessie, with two 3^rd places.

Kialoa V

Doug Mitchell’s Kialoa V, a Maxi, Frers 80, scored 1^st and 2^nd places in CSA 3 while Fred Smither's Swan 77, La Forza Del Destino, placed 2^nd and 4^th, while Mark Burton’s Farr 65, Spirit of Minerva, placed 3^rd and 5^th.

Philippe Falle's Beneteau 50, Hydrocarbon Logic, placed 3^rd and 1^st in CSA 4, while Sergio Sagramoso’s Grand Soleil 54, Lazy Dog placed 2^nd and 4^th and Stefan Lehnert’s Turner 56, Passion4C a 1^st and 5th.

In the first race of CSA 5 all the yachts received penalties for being early over the start line and

William Coates's J122, Otra Vez, scored a 1st and a 2^nd place while Willem Wester’s Grand Soleil 43, Antelope scored a 1.5 and 1^st.

Kick'Em Jenny (L)

Vanille

Ian Hope- Ross’s Beneteau 36.7, Kick’em Jenny, placed 1^st and 2^ndin CSA 6, while Philippe Herve’s Beneteau First 300 Spirit placed 6^th and 1^st and Raymond Magras’s Dufour 34, Speedy Nemo, captured a 3^rd place and 9^th.

Maintaining the lead in CSA 7 from Friday, Bobby Velasquez’s Beneteau 45F5, again scored a bullet followed by Klaas Van Duuren’s X612, DeWilgen Vastgoed , in 2^nd place and Ian Martin’s Lavranos, Island Water World, with 3rd place.

Rick Gormley’s First 38, Elethea, scored a bullet in CSA 8 while Tanner Jones’s J30, Blue Peter, placed 2^nd and Sandy Mair’s Soverel 30, Streaker, placed 3^rd. In Lottery Class, Mike Stamm’s ‘t Swaentje, an Albergh 30 captured first place and Ekber Levent's Beneteau First 38, Tzigane, scored second with Peter Dupre’s Rhodes Chesapeake 32, Windspawn, slotted into third place.

Bareboat winners included Eggert Schuett’s Harmony 52, Team Hamberg, in Bareboat 1, Ernst Jan van der Wal’s Beneteau Cyclades 50, Brand Boot in Bareboat 2, the all girl team from Holland on Sun Odyssey 44i, Something Hot, headed by Marieke Poulie in Bareboat 3, Hans Robert Nitsche on the Dufour 455, KH+P Sea you later, in Bareboat 4 and Philippe Firmin on the Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 409, Yapado, in Bareboat 5.

In the 3 Multihull divisions, Friday winners maintained their first place bullets in the Saturday race from the south side of St. Maarten, Philipsburg and Simpson Bay, to Marigot bay on French St. Martin with buoys near Anguilla and Anse Marcel (French St. Martin).

Lloyd Thornburg's bright orange 66 feet Gunboat, Phaedo, scored their first bullet in Multihull 1C followed by Pat Turner's Dick Newick, Team Kahunas in Multihull 1R and the Lagoon 500 bareboat charter catamaran, Nikiforov, in Multihull 2.

Soma gliding down the coast by Grand Case

The fleet in Multihull 1R class was a very exciting class to watch due to intense acceleration speeds achieved by a spectacular range of offshore racing catamarans and trimarans, some old and some new with bright coloured hulls. On Saturday shortly midday, we were able to follow the pink hulls of Lui passing Grand Case on her return from the windward mark, followed by Formula 40, Soma, planning on the puffs of wind a few miles back. Less than 15 minutes later Soma had closed in the distance behind the 50 feet ocean trimaran Lui, and both multihulls glided past the mark in Marigot bay and headed up to the finish line.

Soma hot on the heels of Lui entering Marigot bay

It was clear that both multihulls were riding different

Anne's Lu

wind puffs on relatively flat seas and flat mirrored wind

holes dotted the inshore waters of the north coast of the island. Wind was a scarce commodity and the sight of Lui lifting her windward hull and surging forward while our press boat driver Jean Marc struggled to keep up

with her, was impressive! Lui was able to out run Soma in the stronger wind puffs, while in the consistently light airs the ultra light weight Formula 40 had an advantage.

Anne Caseneuve driving her amazing trimaran

French route de Rum contester, Anne Caseneuve on her pink 50 feet ocean racing trimaran designed by Jack Mitchell and Christophe Houdet Lui, came in 2^nd in Multihull 1R and 3^rd was the Seacart 30, Blanca, driven by team Margolis. The Formula 40, Soma, driven by Nils Erickson place 4^thoverall on Saturday.

Godet


Genuine Risk

Whitbred, Les Ptits Filous

ISee

Vanille preparing for Race 1

The new Island Water World, a Kiwi 35

Lupa of London, one crew barefoot!

Synergy (C) during race 1

Wind Hole To Wind Hole In Very Light Winds

2011-03-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

Channel Tactics: Local Knowledge Favours Inshore

Variable Winds, Channel Current And Wind Holes Difficult For Fleet

INTAC crew

The Most Worthy Performance Cup for "Around the Island Race" on Friday went to Mark Plaxton’s crew on Melges 32, INTAC, on the first day of the Heineken Regatta which kicked off under dark skies and a medium breeze Great Bay on St. Maarten, March 4.

The Bliss Cup for the Fastest Bareboat Around the Island race went to Asterie.

As St. Maarten/St. Martin has a scenic range of peaked hills that under light winds create an amazing set of thermal wind conditions that change constantly as you sail around the island, meaning the challenge is to

Genuine Ris

turn a 40 degree to 60 degree wind shifts to your advantage and avoid wind holes or get stuck in them for up an hour, while you watch all the competition gliding past and skirting the hole you are stuck in! In fact we have noticed how well European and US lake sailors perform with heavy bare boats in previous Heineken Regattas.

Nikata & Shaka

At the start of the race the fleet of yachts rounded marks to windward and enjoyed a slow paced spinnaker run down the south side of St. Maarten and around a mark near the British island of Anguilla, where winds lightened considerably and became very variable with wind holes on a very flat sea in the Anguilla channel.

The fleet of yachts began to inch up the channel around 11am with the Dubois 90, Genuine Risk taking the lead the monohull fleet. They finished with line honors in her class but it was not enough for a class win.

Smaller local yachts favored the North coast of St. Marten and took every advantage of inshore breezes coming off the land, surging past larger racing yachts that crawled forward mid Anguilla channel where the current is the strongest.

Aquarius and St. Maarten Sea Rescue standing by

The bare boat fleets started up the channel in the early afternoon however after 3pm when winds lightened even more to reveal massive wind holes on a flat mirrored sea throughout the channel. We saw a several bare boats drifting backwards due to current.

Around the Island Race Results Friday

Setting the pace in the exciting class of CSA 1C, Bill Alcott's new Swan 601, Aquarius, placed 1st with Matt Hardy’s Swan 82S Nikata in 2^nd place and Wendy Schmidt’s Swan 80 Team Selene in 3^rd place

Storm from Trinidad

Peter Peake's Reichel Pugh 43, Storm, on a stormin' comeback after the Gill Commodore's Cup Thursday made their first bullet in CSA 1R with Mike Broughton’s Jazz in 2^nd place and Richard Matthews, Oystercatcher in 3^rd place.

Mark Plaxton's Melges 32, INTAC, scored a bullet in CSA 2, with Budget Marine in 2^nd place and Paul C.

Bruggadung from Barbados

Johnson’s Bruggadung II, the Benteau First Class 10 (from Barbados), slotting into 3rd place.

Fred Smither's Swan 77, La Forza Del Destino, took honors in CSA 3, while the Farr 65 with Rory

La Forza Del Destino

Faulkner/Team Hollandia made 2nd and third went to Doug Mitchell’s Kialoa V, a Maxi, Frers 80

Hydro Carbon Logic

Philippe Falle's Beneteau 50, Hydro Carbon Logic, placed first in CSA 4 with Jack Desmond’s Swan 48C, Affinity, 2nd, and Stefan Lehnert’s Turner 56, Passion4C in third place.

William Coates's J122, Otra Vez, took honors in CSA 5.

Two local St. Maarten teams scored bullets in CSA 6 and CSA 7 they were Ian Hope-Ross on his Beneteau First 36.7, Kick'Em Jenny and Bobby Velasquez on his Beneteau 45F5 L'Esperance!

In CSA 8, the Antigua team headed by Tanner Jones on the J30, Blue Peter placed first, with Ronnie Van Sittert on Tamaya, a Contention 33 in second place and another Antigua based crew was Sandy Mair who raced his Soverel 30, Streaker, into third place!

