After sailing in the reverse direction over yesterday’s “Not so Wiggly” course, 25 Superyacht teams today posted their final scores for the 2023 Bucket Regatta to determine winners in five pursuit-racing classes. The wind on this last day of the three-day series toned down ever so slightly to 18-24 knots, giving sailors somewhat of a reprieve from the 20-26 knots that prevailed on Friday and Saturday. In all classes, yesterday’s leaders held their own today to clinch overall victory.
“The wind and sea state was definitely at the upper end for some boats, and certainly for the Race Committee making decisions,” said Race Chairman Peter Craig. “Typically, we sail around the island on Sunday, but we made a decision to keep the boats in the lee of St. Barths for the larger part of today’s race with a course option that was newly added to the Bucket this year.”
Turning in a flawless performance today, the 34 metre sloop Nakupenda won the six-boat Mademoiselles to take overall victory in that class with a 4-1-1 score line. It also won the coveted overall prize represented by the Hermès Perpetual Trophy.
“I’m over the top about it,” said Nakupenda’s owner/driver Steve Rowland, explaining that this is his fourth Bucket with Nakupenda and his first class win, not to mention overall victory, which is decided by a number of factors including performance and time differentials. “We were in a three-way tie going into today with Bequia and Action, so we knew we had to beat both of them. I tried not to think of anything but getting to the finish line once we had passed Bequia (the 28 metre ketch that started ahead) in the final miles of the race and had Action (the 37 metre sloop that started behind) gaining on us from behind.” (Bequia and Action finished second and third, respectively, in overall results.)
Nakupenda’s time-gaining and perhaps ultimately winning move, according to Nakupenda’s tactician Stu Ballantyne, was passing inside of the 50 metre Almyra II (in L’Esprit 2) at the Petite Groupers. “Our navigator (Jim Marshall) said we had room, so we did it, passing very close to the rocks.” He added that the team also made some changes after having some trouble with spinnaker take-downs yesterday. “We needed to make the boat and our maneuvers more reliable, so we changed the system for how we managed the drops. It minimized the risk of damage and definitely improved our performance. In fact, we improved in all areas every day.”
The 44 metre schooner Columbia, in the five-boat “Corinthian Spirit” L’Esprit 2, was the only class winner to post victories in every race. Her closest competitor turned out to be the aforementioned Almyra II, which crossed the finish line in third for her class today, allowing her to move up the leaderboard and post 10 points (to Columbia’s 3 points) for a second-place finish overall. (The 58 metre schooner Athos also had 10 points but finished third on the tiebreaker.)
“In both the first and second races, Almyra II was ahead of us,” said Columbia’s tactician Tony Rey, “and I have to give credit to our crew members who handled the spinnaker, because we were able to pass her back both times on downwind legs.” On day one, Columbia started first and finished first, putting others on alert that this was not just a modern-built recreation of a 1924 fishing schooner that would be slogging around the course. “The boat’s like one of those old flexible flyer sleds you might have had when you were a kid; everything moves and bends but it keeps moving ahead,” said Rey. “We had a mix of traditional schooner sailors and grand prix sailors working together. Our navigator Nacho Postigo helped bring some digital know-how to an analog boat and tracked our progress over the last three days; it was nice to see how we improved as a team.”
The 33-metre sloop WinWin, yesterday’s leader in the three-boat Les Gazelles, broke its tied score with the 45 metre sloop Visione by winning today. “Visione is an iconic boat, with an incredible history, a great crew and a super competitive owner, so we knew it wasn’t going to be easy, said WinWin’s Captain Will Glenn. “We just wanted to sail clean and put into play what we have been practicing as a team, and it went well! No mistakes, and that was our mantra today – keep it simple.”
L’Esprit 2, the largest of the two “Corinthian Spirit” classes with seven boats, was fairly dominated by the 52 metre sloop Red Dragon, which posted a 1-1-2 for the series. The real battle was for second place, and the 29 metre Lot 99 put it together with a win today to finish with eight points behind Red Dragon’s 4 points.
“Today we were concentrating on Prana (a 52 meter sloop), because we wanted to make a ‘hat trick’ and she was ahead of us on the last leg,” said Red Dragon’s owner/driver Christian Gnotke, who has sailed the Bucket three times before with his previously owned Bella Ragazza. “She had to do one more tack to the finish because she tacked too early, so we were able to beat her, but only by 22 seconds.” (Prana ended up fifth in overall standings.)
The 48 metre sloop Wisp, in the four-boat Les Elegantes, finished second today to maintain its lead over the 50 metre ketch Meraki, which won today’s race to finish only one point behind Wisp in overall standings. “On Wisp, we just had to finish no worse than third in order to win the class, so we had to find the right balance between racing hard yet not having any major issues that might lose us the regatta,” said tactician Peter Holmberg. “Our team did a great job, managing the challenges of racing in strong breeze and big waves for three days. We had a really good team, and made no big mistakes throughout the regatta. We all felt it was one of the best Buckets ever, with one of the best award ceremonies I’ve ever been to.”
The St. Barths Bucket regatta, beloved by sailors from around the world, takes place annually on the idyllic island of Saint Barthélemy, and this was its 29th edition since first gracing these local waters in 1995 and its 36th edition since debuting in the USA (Nantucket, Massachusetts) in 1986.
“Stewards” of the Bucket, so critical to the success of the regatta, are Royal Huisman and Vitters Shipyard. Corporate “Friends” of the Bucket are Baltic Yachts, BOAT International Media, Burgess, BWA Yachting, Doyle Sailmakers, Dykstra Naval Architects, Edmiston, North Sails, Pantaenius GMBH, Pendennis Shipyard, Pernod Ricard, Philippe Briand, Safe Harbor Marinas, Southern Spars, The Moorings, Tradewind Aviation, and Zorab Insurance.
Next year’s Bucket is scheduled for 21-24 March.
Photographs ©2023 Cory Silken
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