High winds on day two of the St. Barths Bucket again tested the tenacity and talent aboard 25 Superyacht teams, which were working to improve their positions before tomorrow’s final race. The “Not So Wiggly” courses set on the west side of the island ranged between 23 and 26 nautical miles for five classes, two of which yielded new leaders.
“It was a lot of wave action and wind, with gust of 25-27 knots,” said Steve Rowland, the owner/driver of the 34 metre sloop Nakupenda, which now leads Les Mademoiselles after suffering a steering problem and finishing fourth yesterday. “It made for a lot of hard work, but we won, so I guess that was a good thing!”
Nakupenda was the fourth boat to start in the pursuit-style racing that sends each boat off at a designated time; it also was the first boat – in its class and in the fleet – to cross the finish line. “It helped that we had clear air the whole time, and honestly the crew aboard was outstanding, from navigating to calling lay lines to pulling off great mark roundings and more,” said Rowland.
The one mishap the team had – a problem dousing the spinnaker at Roche le Bouf (which served as the second-to-last mark) – nearly allowed yesterday’s leader Bequia, a 28 metre ketch, to catch up, but the Nakupenda team recovered just in time, and later it was Bequia’s turn to have its own spinnaker problems, which left the team well behind in Nakupenda’s wake. On the last leg to the finish line, Nakupenda picked off the 44 metre schooner Columbia, the only boat left ahead of it and successfully fended off its two closest class competitors, Bequia and the 37 metre sloop Action, which both share Nakupenda’s 5-point score going into tomorrow.
Another class with tied point scores at the top is Les Gazelles, where yesterday’s leader Visione , the 45 metre sloop, conceded to the 33 metre sloop WinWin’s victory today. The boats both have three points, so like Nakupenda, WinWin will have to be on its game tomorrow to take top prize in its class.
“Yesterday we got stuck behind some other boats and Visione, faster on the reaches, beat us right at the end,” said WinWin’s Captain Will Glenn, explaining that today, with longer downwind legs than yesterday, WinWin had an advantage. “It is what WinWin is designed for, and tomorrow’s course has lots of downwind in it, too, so we are confident we can win.”
Glenn gave credit to WinWin’s owner/driver Kim Schindelhauer for driving flawlessly and having made passionate decisions about new technology on the boat and getting it race-ready. “It is our first race since Covid, so we’ve only trained for four days. From that to what happened today is awesome; we’ve made a lot of progress and we’re on an upward curve.”
With another class win today, Columbia still leads L’Esprit 2, with the 52 metre ketch Q in second overall and the 56 metre ketch Melek, which finished second today, in third. “We finished overlapped with Q (third today) and Athos (fourth) – it was nip and tuck with all three boats the whole way,” said Melek’s navigator Dirk Johnson
Winning big today as it did yesterday and showing two overall points was the 52 metre sloop Red Dragon in L’Esprit 1. In overall scoring, the three boats behind it (Perseverance 1, Lot99 and Symmetry) each share point scores of 7. The 48 metre sloop Wisp, as well, won again in Les Elegantes and has two points to runner-up Meraki’s four.
As Nakupenda’s navigator Jim Marshall put it, tomorrow promises “lots of sheep in the meadow again.” In other words, whitecaps on the high seas will be the order for the Bucket’s final day.
Photographs ©2023 Martin Baum/Pantaenius
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