In Lottery Class Ekber Levent's Beneteau First 38, Tzigane, scored first place bullet while St. Kitts, Philip Walwyn’s classic Alfred Mylne took 2^nd place and St. Maarten Sailing School 2, headed by Garth Steyn and his crew came in 3^rd.

Phaedo

In the 3 Multihull divisions, Lloyd Thornburg's bright orange 66 feet Gunboat, Phaedo, scored their first bullet in Multihull 1C followed by Pat Turner's Dick Newick, Team Kahunas in Multihull 1R and the Lagoon 500 charter catamaran, Nikiforov, in Multihull 2.

In Multihull 1C our friends, Paul and his son, Uppie Stoutenbeck on their Ferrier, Lagonnies Tri-umph, came in 2^nd on the round the island race in Multihull 1C and Petro Jonko’s DuToit, QT, took 3^rdplace.

In Multihull 1R, team Margolis on the Seacart 30, Blanca, came 2^nd and Nils Erickson’s Formula 40, Soma, came in 3^rd.

Bareboat crew race pass Coralita beach in the last light

In the 5 Bare Boat classes, sadly a number of yachts did not finish after exceeding the time allowance and a few arrived in Great Bay as dusk fell just after 7pm.

In Bareboat 1, the Beneteau 50F, Sweet Pleasure, headed by Kimberly Lander tied in second place along with the Beneteau 54, Neerlands Glorie, headed by Ron Gessel, who scored an additional scoring point due to a protest with another yacht in the class.

In Bareboat 2 Cyclades 50, Ernst Jan van der Wal on Brand Boot placed first and the all girl team from Holland on Something Hot, headed by Marieke Poulie, placed first in Bareboat 3 Sun Odyssey 44i.

In Bareboat 4, Hans Robert Nitsche on the Dufour 455, KH+P Sea you later, placed first and Philippe Firmin on Yapado, a Jeanneau Sun Odessy 409, took honours in Bareboat 5.

Panic Attack

Antigua based Ondeck charter racing crews

Aunt Jessie

Genuine Risk with her canting keel to windward!

Sonic

Heineken Regatta To Kick Off In Grand Style

2011-03-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

Regatta Officials Announce More
Courses, Buoys And New Prizes

Real Time Results And More Racing Classes!

The year sped by and it's Heineken Regatta time again! The lagoon, Simpson Bay as well as Marigot bay has filled with beautiful racing yachts of all sizes, shapes and colours.

The big news is that Racing classes has expanded to 8 classes up from 7 classes last year and Bareboat classes reduced to 5 classes down from 7 classes last year, according to Steering Committee Chairman, Robbie Ferron during a press conference at Port de Plaisance Hotel on March 3.

Carnival events in Holland is a factor for the reduced participation by Dutch nationals in Heineken Regatta's Bareboat classes, Ferron noted. A total of 190 yacht owners are expected to participate in the 31st annual St. Maarten Heineken Regatta, he added.

We have 20 boats in Multihull division which is the largest class in the Caribbean this year, Ferron said. He added that this year Heineken Regatta has attracted largest representation of Caribbean sailors and their yachts. Ferron also explained that mixing the balance between regional and international competitors works well.

In other news two Curacao based yachts left the Curacao for St. Maarten, but one had to turn back due to rough weather from a front assisted by a steady 30 knots of wind during the previous two weeks leading up to the regatta. This year countries represented by yacht teams include Lithouania, Turkey, Spain and Germany among many more!

John Leone, Director of Heineken St. Maart

Heineken party tent at Port de Plaisance

DJs Gee Money & Nachum hosting Gill Commodore Awards

Heineken Regatta is a delightful partnership where the St. Maarten Yacht Club manages the race courses on the water with the help of several large teams of volunteers while Heineken beer distributors St. Maarten, headed by John Leone organizes the famous and atmospheric shore parties held at three locations around the island over the weekend, at Great Bay boardwalk, Marigot waterfront and Kim Sha beach in Simpson Bay.

This year concert programs will host a total of 12 bands over the weekend, with the Sunday award night and concert finale featuring the Haitian New York based music super star, Jean Wycleff, John Leone said during the press conference.

Concerning the technical side of the regatta, Robbie Ferron noted they have made lots of improvements which include more race officers, buoys and courses. The St. Maarten Heineken Regatta will be broken into five separate divisions (which will likely be subdivided once all entries are in). The CSA Monohull Class will compete under the tried-and-true Caribbean Sailing Association (CSA) Rating Rule. www.caribbean-sailing.com.

But for the first time ever, in a significant new change in how the contests are run, race officials will have numerous options in how they lay out the racecourses and the lengths of each race. In previous regattas, instead of one pre-set course per start each day around a fixed set of established marks, a new series of mark locations have been added to the race instructions for greater flexibility depending on wind strength and direction. Race officers will have four or five different courses, of varying distances ranging from 10-nautical miles to 28-nautical miles, from which to choose. In light winds, they’ll likely opt for the shorter courses. In heavier air, particularly for the fastest boats in the fleet, the longer courses will be utilized.

Digital scoreboard

Lotterie class is now the former Fun class where cruising yacht owners may do their own measurement and get a rating. This rating is adjusted daily according to how well or not the yacht performs.

New prizes include Best J Boat, Best Swan and Best Head boat (or charter yacht)

Heineken Regatta Director Heather Tackling

Heineken Regatta Director, Heather Tackling announced that they have implemented a digital scoring system running on real time via a local internet company. This means when race officers enter yacht race times on the start/finish yacht, scores are submitted via internet to scoreboards located at each party location daily.

Michelle Korteweg, Assistant Director

In addition sailors with smart phones can scan the code bar provided on the scoreboards and have the race results download directly on their cell phones.

Herb McCormick of SailingWorld Magazine Editor-at-large

Steering Committee chairman, Robbie Ferron introduced various crews who have sailed from countries far and wide and join the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta for the first time.

Most of the competitors noted that they had participated in the Caribbean 600 race held last month! In addition to that Sailing World magazine editor at large, Herb McCormick, is back for the event this year after covering sailing adventures all over the world! Herb is the author of the regatta press releases, please see www.heinekenregatta.com.

Jazz's Mike Broughton

Navigator of Cookson 50 from Australia, Jazz, Mike Broughton, noted their close competition that day with the Tom Humphries 54 design, Oystercatcher XXVIII and also noted that the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta registration was a very friendly experience.

Richard Matthews of Oystercatcher,

Richard Matthews, friend of the owner of Oystercatcher, noted that their yacht is new with a new crew and have added improvements to sail performance on their way from Key West. Richard said they have thoroughly enjoyed the ambiance in the various Caribbean islands and added that Anguilla was a lovely place as they had paid a quick visit that day.

Captain of Gunboat, Phaedo

The young captain of the recently launched 66 feet Gunboat in South Africa, Phaedo during catamaran's construction for the last 6 years. Phaedo's owner, Lloyd Thornberg has his sights set on world cruise and fast sailing. And yes, there is a washing machine onboard! The captain added that one night they clocked a top speed of 28.7 knots after leaving Cape Town (SA) on November 16 (2010) just before they decided to reef sails and slow down a bit! Phaedo's average speed is 10-12 knots, the captain said. He added that the Caribbean 600 race had been a warm up for the crew and that they are constantly improving the boat. This crew plan to participate in all the Caribbean regatta's this year!

Simon of Volvo 60, Ambersail fom Lithouania

Simon of Volvo 60 Farr, Ambersail noted that they had done well in last year's European racing circuit with a 2nd place in the Around Britain which encouraged the team of friends/owners to sail out the Volvo out to the Caribbean for the Caribbean 600 race and Heineken Regatta. They plan to sail back across the Atlantic this year and have their sights set on the Fastnet race. He noted Ambersail is built for offshore racing and that it is interesting to put the yacht through her paces. Simon added that "the competition here is great!"

Light Winds Prove Challenging For Racing Machines Of All Sizes!

2011-03-04T11:18:00.000-08:00

Australian Crew Sweep Top
Honors Of Class 1 With Jazz

A delighted crew of the Australian Cookson 50, Jazz, walked away with the 3 bullets in Class 1 on Thursday, March 4, 2011 during the awards ceremony for the Gill Commodores Cup held at Port de Plaisance, in Cole Bay, St. Maarten.

Mike Broughton, Jazz's navigator

“It was a lovely race and it was very challenging with the wind shifts requiring crew adhesion,” Jazz’s navigator Mike Broughton noted. “It was a great success and we had a lot of fun.”

