Nilaya – Will Oxley, Navigator
It’s never easy when you have sailors like you have on Unfurled constantly breathing down your neck; we were constantly looking over our shoulder. All week a convergence line existed over the top of the island and out to the lee, and our tactician Stu Bannatyne did a great job at recognizing this. It helped our performance for sure.
The owner, Filiep Balcaen, steered and did a great job, with his son Louis steering sometimes, too. It was this boat’s best regatta performance against the others (Visione, Unfurled) here. We were all very close all the time. We had 9 miles to go in today’s (Sunday) race, and Unfurled was only 2 ½ minutes behind us. (The final finishing delta was 1:09.)
It was great weather, and this is a wonderful place. It’s a credit to the island that they came back from the hurricane in the way they did. The camaraderie and hospitality have been wonderful.
Whisper – Hap Fauth, Owner and Helmsman
After Roche le Bouf is where we made our move today (Sunday). We had one jibe and came back to the mark with lots of pace, doused our spinnaker and had a good rounding. Then we took the first lift and hipped up on everybody; we were 500 yards to weather of the whole fleet. Blue Too was ahead, but we went in to shore because there’s always a good shift on the beach. We sailed 150 yards past their line, picked up a lift off the beach and just smoked them. We extended after that, and it was all over. (The final finishing delta was 11 minutes.)
We started last out of everybody in our fleet every day. With the big Perini Navis like Rosehearty, you know she’s much faster and that in 15 knots, the boat’s going to be gone, but we were lucky the breeze dropped off in the 10-knot range. That’s our sweet spot. Whisper points very well and she’s a light-air flyer because we’re overpowered; it’s as simple as that. The boat can only go tops 12 knots, but we can do that when its blowing 7 knots.
Missy – Matthew McKeon, Captain
This was the owner’s first-ever regatta. And from our first race on Friday, where we finished third, to Saturday and Sunday when we won both races, we came quite a long way. He helmed the boat the whole time.
Mostly we were very lucky today (Sunday). We got a puff of breeze that carried us across the line and we kept with it and caught the other boats quickly. Then around the island on the other side…that was the best angle for us. It was a very good day.
Missy was built in 2016 as the first design from (father) Matthew McKeon’s new studio. It’s Vitters-built, and we’ve been only cruising it, so this is my first Bucket, too.
On entering Corinthian class next year: Maybe, maybe not. It’s certainly a more economic class to enter. It was a really good weekend, but we’re talking about using a cruising spinnaker to enter some other events next year, maybe use a spinnaker in the Superyacht Cup. It’s early for Missy.
Sojana – Loz Marriott, Captain
The whole three days have been great. We’ve been doing a lot of work to get the boat ready and it’s paying off for Sir Peter (Harrison, the owner). You can’t sail a ketch like Sojana at such high levels without a good crew, which included Andy Beadsworth helming and Johnny Melbourne navigating.
We started with a first- and a second-place finish (to Rebecca’s 3 and 1), so we knew the battle was with Rebecca today (Sunday). She started eight minutes ahead, and we knew we were going to be sailing into a dying breeze; we had to sail fast in the beginning to do the chasing and save the tactical sailing for the back of the island. When we had our spinnakers up at the top of the island they were ahead by three minutes, but we took two minutes out of that by the final crossing at the headlands. At the last gybe before the finish they were slightly to leeward, which forced us to jibe, then they jibed back quickly and we split. At the finish we were 1:46 ahead. Very happy boss, very happy crew!
Farfalla – Richard Chadburn, Captain/Mainsheet Trimmer
It boiled down to the right boat for the right course today (Sunday). The conditions suited us more than SPIIP. We both sailed very well down the first downwind leg today, but we went right while everyone else went left. We claimed back five minutes on our start within the first ½ hour. (The final finishing delta over Leonara, in second, was 7:10, over SPIIP, in third, was 11:55)
The first two races were much closer. A bit of nail biting… we lost by just a boat length (to SPIIP) in the first race. And yesterday, we did three jibes in succession (to fend off SPIIP) after Ile Fourchue. Their boat was being sailed well.
This is the owners first sailboat (acquired in 2014) and this is our sixth regatta. It has been an adventure, and he’s been loving the racing. This is our second year tightening things up for regattas and our first victory, so he’s super happy.
Svea – Charlie Ogletree, Project Manager and Tactician
We are so excited to win; it is incredible for all of us. We are so thankful to Tom (the owner) for what he has done for us, and he has done an incredible job driving this week. This kind of racing can be difficult; it is long and requires periods of excellent concentration, and he has done an excellent job. We are happy today to see him having this success.
It is great for us as a team. We are doing two more regattas, so we are looking ahead now to Palma and to the Maxi Worlds in Sardinia. There is still a lot of work to do compared with the benchmark programs Velsheda, Lionheart, Ranger and Hanuman. They have been doing this evolution program for years. Velsheda has been doing this for double digit years, and so we are happy to just prove ourselves competitive in such a short time frame.
Photographs © 2018 by Claire Matches
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