Tuesday was day one of the regatta and it was all aboard Hotel California Too. Steve, our skipper had experience stamped all over his forehead having done many regattas over many years in the Caribbean. At one stage he was having 500 different people racing on HC every year. Richard was in charge of assembling a crew for Steve this year and I’ve got to say he did a pretty good job. Our star was undoubtedly Annie, our Tactician who was an Olympic Silver Medallist and Americas Cup sailor. Bill was pretty handy on the foredeck having a pretty good sailing resume all the way to AC trials. Anna was Steve’s crew, hailing from Poland via Toronto and the most of us were catamaran liveaboards – Steve being the only one that owned a monohull. Having two Steves on the boat was confusing so I reverted back to Tully.
We were sailing in a class with white sails only so it was pretty easy most of the time. We quickly picked out our nemesis in Spirit, a 65 foot Swan who if not for acknowledging a collision and refusing to do a 360, would have beat us into second. The boat that got first was sailed by an Italian AC skipper, a hired hand, who in the last race beat us by 3 hours (in light to non-existent winds) – Bill commented that he was never in a 20 mile race where he had come second by 3 hours. The racing was fun with the big maxis steaming past us at close quarters and the odd bit of drama after the starts. With the last race on Saturday cancelled due to lack of wind, we found ourselves in second, due to a couple of DSQs – what a result.
It was tough going- racing during the day and partying at night but I wouldn’t have missed it for quids. The regatta put on great live bands, French cabaret and of course pole dancers!!! Only in France could you get way with that. The awards ceremony was a hoot with Hotel California making the most noise on the podium (complete with sparklers). You would have thought we had won!!! There were bottles of Verve Clicquot everywhere and the shot of the night went to Christine who lay down in front of all the said bottles that were neatly arranged for the awards ceremony, pretending to be drunk. Later on that night she wouldn’t have needed to pretend.
Regatta over, we headed around to Columbier for a day of recuperation, followed by a final fling. We called an end to the recuperation period about 4pm and headed off to Sugar Shack, for Christine’s now famous jello shots. Matt enjoyed handing them around and took the “one for you, one for me approach”, which came back to bite him later. Pre-dinner drinks over, we jumped ship over to La Mischief for an Aussie BBQ dinner and yet more drinks, way past Matt’s tipping point. It’s always a good night when you have to hop into your dinghy and return various items to various boats the next day.
Then it was off back to St. Martin for a crew change.
A Little Bit of Mischief 