Jazz crew

Mike explained that they did not have a full crew aboard for the day due to food poisoning and added that they were over the line on the start of the second race due to a line blocked in the runner but managed to claw their way back to first place on corrected time, completing three straight bullets. Chris Bulle’s Jazz, was launched just six months ago and her crew won the IRC-0 class in the recent Sydney-Hobart Race. Following the race and a three hour stopover, Jazz was packed up into a container ship and send to Savanna (USA), where a new main engine was installed. The delivery crew sailed her to Antigua. Arrived just in time for the RORC Caribbean 600, where the team placed second in her class, IRC Canting Keel.

Add caption

However the top prize of Commodore Cup, a Gill wrist watch went to the British crew headed by Willem Wester of the Grand Soleil, Antelope , winners of Class 5.

Antelope on the finish line

After a morning filled with contrasting meteological

conditions, namely sunshine and a 2 hours rain squall, 39 racing yachts gathered outside Simpson Bay for a midday start of the Gill Commodores Cup.

Special bridge openings were organized to allow a traffic jam of racing yachts to exit marinas situated inside Simpson Bay Lagoon, in time for races held each day.

This cup featuring three windward-leeward races, is a pre-event dedicated to six racing classes which kicks off the 31^st annual St. Maarten Heineken Regatta starting Friday March 4, 2011.

bridge traffic Thursday morning

Volunteer water taxi drivers & buoys

The start of the event was pushed back one hour to allow the rain to finish and the sun came out just in time for the start of three races as winds were South-Easterly just over 10 knots.

In the photo above, water taxi volunteers stand by to take crews to their yachts while race officials prepare race buoys and anchors, for the laying of all the marks according to instructions of the Race Committee for each day.

Melges competition: Budget Marine and Coors Light

The fleet of magnificent race yachts, the largest being gold and blacked coloured Dubois 90, Genuine Risk, from US Merchant Marine Academy of New York, carrying exotic fiber silver sails and the smallest being 3 Melges 24 one designs from St. Maarten and St. Martin. Here are the local Budget Marine team headed by Andrea Scarabelli making sure they stay in front of Dr. Fritz Bus on Coors Light.

However after the first race in the early after, winds lightened considerably affecting the larger yachts while the small and light yachts had an easier time maintaining boat speed.

US Merchant Marine Academy, Genuine Risk, Dubois 90

This also comes down to skill, knowledge and experience, as we noticed Jazz maintained overall speed under the array of wind conditions as did Genuine Risk, rather like a watching a choreographed symphony!

Mark Paxton's happy Team INTAC/Crowley

INTAC crew winners

scored 3 bullets in Class 2.We noticed that INTAC maintained a strong lead in real time in their class and were effortlessly catching up to the bigger yachts in Class 1 around the marks.

Gavin Brady

This dynamic team of old friends included 2 America's Cup crew members, Peter Holmberg and Gavin Brady, who raced against each other on Tuesday, March 1, in the Budget Marine Match Racing Cup.

INTAC boogies in light winds

Melges 32, INTAC

During the award ceremony, Brady jokingly reminded Director and Founder the St. Maarten Yacht Club and the St. Maarten Heineken Regattta that 2 winners where aboard!

Other class results included Ian Hope-Ross's Beneteau First 36.7, Kick ‘em Jenny securing first position in Class 6 and Class 4 winners, Stephan Lehnert's Passion 4 C.

Kick'EmJenny on the finish line

Passion4C

Bill Alcott's new Swan, Aquarius

Sergio Sagramoso's new Grand Soleil, Lazy Dog, from Puerto Rico!

St. Martin Carnival: Let’s “Play Mas”

2011-02-26T10:54:00.000-08:00

Hot Rhythms And Young
Revelers Ready To Jam!

In the small French capital and sea port of Marigot, the St. Martin Carnival Grand Parade kicked off Sunday in high spirits with around seven troupes of dancers dressed in exquisite glittering and colourful costumes, each supported by their band of musicians and singers, along with massive sound systems which were set up on trucks.
The 2010 carnival theme featured flowers of all colours, shapes and creative designs.

The parade was the best we have seen yet! And we noted that carnival revelers, and musical bands were mostly filled by vibrant and enthusiastic young people, ready to jam or as we say here ready to “Play Mas”!
This year the Carnival Committee, associations and private organizations took carnival in hand following an announcement from the local government (COM) that no funds would be available.
Leading the Grand Parade in grand style was the fifteen foot effigy of King Vaval dressed in regal costume and secured to the truck with ropes.
A small group of youth Moko Jumbies, came over for the Parade from the neighbouring island of Anguilla and danced in superb style on their tall red and white painted wooden stilts, much to the amazement of the carnival supporters crowding the streets of Marigot.
As each carnival troupe passed, the variety of music pulsing from each band highlighted the richness of rhythms from many Caribbean islands, such as Calypso, Soca (from Trinidad and Barbados), the Zouk (from Guadeloupe), hot Spanish rhythms from the Dominican Republic and the troupe of Growka musicians (traditional drum music from Guadeloupe)!
Carnival opened on February 7 with the colourful and well attended Children’s Parade.
Due to budget constraints the two week Carnival program was condensed to three concert nights from February 11-13. In a beautiful gesture of giving to those in need, the organizers of the first concert featuring local artists, donated US$ 5.00 from each ticket sold, to assist people of Haiti following the 7.2 earthquake in Port de Prince last month. The second concert featured local artists of Hypnoz and the third “Zouk Night” was organized by St. Martin’s top group “Youth Waves” to feature several Zouk bands including the well known K’arvan from Guadeloupe.
The second parade kicked off in high gear on Tuesday afternoon followed by the traditional closing of Carnival on Ash Wednesday with the burning of King Vaval on the Marigot waterfront.
Carnival is the event that draws everyone from all over the island, normally creating a massive traffic jam however this year, the Municipal Police (French traffic police) routed the parade to allow a free flow of car traffic around the outside of Marigot town, which meant that traffic was stalled briefly on the round-a-bouts on each end of town.
Under the banner of “We Too Can Have A Good Time” at a scenic view point on the Marigot high street (Rue de la Republique) were the elders from the Bethany Home, in colourful attire while the ladies wore special hats decorated with flowers. The Bethany Home team headed by their Director, Dominic, set up tables and chairs for the comfort of the elders, as well as a tent to provide shelter from the sweltering afternoon sun. Their second tent housed a full buffet of hot foods and drinks, along with DJ Chuckie, who provided musical tunes from his turn tables.
All in all and despite budget cuts, I thought Carnival was very well organized and loads of fun. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Thank you St. Martin!

Cool Air, Swells, North Wind And Rain Creates Challenge

2010-03-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

Following two days of very tactical racing in calm weather, cool North winds of 15-20 knots, swells, rain and grey skies the last race of St. Maarten Heineken Regatta Sunday changed everything! In the photo above, Rambler charges down under spinnaker from the Tintamarre buoy to the Anguillita buoy under the driving rain!

Under driving rain, the Gun boat racing catamarans (photo below) charged over the line at surfing speeds followed by the racing multi hulls on course to round a buoy set by Tintamarre Island to the East of St. Martin.

Next to line up were the large fleet of Grand Prix and grand racing machines (photo below), several of whom were early and ducked down far side the line for start of the first Spinnaker 1 class. The rest of the fleet lined up were space allowed, in extremely close quarters!

The smaller race yachts in Spinnaker 4 class perhaps had the most exhilarating start each with bowmen signaling frantically and yachts were lined up bow to stern, in even closer quarters.

The three Grand Prix yachts, Titan 15, Rambler and Highland Fling, all captained by America’s Cup skippers, was a glorious sight, charged around the course in a magnificent duel. The three yachts each took different course decisions on the downwind legs, so as they rounded the West side of St. Martin, the three yachts were lined up again however with some spaces between them. As we followed Titan and Highland Fling in a press boat running at 19 knots and it took us 15 minutes to catch up to them! Here are three Grand prix yachts at the mark near Anguillita and a Bareboat team (photo).

Included in this blog are some photos (below) of winning yachts according to the provisional results as the prize giving is scheduled for this evening. Following that we will let you know who won the trophies in our blog tomorrow with a gallery of photo highlights and of course, the concert headlining the reggae star, Maxi Priest.

In photo is Oyster Catcher XXVI team (photo below) who did a magnificent job in Spinnaker 3 and the all girls team on "Something Hot" (2nd photo below)
.

Wind Creates Excitement For Racing Classes Saturday

2010-03-06T15:37:00.001-08:00

Titan Rebounds With Three Straight Bullets

This year all eyes are on the close matched performances and duels between three magnificent Grand prix racing yachts in the Spinnaker 1 class, who are each being driven by three helmsmen who are rather well known on the US racing circuits today!

They are USVI Olympic champion and America’s Cup skipper, Peter Holmberg, driving Highland Fling, America’s Cup skipper, Peter Isler at the helm of Titan 15 and the America's Cup skipper, Kennie Reed driving Rambler!

The first and Around the Island race of St. Maarten Heineken Regatta on Friday, South winds remained extremely light and in the afternoon turned more to the West in the afternoon. While on Saturday, the South-Westerly wind rose to an estimated 15 knots in the afternoon, with dark squall clouds to the North threatening rain, that never actually came! The first race on Saturday morning, the fleet of 252 yachts raced from Simpson Bay (Dutch St. Maarten) to Marigot (French St. Martin) and a second shorter race is organized for racing yachts in the Spinnaker classes in the afternoon.

Chairman of the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta, Robbie Ferron noted that the Saturday races featured extremely close competition with outstanding quality of sailing! During the last race of the day several yachts arrived on the start line too early, perhaps due to a sudden change in wind strength. Ferron described the scene at start of Spinnaker 1 class with both the Italian team on Swan 90, White Lie and Peter Harrison’s Farr 115, Sojana, arriving on the start line too early before the fun. White Lie spun in a 360 to lose time while Sojana zigzagged sharply in an effort also to slow down, and then just inched over the start line clearing the start catamaran vessel marking the leeward side of the start line!

After placing second after Highland Fling in the Commodore’s Cup on Wednesday, Tommy Hill and his team with Peter Isler on the brand new Reichel Pugh designed “Titan 15” (photo above) made a magnificent comeback with three bullets in Spinnaker 1 class for the Round Island Race on Friday and the two races held Saturday.

George David’s R&P 90 “Rambler” (photo above) placed second on corrected time for the races on Friday and the first race on Saturday. In a matter where seconds count and very close and well matched competition, during the second shorter race on Saturday afternoon both George David’s R&P 90, Rambler and Irvine Laidlaw’s Wally 82, Highland Fling were tied for second place during the which placed Highland Fling in third place overall.

In Spinnaker 2 class, Fritz Duda’s Santa Cruz 50, Sin Duda, was the overall winner of her class on corrected time, taking a first place in the Round the Island Race on Friday with a second and third place for the Saturday races.

Wendy Schmidt’s Swan 80 Team Selene after securing fourth place in the Round the Island race on Friday, rebounded with a first and second in Saturday’s races, to slot in to second place overall in her class. While the Italian team on the Swan 90 White Lie, placed third overall with a second in the Round the Island race Friday and a fourth and third place during the Saturday races.

In Spinnaker 3 class, the Trinidad team, Paul Solomon, Peter Baile, Reggie Armour and Marc Francois on the Henderson 35, Blackberry Enzyme (photo) moved into first position overall in her class on corrected time with a third place in the Round the Island Race Friday and rebounded with two straight bullets during the Saturday races.

Peter Peake’s Reichel Pugh 44 Storm was second overall in class with a first place in the Round the Island race and two third places in the Saturday races. While Richard Mathew’s Humphries One-off, Oystercatcher XXVI slotted into third position overall in her class, with a second place in the Round the Island race Friday and a second and fifth place on Saturday.

In Spinnaker 4 class James Mark Plaxton’s Jeanneau 52.2 INTAC maintained first place overall with a first in the Round the Island race Friday and a second and first place on Saturday.Karl Breyer’s Swan 48 Avocation slotted into second place overall with a third place in the Round the Island race Friday followed by a first and third place on Saturday, while Jack Desmond’s Swan 48C Affinity took third place overall with a second place in the Round the Island race followed by a fourth and second place on Saturday.

The racing crew from Antigua aboard Calvin Reed’s Beneteau First 40.7, Elandra maintained an overall lead in the Spinnaker 5 class with two bullets for the first races Friday and Saturday, and placed second in the last race on Saturday.

While Rick Wesslund’s J120, El Ocaso maintained a second place overall with two second places and one third place on Saturday, while the Autremer Concept team on the A40, Malachite held onto third place with a third place and two fifth places.

The Orange Plan Ltd team in Spinnaker 6 class, on the Beneteau First 10R, Luxury Girl scored three straight bullets in Friday and Saturday races, while the St. Maarten team headed by Ian Hope Ross on his Beneteau First 36.7, Kick’em Jenny snapped up three straight second places. Thomas Mullen’s J95, Shammrock VII, placed third overall in her class with two fourth places and eleventh place during the second race on Saturday.

The local St. Maarten team headed by the Italian, Andrea Scarabelli on the Melges 24, Budget Marine, placed first overall in Spinnaker 7 on corrected time, after scoring three straight second places, while Robert Armstrong’s J100 Bad Girl placed second overall with a fourth and two first places. Dave West’s Melges 32 Jurakan took on third position with a first place and a fourth and fifth place respectively during the Saturday races.

In the Non-Spinnaker 1 class, St. Maarten’s Bobby Velasquez on his Beneteau 45F5, L’Esperance maintained first position overall with two bullets, while William Baldwin’s Andrew 72 Safara placed second overall with two second places and Dragon fly Plus Swan 53 Universal Sailing in third place over with two third places on Friday and Saturday.

In the Gunboat catamaran class, the three top boats maintained consistent scores for both races!George & Nelli Begg’s Gunboat, Gazelle took first place overall with two bullets, while Angus & Molly Ball’s Gunboat Coco de Mer placed second overall with two second places and Tim Slade’s Gunboat, Safari in third position overall with two third places on Friday and Saturday.

In the MultiHull I Racing class, Paul & Kathryn Garlick’s Etincelle, Cool Cat 1, placed first overall with a first and second for the races on Friday and Saturday, while Nils Erickson’s Formula 40, Soma placed second overall with a third and second place. Paul Soutenbeek’s Corsair 36 Lagoonies Triumph placed third overall with a second and fifth places on Friday and Saturday.

In celebration of the races Saturday, the party is well underway in Marigot with Cut Creator, DJ Outkast, Ruppee and Youth Waves!

Tomorrow morning the fleet of 252 yachts will race from Marigot, French St. Martin back to Simpson Bay, Dutch St. Maarten, which signals the last race of the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta. The prize giving will be held on KimSha beach in Simpson Bay and in celebration of 30 years anniversary of the regatta, the Jamaican reggae star, Maxi Priest, is scheduled in concert. Opening the evening festivities will be Ziggy from the island of Statia along with Maikel X, Mixmaster Pauly Remo and Barbwire Band.

In addition, the marine company, Harkin, will hold a grinder contest on the coffee grinders (stand up winches on big race yachts) to determine who is the fastest winch man or lady!

Four Stars In St. Maarten Heineken Regatta 2010

2010-03-05T12:40:00.000-08:00

Despite economic turmoils, it was actually snow storms that has led to a record number of yachts participating as well as Grand Prix racers to returning from the US, for a welcome break and in need of some "serious fun" on the water such as offered by St. Maarten Heineken Regatta!

Breaking all previous entry records, a grand total of 252 yachts registered for the Regatta this year.

During a press conference held March 4, the creator and head of Heineken Regatta, Robbie Ferron posed the question to four rock stars (famous sailors) on board four top racing yachts to which boat they would put their bets to be the winner of Heineken Regatta! All four gentlemen graciously declined this invitation and noted that the competition would be very stiff and close. The buzz is that the prestigious Grand prix racing machines, Highland Fling and Titan 15 are brand new yachts!

Eight time world champion, Robbie Haines, is here aboard a Santa Cruz 50 (photo above).

Geordie Shaver is bowman for Highland Fling (above photo left) and motivational speaker, America's Cup winner, television personality, expert sailor and best selling author, Peter Isler is aboard Titan 15 (above photo right).

The present top ranked sailor of Holland, Wouter Verbraak, (photo above) is navigator aboard Rambler.

Geordie Shaver noted that Heineken Regatta is Highland Fling's second race following participation in the Key West Race Week. Although the yacht appears to be a pure race machine, Shaver said that the Wally 82 is actually a cruising yacht with teak decks and that they are still learning and testing the yacht's race performance. He also confirmed that an engine runs nonstop to power the Highland Fling's massive winches.

Peter Isler added that Titan runs a generator to move water ballast from side to side, while Wouter Verbraak said that Rambler runs no engine or generator and the yacht is now six years old. The yacht crew on Rambler did not race in Gill Commodore's Cup however the team were out practicing on Thursday and please keep in mind that the crews of the yachts Highland Fling, Titan 15 and Rambler all race against each other in the US summer circuit races on the East coast.

Robbie Ferron noted that it is a first time that Heineken Regatta has attracted a major sponsor in the marine field. Ferron first met the marine clothes maker, Gill, during a marine trade show in Holland last year and Nick Gill accepted!

Nick Gill (photo above)

Heineken director, John Leone (photo above).

Heineken beer has been the Regatta's main sponsor of 30 years! Not only is there challenging race courses to negotiate, there also fantastic parties and concerts with local and international artists held each evening over the three day weekend.

The first race Friday is the round the island race. On Saturday, the fleet races from Simpson Bay to Marigot, French St. Martin and on the following day, the fleet races from Marigot, back to Simpson Bay, Dutch St. Maarten.

The view of 250 yachts racing around the island today was nothing short of fabulous!

For more photo images and information, please see www.heinekenregatta.com.

See you here next year?!!!

Elandra Wins Gill Commodore's Cup 2010

2010-03-04T12:54:00.000-08:00

Highlight For Racing Classes Under Very Light Winds
Sets High Standard For 30th Annual Heineken Regatta

The Beneteau 40.7 with the merry crew hailing from Tampa, Florida, "Elandra" swept away top honors for the Gill Commodore's Cup with 2 straight bullets and line honours in Racing B Class (photos below).
The Gill Commodore's Cup is a highlight for all racing yachts held one day before the 30th annual St. Maarten Heineken Regatta kicks off on the weekend of March 5-7. The set of 3 races feature a challenging windward and leeward courses. This year a total of 47 colourful racing yachts contested the Cup.

The event tailored for the racing fleets each year also draws a host of well known Grand Prix racing (sailing) machines from the US. The fleet was divided into 4 classes according to size and age. Yachts ranged in size from 82 feet to 24 feet.

Due to the light wind conditions and time, the third and final race was canceled. The first race kicked off with the large and magnificent Grand Prix racing yachts in Racing A crossing the start line with impressive speeds under extremely light winds, estimated at 10 to 8 knots.

The iridescent and sparkling blue sea was lumpy and very irregular outside Great Bay, on the South side of St. Maarten. On the downwind legs, with colourful spinnakers flying, the light wind machines both the Melges 24' and Melges 32' caught up to racing yachts of 36 feet and 40 feet on the downwind legs!
Local St. Maarten, Budget Marine team aboard the Melges 24 of Class D (photo above) zipping up to the finish line during Race 1 among yachts of Class C.

Winner of Class A was the spectacular racing yacht, Highland Fling, a 6 months old Wally 82 design, which walked away from the racing fleet during Race 1 with a speed of what we estimated to be 12 knots off the south coast of St. Maarten under very light winds and hazy blue skies on Thursday morning, March 4.

However this was not so according to Highland Fling crew and they lost the first race to Titan 15! Bowman, Georgie Shaver, estimated their top speed during the Gill Commodore's Cup races to be around 10 knots.

Grand Prix racing: Titan 15 and Highland Fling duel on the start line of Race 2 in Racing A class (photo).

With 2 straight bullets, the Beneteau First 10R, Luxury Girl, won Racing C (rt in photo above).

With one bullet and a second place, the St. Thomas team headed by Dave West on his Melges 32, Jurakan, took the honors for Racing D (photos above).

As light wind racing is challenging in that mistakes either tactical course decisions or error in driving or sail trim can make or break one's position in the fleet with little chance of recovery due to light airs. Creating the wind, or rather in sailor's lingo, apparent wind is name of the game which is especially crucial under light airs and disorganized sea. If apparent wind is lost due to crew errors, precious seconds and minutes can be lost. Captains and crews aboard the racing yachts with were highly concentrated, to take advantage of every wind direction change as the wind was irregular with puffs of wind, which veered to the south-west during Race 2.

The race course was filled with shining golden Kevlar sails, irridescent 3DL sails, black and grey shiny sails and regular Dacron sails, along with colourful hull colours, created an atmosphere of excitement and passion. Catamarans filled with spectators and press boats, filled with camera men and women also dotted the race course.

Highland Fling and Vela Veloce both sustained spinnakers tears and several protests were lodged, of which one was due to a collision in the Racing C of smaller yachts.

Spectacular designs in Class D (photo)!

St. Martin Art Goes To France For The Summer

2009-09-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

Olivier’s off to St. Tropez!

This exhibition follows an invitation by the Sens Interior Gallery in St. Tropez, whose proprietor saw Olivier’s works during annual summer exhibitions held in France last year.

Paintings flown over to France for the exhibition include the series of fish and underwater scenes in phosphorous glow in the dark paints, the series of sea birds and Royarchie, the latest creation in a series of characters that Olivier has developed over many years.

We wish our dearest friend and master of the paintbrush, Olivier, a prosperous summer of exhibitions in France and as always, finding creative ideas and plentiful new subjects to paint including his trademark signature, the humorous twist!

Art Lovers St. Martin St. Maarten Resident Artists

2009-03-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

"Artist Olivier Grolleau with his Space Fish VII"

Myriad Of 50 Artists Exhibit Island Wide

New Under The Sea Series
That Glow Green At Night

A must see for art lovers is Olivier Grolleau’s new under the green sea series featuring Space Fish, Space Cars, Mangrove, ship wrecks and silver fish vortices in acrylic, exhibited at Sol’Art Fine Arts Workshop which is located above US import supermarket in Concordia, St. Martin.

This exhibition will remain open this week until Friday, March 27, at Sol’Art, and is part of the Art Lovers Association exhibition featuring 50 resident artists which kicked off on the weekend of March 21-22.

The reception for the opening of a group exhibition at the Plantation Mont Vernon was held Friday and the rest of the exhibiting artists held open house in their respective workshops and galleries at their homes located around the island.

Art lovers are invited to visit Sol’Art anytime this week and if you visit at dusk you will experience the light game of Olivier’s experimentation with phosphorescence paints in his new under water series. To experience the full effect, the main lights of the workshop are turned off and the series of paintings come alive with a vibrant green glow and in several of the paintings, a sunlight effect as seen when you are below the sea and look up at the ocean surface.

“I could not capture the silver fluidity of the fish that I wanted to create, which later led me to the idea of using tin foil to illustrate the schools of fish” said Olivier said after explaining that he was not fully satisfied with the results of a work he had painted of a fisherman holding a large basket full of sardines, last summer in Brittany (France).

Each year Olivier produces an exciting new series which is totally different from the last in terms of styles, colours and subjects. Last year’s series featured sea turtles in play and this year Olivier choose birds and more recently, fish. One of Olivier’s first paintings of year featured a rolling wave breaking on red light house and sea foam with hundreds of sea birds swirl below, creating a wonderful effect of motion where the sea birds are flying en mass towards the viewer.

In contrast with the abstract motion and fluidity in the new underwater series, is a reoccurring animation style of Olivier’s in two new paintings entitled “RoyArchie” which point a little humour at the opulent lifestyle of the royal heirarchy. The 2 paintings feature a queen with a grace and noble expression and King almost asleep, while clutching a glass of golden wine, which vibrate in rich deep and muted colours of purple, gold and orange. This series also reminded me of rich history of the kings and queens in the African region now called Nigeria.

New works from Sol’Art Fine Arts Workshop owner and artist, Marie Mourrefet include aquarelle abstract stills of mangos and oranges from Saba.

Her “Solitude” is charming for it’s simplicity and softness of colours featuring gold, purple and blue that frame a lady looking out a large sky window with a golden sun shining in, at the top of the stairs.

The freshness in Marie’s interpretation of “Orient Bay” , which features several tiny Creole houses framed by brightly coloured sea grape leaves in red, orange, yellow, blue and green, is just pure fun for breaking the rules of traditional painting.

“I have always used the medium of aquarelle paints and for the last four years I started to work with oil paints,” Marie explained with some humour. “So now when I go (on site) to paint I have my box of aquarelles and my box of oils!”

Marie’s abstract of textured rectangles of all colours and hues, painted with a palette knife in oils, is a play in colour and keeps drawing in the viewer as an abstract outlines of objects appear, such as a face and a whale.
“This was not intentional,” Marie said, adding that this painting was one of her first with oils in 2005.
Her second new Landscape in aquarelles is a study of the same subject.

The third artist of Sol’Art, Corinna Trimborn, has her exhibition at her home based studio with her sister, Norma in the lowlands and the fourth artist is Olivier Runembert, who also has open house at his studio in Rambaud. All four artists hold art classes for adult and children in the afternoons during the week.
“I love teaching art with the kids, it is so much fun!” Marie said with her bright smile.
In line with the international population of St. Martin/St. Maarten, Marie has art students that hail from a rainbow of countries that include Holland, China, Argentina, Venezuela and France, to name a few!

The artists will celebrate their 2nd year anniversary of opening the Sol’Art Fine Arts Workship this August.

Photo highlights of 29th annual Heineken Regatta 2009

2009-03-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

Racing Multihull class, Equinox and Karibuni accelerating around the starting line Sunday, March 8.

UK contender Windemere III placed 6th overall in Spinnaker class 6

This crew in Racing multihull class favoured sailing on a dagger board and one hull!

Team Selene on the Swan 80, winners of Spinnaker class 1

2008 winners of their class, Sir Peter Harrison's Farr 115 ft Sojana, placed 2nd in Spinnaker class 1.

Winners of Spinnaker class 3, Lazy Dog, from Puerto Rico

St. Thomas entry Jurakan placed 2nd in Spinnaker 6

Local St. Maarten team Cours Light sailing team with former Olympic contender, Dr. Fritz Bus, placed 4th in Spinnaker class 6

The Something Hot all girls team from Holland placed 2nd in Bareboat class 3

All photos by Victoria Pope

Please see photo galleries of www.heinekenregatta.com

Winners From A Rainbow Of Countries

2009-03-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

Exhilarating Speeds High Winds
And Swells For Heineken Regatta

The Antigua based sailing team led by one of the more soft spoken and impassioned gentlemen of racing in the Caribbean today, James Dodd powering his J122, Lost Horizon, was awarded the Most Worthy Performance Overall glass cup presented to him by St. Maarten Lt. Governor, Franklyn Richards and along with the Spinnaker 4 class cup for 4 consecutive wins during the award ceremonies for the 29th annual Heineken Regatta in St. Maarten, on Sunday March 8, 2009.

“We had more boat speed on the other boats generally and we probably had less accidents and probably made less mistakes,” James said in his modest English way. “Things broke and we repaired them. We lost a spinnaker halyard, we blew a spinnaker and we had things happen in the most difficult of conditions but we fixed them.”

Racing based on feeling and wind on the cheek might considered as thing of the past by modern standards and unlimited budgets, certainly in the last 15 years we have seen more and more multimillion dollar race yachts grace Heineken Regatta, loaded with gadgets to help gauge speed over the water. With this mind, James’s reply to Lost Horizon’s boat speed gave me quite a surprise!
“We don’t have a speedometer. We don’t use instruments,” James said. The “Lost Horizon” team also won their class in 2008 with their then new boat and have collected numerous cups in Caribbean regattas with their previous yacht.

Monohulls and multihulls alike experienced incredible accelerations in the short and disorganized eight foot swells with gusty wind conditions varying from 15 to 25 knots together with strong knock down puffs. Race organizers modified the courses set for Saturday and Sunday’s races due to a stiff North-Easterly swell from a passing cold front system, following 30 knots of winds and high seas during the Friday race, when several yachts were dismasted and others experienced numerous sail and spinnaker blew outs, and one collision which occurred in the Bareboat division off Tintamare island, one of which sustained serious damage and almost sank.

Spinnaker classes 1-6 and the Multihull classes raced the modified 20 nautical mile course with a beat up the Eastern side of St. Maarten to round a buoy set by Tintamare island with fast and exhilarating surf ride back for a finish outside Great Bay.
The slower classes of Non-spinnaker, Bareboat, Cruising Multihull and Open divisions raced around St. Maarten on a Westerly course to a mark near the West point of Anguilla with a finish in Simpson Bay, a course of 17 nautical miles. By 1.00 pm a majority of yachts on both courses had finished their race.

Final results overall:

Winner overall in the Spinnaker 1 class was Wendy Schmidt ‘s Swan 80 Team Selene, who sailed superbly with a crew of 20. This team is a regular in the Newport and Nantucket sailing scene.

Three cups went to the crew of the Cookson 50 with a canting keel, Privateer, owned by Ronald O’Hanley, sailing out of Newport, who closed in to win the Spinnaker 2 class cup, the Most Worthy Performance cup for Sunday’s race and Fastest Spinnaker Around the Island (held Friday) cup. This team maintained a substantial lead in their class division with just 4 points.

The 2005 Heineken Regatta winner from Puerto Rico, with some the finest sailors from their country aboard, headed by Serge Sagramoso on his Beneteau First 44.7, Lazy Dog, won Spinnaker 3. Spirited and concentrated, this crew is organized, doesn’t miss a beat and makes manoeuvres look easy!

Tony Sayer’s Beneteau First 42 Augustine from Antigua, took the honors in Spinnaker 5.

Heineken Regatta 2008 winner from St. Croix, Robert Armstrong on his J100 Bad Girl again repeated victory in Spinnaker 6. Last year this team won the 50-boat U.S. PHRF championships held in Key West, Florida.

Another class winner from 2008 and former Caribbean Sailing Association (CSA) president, Ralph Johnson on his Beneteau 53F5 Rapajam from Barbados, again conquered Non Spinnaker 1.

Scotsman Sandy Mair on his modified Soverel 30 Streaker from Antigua, after many years of renovating his yacht, took the honors in Non Spinnaker 2 .

In the Open class, Ton Deegenaars Beneteau Idylle Goeie Mie with a Dutch and Curacao crew did the deed.

French St. Martin resident Eric Clement’s trimaran, Karibuni, was the top boat in Racing Multihull 1 and also took home the cup for Fastest Multihull.

Previous winner from 2007, Chuck Larsen’s Lagoon catamaran, Dream Catcher, matched the feat in Cruising Multihull 2;

Antigua residents, Xabier Ross on Cream was the winning Gunboat cat, being the smallest of the five in the fleet.

The Dutch crew on Harmony 52 Neerlands Glorie captured Bareboat 1 with 3 bullets.

Previous Heineken Regatta winner in BareBoat division and in a family affair, the Dutchman C.J. Baartmans on Beneteau Cyclades 50, Gruppo Sportivo, took the Bareboat 2 cup while his son, Rene Baartmans placed second on Harten Heere, also a Cyclades 50.

For the fourth consecutive year win in Bareboat class, St. Maarten resident, Jeffrey Sochrin’s Beneteau Oceanis 473, Team Goldendog, again took Bareboat 3 by storm. This sailing team was created in 2004 to raise money for and awareness of the plight of homeless, needy and abused animals and today contribute the net of their fundraising activities to the St. Maarten Animal Welfare Foundation, Les Quatre Pattes (SXM Paws) and the Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue of Hudson, Massachusetts.

Dutch team, Ralph Van den Berg’s Beneteau Cyclades 43, French Kiss, captured the Bareboat 4 cup and along with the Most Worthy Performance cup for Friday’s race.

The Russia crew with a substantial lead in their class on Harmony 42, Renoir, won Bareboat 5. Also onboard was Eugeny Nikiforov who is currently ranked third in his homeland and 49th in the ISAF world rankings and took part in the Match Races held Wednesday.

Special awards:
Spirit and Style award: Jean Claude Vau’s one off design Volterra from the US.
Fastest Non Spinnaker award: St. Martin resident Ian Martin’s Lavranos 48 Island Water World.
Most Worthy Performance: US co-ed team Mossman on the Beneteau Cyclades 515 Sequoyah in Bareboat class 2 for Saturday’s race.

Following the award ceremony, sailors after their strenuous three days of racing in tough conditions, enjoyed first some conscious lyrics from the band Orange Grove (originating from St. Maarten), followed by the sounds of “Bob” with the famous Jamaican reggae band The Wailers. The stage was opened in the early afternoon by a young Boston based band, Roots Down Below, who entertained the crowd with some fresh original songs and some covers from the Allemand Brothers and Jimi Hendrix among others.

Photos by Victoria Pope (from top to bottom) Team Selene under spinnaker, Lt.Governor Franklyn Richards and James Dodd, Lost Horizon

Heineken Regatta St. Maarten Day 2

2009-03-09T16:05:00.000-07:00

Swells And Wind Create Challenge
Excitement And Plenty Of Exhilaration

While sail makers repaired sails and stacks of spinnakers overnight in preparation for day two of Heineken Regatta held Saturday, March 7, weather conditions lessened to 22-25 knots of wind, however the sea was still rough and confused with moderately high swells adding the surf element to the down wind courses.

Adding some excitement to the first start of the day, the start line buoy decided to go off for a sail of its own and there was a small delay while lines men rest the anchor. Perhaps one of the more breathtaking starts of the day was when the 115 feet Farr, Sojana, owned by Sir Peter Harrison, made a perfect start at full speed, estimated 14 knots. Neighbouring yachts and spectators noted that the team work aboard this prestigious mega racing yacht was magnificent during their downwind legs with perfect control when gybing their not too small spinnaker.

The Racing Multihull and the special class created for the Gun catamarans was cancelled due to wind conditions and courses for the rest of the classes were changed to take place in the lee of the island, away from the North swells, with starts and finishes held outside of Simpson Bay. The racing classes contested two windward/leeward races while the bareboat and non-spinnaker divisions sailed a single 17-nautical-mile point-to-point buoy race along the South-West coastline of St. Maarten.

One dismasting due to a parting forestay, blown out sails and a spinnaker wrapping around a keel were part of the challenges of the day and many of the yachts in Spinnaker classes opted to pole genoas instead of popping chutes on the downwind legs.

Winning teams on Saturday included: Bobby Velasquez’s L’Esperance representing St. Maarten in Non-spinnaker 1, Sandy Mair’s Streaker from Antigua in Non-spinnaker 2, the Dutch team aboard Harmony 51, Neerlands Glorie, in Bareboat 1, the young USA co-ed team on Cylcades 50, Sequoyah, in Bareboat 2, the Oceanis 473, Jeff Sochrin’s St. Maarten/USA team aboard Goldendog, in Bareboat 3, the Dutch team on the Cyclades 43, French Kiss, in Bareboat 4; the Dutch team on Insel Air II in Bareboat 5; the French St. Martin team aboard the catamaran, Polo in Cruising Multihull 2, and Dutch and Curacao team aboard the Beneteau Idylle, Goeie Mie, in the Open class.

On Saturday, two races are held for the Spinnaker class yachts, in the morning and afternoon. In Spinnaker 1, US based Team Selene on the Swan 80 took two bullets, to match their bullet taken on Friday, as did the Newport team aboard the Cookson 50, Privateer, in Spinnaker 2.

In Spinnaker 3, the French team with their English owner, Clive Lliewellyn aboard the Grand Soleil 50, Mad IV and the Puerto Rican team lead by Serio Sagramoso on the Beneteau First 44.7, Lazy Dog, split top honours today, both taking a first and a second respectively. But by virtue of their first on Friday, Mad IV holds the slimmest of leads over Lazy Dog going into the last day of the regatta on Sunday.

James Dobbs and his team from Antigua, on the J122, Lost Horizons, in Spinnaker 4, recorded two bullets on Saturday to go with their first on Friday, and set a commanding lead in their division.

In Spinnaker 5, the Antiguan entry, Tony Sayer on the Beneteau First 43, Augustine placed fourth and first while the St. Barths team Raymond Magras on his Dufour 34, won first and third place, and retained overall top position in this division.

Last but not least, in Spinnaker 6, the St. Croix team, Robert Armstong on the J100, Bad Girl took a first and a second place today, and retained top overall position for the final race on Sunday.

Photo by Victoria Pope, British entry Easy (L) and St. Croix based Bad Girl in Spinnaker 6 class

Bronze Clean Regatta Certification

2009-03-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

Word Responsibility Added
To Publicity And T-shirts

This year Heineken Regatta officials, Director, Heathor Tackling and Chairman, Robbie Ferron were presented with a bronze level “Clean Regatta” certification award from ”Sailors of the Sea” representatives, Dan and Chris Mancini on March 7.

Sailors of the Sea is an action-oriented, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing education, programs and resources to motivate and empower sailors and other boaters to preserve, protect, and enjoy the harbors, bays and oceans upon which they sail, founded in 2004 and based in Boston, Mass.

For this year’s regatta, organizers implemented a nearly paper-free registration system and reduced from 6 boxes of paper to 2, according to Heineken Regatta Director, Heather Tackling on March 7. The skippers of all competing yachts were requested to not discharge untreated sewage in no-discharge zones, to not throw trash over board i.e. rigging tape, cigarette butts and beer cans, as part of an effort to raise awareness about keeping beaches clean and in addition were given a list of green cleaning products, in their regatta information packs.

In addition Heineken Regatta sponsor the petroleum company, Sol donated a special rag sponge for oil mop-up to each competing sailing team.

In a separate initiative, the regatta organizers teamed up with Heineken St Maarten, the event title sponsor, to sell bracelets to raise money to protect the natural environment of both the French and Dutch marine parks on the island, three years ago. Last year regatta organizers added “Clean” to their motto “Serious Fun” also printed on the bracelets and this year Responsibility was added to the motto with a the smiling “e” logo, both as part of Heineken St Maarten’s awareness campaign on responsible drinking and also to serve as a reminder to keep the beaches and waters clean.

Winds Pipe Up To 32 Knots For 29th Annual Heineken Regatta

2009-03-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

Organisers Reschedule Course
Venues Over Weekend For Safety

Overnight turning from a pleasant 10-12 knots and clear skies, a cold front weather system offered some challenging conditions to the sailing teams aboard 218 yachts, gathered in Simpson Bay in St. Maarten for the start of the round the island race of 30 nautical miles, marking the first day of racing in one of the Caribbean’s most exciting three day events, the 29th annual Heineken Regatta, on March 6.

The fleet of 17 classes ranging from grand prix racing yachts, to cruising yachts, bareboats and multihulls met 30 knots of wind from the North, a morning of rain squalls and 8 to 10 feet swells. Crews reported wild rides, surfing at speeds up to16 to 18 knots, spinnakers ripping, 2 yachts were dismasted, and there were several collisions.

Winners of the round the island race on Friday included Chris Besser’s Swan 80 “Team Selene” in Spinnaker 1,
Ronald O’Hanley’s Farr/Cookson 50 “Privateer” in Spinnaker 2, Clive Llewellyn’s Grand Soleil 50 “Mad IV” in Spinnaker 3,
James Dobbs’s J/122 Lost Horizon from Antigua in Spinnaker 4, Raymond Margas’s Dufour 34 “Speedy Nemo” in Spinnaker 5 and in
Spinnaker 6, “Jurakan” David West’s Melges 32 from St. Thomas (USVI)

In the Non-Spinnaker classes, winners were John Dickson’s Beneteau Oceanis 461 “Imagine Sailing” in Non-Spinnaker 1 and in Non-Spinnaker 2, Sandy Mair’s Soverel 30, Streaker.

Multihull 1 Racing was won by St. Martin resident, Eric Clement on his trimaran “Karibuni” and Chuck Larsen on the Lagoon cat “Dream Catcher” won the Cruising Multihull 2 class. The top Gunboat catamaran class was Xabier Ross’s “Cream”.

Tom Deegenaars took top honors in the Open class with “Goeie Mie”, a Beneteau Idylle.

Bareboat class winners were the Harmony 51 “Neerlands Glorie” in Bareboat 1, the Cylcades 50 “Harten Heer” in Bareboat 2, the Oceanis 473 “Team Goldendog” in Bareboat 3, the Cyclades 43 “French Kiss” in Bareboat 4; and the Harmony 42 “Renoir”, in Bareboat 5.

In a first time in the history of the event, due to a forecast of continued heavy winds and swell, and for safety reasons, race organizers re-scheduled races courses to start and finish in Simpson Bay on Saturday and Sunday.

Photo curtesy of Heineken Regatta
Visit www.heinekenregatta.com.

Ocean Quill

Heineken Regatta St. Maarten

2009-03-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

IGY Commodore's Cup
draws 52 top racers

In moderate East-SouthEasterly breezes of 10-12 knots outside Simpson Bay in St. Maarten, a total of 52 racing yachts gathered for the 3rd edition of the IGY Commodore's Cup, held March 5.

This race was created to give an extra day of fun for competitive Grand Prix yachts and spinnaker classes, and is held one day before the 3 day Heineken Regatta kicks off to race around the waters of St. Maarten/St. Martin.

Repeating their 2008 victory, "Katrina" owned by Damon Guizot on his Swan 53, this time maintained 3 consecutive bullets in Racing A class. Home port for this crew is Southern California. Onboard for the races besides their regular top notch crew, was the former racing editor of the magazine, Latitude 38, Rob Moore and also the founder of the well known, racing newsletter, Scuttlebutt, Tom Leweck.

The crew of "Storm" a Reichel Pugh 44, also maintained 3 straight bullets in Racing B class.

A previous Heineken Regatta winner, Puerto Rican sailor Sergio Sagramoso and his highly motiviated crew aboard the brand new Beneteau First 44.7, "Lazy Dog" continued the trend with 3 straight bullets in the Racing C class.

Also repeating their 2008 victory in Racing D, the Kattack Racing crew dominated the action with three straight victories. This team had originally scheduled a charter aboard a Ker 46, which was damaged in a delivery prior to the event. So the resilient Kattack sailors chartered a 40-footer from Ondeck yacht charters, and made the quick and necessary adjustments that led to an exemplary performance.

St. Maarten based and former Olympic contender, Dr. Fritz Bus on his Melges 24, Coors-Light Sailing Team, collected 7 points in the 3 races with a 3rd place and 2 second places to take cup honors in Racing E. This class containing the smallest racing yachts of the Spinnaker divisions, is highly competitive and exciting due to designs that are quite well matched and a ranking of top notch Caribbean based captains racing. This year Racing E drew a total of 4 Melges design yachts.

Photograph curtesy of Heineken Regatta Press office.
www.heinekenregatta.com

Ocean Quill

Caribbean Racing In St. Maarten

2009-03-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

New Event Match Racing Series Kicks
Off 29th Annual Heineken Regatta

One the Caribbean’s best and loved sailors hailing from St. Thomas (USVI), Olympic medallist, America’s Cup winner and World match-racing champion, Peter Holmberg, won the Budget Marine Match Racing regatta with 3 straight bullets (3-0 victory) on March 3, 2009.

The new event was an ISAF-sanctioned Grade 5 event which featured a five flight round robin race course with one discard race and a total purse of $9,000 of cash prizes to win. An international fleet of five teams raced on Jeanneau 20s with three-person crews in the protected waters of the Simpson Bay Lagoon, in St. Maarten.

“Match racing’s a great spectator sport, it adds a little spice to everything,” said Holmberg. “It was the first year for this event and I think they did a good job. They attracted a nice little field and I was happy to come here and help them get started with it.”

Competition was stiff due to the standard of excellence in boat handling with puffy winds of 16-18 knots in the morning and the wind dropped down to a more manageable 10-12 knots during the afternoon races.

“Good stuff in the morning,” said Holmberg. “It was very settled and heavy air so you had to figure out how to go fast in that breeze with these boats. So that was a challenge for the crews. In the afternoon a couple of squalls came through and the breeze dropped so it got pretty tricky. So you had to balance it out between covering your opponent and sailing to the next puff.”

“There’s a tremendous amount of interest among sailors in match racing,” said Budget Marine and Heineken Regatta founder, Robbie Ferron. “This new event gives us the opportunity to promote new and exciting forms of racing to the Caribbean.”

Holmberg seconded Ferron’s thoughts. “My personal dream is to see more match-racing here in the Caribbean,” he said. “We started one in the Virgin Islands this year, and now Budget Marine has successfully run this event. I think we’ll learn what we did from this year and make some improvements for next year. I’d be happy to help them to see if we can grow it some more.”

The captains pool featured some the best of the best in world wide racing competition today. They included the Russian sailor Eugeny Nikiforov who is currently ranked third in his homeland and 49th in the ISAF world rankings and the 20-year-old skipper Francisco Siemsen Bulhões from Brazil who recently finished fifth in his country’s Junior National Championship and also is ranked in the top fifteen in the Brazilian National Rankings. The remainder of the five-team fleet was composed of sailors hailing from the US. Michael B. Hoey represented Team Chippewa, (Clay Deutsch’s Swan 68, Chippewa participant of Heineken Regatta), and he is also the tactician for Team Van Tol, the Number 1-ranked match-racing team in the U.S. The one and only lady captain was Jamie Haines, who’s done extensive inshore and offshore racing, which includes a victory in the 2006 Newport-Bermuda Race, and she has completed in numerous national championships and Grade 1 match-racing events as both a trimmer and tactician. Haines is currently campaigning for a spot on the US Sailing national team with one of the top U.S. women’s match-racing teams.
Holmberg and his crew of fellow Virgin Islanders, Ben Beer and Maurice Kurg, took home the $5,000 first-place cheque, Marc Fitzgerald, the skipper of Sir Peter Harrison’s Farr 115, Sojana, won the $3,000 prize for second place and the Russian match-racer Eugeny Nikiforov cashed the $1,000 third-place purse.

In reply to the question of how the St. Thomas crew would spend their top prize, Holmberg said smiling “I’m going to split it with my crew, like always and then we’ll enjoy some Heinekens this week in St. Maarten!”

All photos courtesy of the St. Maarten Yacht Club and Heineken Regatta office
Please tour http://www.heinekenregatta.com
Ocean Quill

St. Martin Carnival 23 February 2009

2009-03-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

The jubilant fete street fete began as the Grand Parade toured the streets of Marigot Village.

Well received and loved by their supporters on the sidewalks, band members of the troop Locomotiv above featured a rainbow of nations dressed as golden stars with musicians playing the traditional Growka drums of Guadeloupe.

Clean Blue Planet

2009-02-26T17:32:00.001-08:00

Be The Change You Wish To See In The World

Change Of Attitude And Change Of Heart

Hearing The Call To Clean Our Beautiful Blue Planet?

As all manner of trash litters the lands of our majestic earth, feelings of guilt set in last month when everywhere I looked I was seeing trash, plastic, paper and junk.

These feelings so overwhelmed and annoyed me, my duty to clean the environment I frequent happily began on a much more regular basis.

After the category 5 hurricane “Luis” roared over St. Martin (French Caribbean) in 1995, the local government asked each of us to group and clean our area of residence on a Saturday. Many of us had been temporarily laid off from our jobs and although I was helping friends (whose house located in Pic du Parodis exploded) to clean up that day, my neighbors did not believe that I had been cleaning elsewhere and gave me a good telling off when I arrived home! However back then the storm improved communication between neighbors and I was touched that they bothered to give me a good telling off! To me this set values on team effort and the environment, two things I also value highly. Together truly we can make a difference!

Fast forwarding to 2009, I noticed that the hurricane debris i.e. mangled roof zincs were still littering the beautiful green hills from 14 years ago.

Another sad fact is that this trash is not biodegradable. This is non degrading trash that collects on sea bottom as well as around the coastal shorelines, roads, fields and hills.

I remember collecting trash from the seashore and the sea floor when I was a little girl in the 70’s when our family yacht was stationed in Puerto Rico. We stacked the trash in the dinghy and it was placed in a trash bin on the next trip ashore.

My present family and I have collected trash on Pinel island, Tintamarre and Ile Fourche islands on weekend sailing trips over the past 6 years.

My new endeavor was to start cleaning bigger areas and on a much more regular basis. This began with cleaning the shoreline where I walk my dog! Last December, we had begun stacking rubbish floating in from all parts of the Caribbean, Africa and Spain, higher up on the coast facing the sea. My sailor neighbor continued stacking these piles of rubbish three weeks later. I started to clean the path where we moor our dinghy during every trip ashore and I began pulling out shredded plastic bags hung up in the trees. Then my partner and I started to tackle the main road on our way back from hiking trips in the hills, as rubbish flies off the bin trucks on the way to the dump at the end of this same road.

During the following week we came ashore and to find a mechanic had dumped a load of car parts, car towing straps and a stove at the entrance of the footpath where we go ashore. The public dump has been privatized recently and now there is a small fee to dump commercial garbage. We had already noticed that members of public had begun dumping commercial trash in the littoral area of the park reserve of Grandes Cayes beach. We slowly gathered small bags of old car parts during trips ashore and stacked it all on the side of the road. Our next mission was to contact the truck driver that picks up large household objects destined for the dump. When we did make contact with truck driver, we explained that the trash stacked in this particular area is coming from the shoreline and that a person had dumped car parts down the hill, so the truck driver readily agreed to make a regular pick up from this area.

More facts: the bottom of the Atlantic ocean is a junk yard while the Pacific has been spared. Maritime traffic in this area is on a much grander scale, between the Caribbean and the Azores islands, sea captains report meeting three garbage bags worth of trash per day, mostly light bulbs, neon tubes and all manner of colored plastic items. While captains crossing the Pacific, garbage at sea is rarely seen.

When feelings overwhelm you do you heed the call? Are there other ladies and gentleman out there hearing this same call? Let’s talk about?

In love, light and service

Ocean Quill