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| Roger's Beach Bar. Hog Island, Grenada |
Sarah and Quincy timed their annual visit to coincide with the Oyster Regatta in Grenada this year. This gave us a week of preparation and practice over in Clark's Court Bay and a week of racing out of the capitol, St. George's. We managed to squeeze in a lot of knitting, reading and eating amongst the busy schedule of practice sessions. We attended the party at Roger's Beach Bar on Hog Island and we even took the boat out sailing a couple of times. After slumming it for a while in Clark's Court Bay, we sailed around to St. George's for a while to recover. Excellent snorkeling at Point Moliniere with fascinating underwater sculptures, great coral and lots of colorful fish. We explored St. George's. Crew honed, ready and rested we moved into the Port Louis marina to register for the Regatta.
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| Wandering around St. George's Grenada |
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| Big seas shook loose the radar reflector |
Allowing a little time to admire the fabulous yachts and their young, tan, trim (and paid) crew busily polishing, cleaning and sorting sails, it was about an hour before the judges showed up for the best kept yacht. Although we admired the energy of young people who would whip out polish and chamois cloths every time it rained, we felt we were not in contention for the Concourse d'Elegance. In fact, we had not even removed the encrustation of salt that 6 months nearly rain free sailing can bring. Our secret aim was for an award for elegance that money just can't buy. We purposely held in abeyance our matching custom Hawaiian shirts with actual oyster beds and floating turtles and boat name courtesy of the Chief Graphics Officer, Sarah Fitzgerald. Sarah and Quincy had also imported slacks for the Captain. Look out Oyster, we are Elegant (though our boat is less so).
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| Cocktails at "Le Phare Bleu" |
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| Steel band at Le Phare Bleu |
In addition to the Concourse d'Elegance, the Regatta offers the best of Elegant English yachting. Many of the boats sported the special ensigns of exclusive clubs and many of the captains spoke of the famous races they had participated in: Fastnet, Cowes week, Antigua Race Week. Glamorous parties (Gentlemen are requested to wear slacks). Fabulous yachts (Oysters ranging from 82 feet down to us). Scintillating conversations (mostly about aforementioned yachts and races). The best meals Grenada has to offer and all the drinking and dancing a person half my age might want. Oh, yeah. Some blue water racing was done as well. For exciting details of the competitive racing, click here. From where we were, it was a little difficult to see what the winners were doing but what follows is the exciting view of the other end of the track.
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| Drummers at Mt. Cinnaimon |
The first day started with a close reach to the north from a start line off St. George's. The winds were gusty with sudden bursts to 25 knots punctuated with dead spots as we passed hills to windward. We had a local friend, Shaun Tarr aboard who was full of good advice on sail trim, playing the gusts as well as where to fish and what lure to use. Blessedly, he did much of the heavy grinding on the winches. The reach took us back up to Pt. Moliniere where we tacked around the first marker and were further off the wind heading south west to Pt. Saline. Pt. Saline is notorious for high, gusty, shifty winds and we gained quite a bit by tacking in under the protection of Glover Island to the east. We had a brief luffing dual with Elvis Magic until we ducked under their stern. Glover Island was the next mark and we left it to starboard as we began the long upwind beat to St. David's Bay. We were able to tack in quite close to shore in the shoals which should have been our advantage over the deeper draft boats who had to stay far offshore in the bigger seas and currents. Unfortunately for us, the currents were very weak and the advantage probably lost to the fact we were carrying a dinghy along for use at the finish at Le Phare Bleu. We soundly beat both DNS* and DNF**. For actual results, click here.
We were joined by Shaun and his lovely wife for a long evening of wining, dining and dancing and we were back at the boat well past our usual bedtime of 8:30.
*Did Not Start
**Did Not Finish
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| Queen Emma from "On Liberty" |
We had to get started a little early so that Susie could make it in for her appointment with Doc Adams, the local chiropractor before the race. She was able to pick up Shaun for a second day of racing well in time for us to get around to the start line in time. This time, we decided that there would be less drag on the boat if we removed the engine and tank and just dragged the dinghy behind rather than having it catching the wind on our davits. This race started upwind back to St. David's followed by a long downwind run back to Pt. Saline. The best point of sail was probably wing on wing but the high winds and short, steep following seas made a broad reach and a gybe back in seem the better part of valor. The race committee allowed that he had never seen a boat racing with a dinghy in tow. We lost a lot of ground on that leg but still managed to eke out victory over our rivals, DNF and DNS.
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| Shaun Tarr, head tactician |
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| Quincy, principal grinder |
The end of the second race saw the intrepid crew gratefully skipping the cocktail party and dancing for an early night to bed. Perhaps our best strategic move of all. The next day saw a somewhat less enthusiastic bunch of crew polishing and wiping boats somewhat less early than before. We spent the lay day discussing aches and pains, getting haircuts, grocery shopping and lolling about. I believe this is referred to as "girding one's loins" for the coming battle.
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| The usual view from QE |
The third day of racing had clearly been affected by repeated calls for a downwind leg on the part of some of the boats with big professional crew. They had missed the opportunity to fly their spinnakers and so this day they would have their chance. The winds were fresh and gusty and we modestly declared "white sails only". This race was to feature a long reach way out past Pt. Saline. The big yachts looked beautiful and we had a wonderful view from astern of their spinnakers. The big yachts started 10 minutes behind those of us in the smaller class and we had a really fine view of Ravenous II charging over our port stern. Several acres of teak bestrewn with crew clinging in matching T shirts fingers at ready on buttons controlling their hydraulic furlers and winches and spray flying off the gleaming topsides appeared right at the mark. The captain latter remarked that we could have legitimately forced him up as we had right of way at the mark. I felt blocking a racing machine twice my length and 10 times the value with my HOUSE might be excellent tactics but was not in line with the strategic goals of remaining married and solvent. The adrenaline rush was followed by a really tough beat in fresh winds and big seas up to a turning mark near Glover Island. As Shaun was no longer with us, we were very reluctant to do any more grinding than absolutely necessary and soundly trashed DNS and DNF.
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Official Queen Emma
crew shirts |
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Official Queen Emma
crew shirts |
Friday's party was at the Aquarium, a place we had heard of but had never been to. Fortunately we were able to arrange a taxi back to the boat before too late and we slept the sleep of the just.
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| The view at the end of the fourth race |
The forth and final day of racing was held entirely within St. George's bay. We decided to abandon our previous policy of cowering in the middle and sailing last across the start line. This time we took the windward mark and daringly sailed on a port tack (no right of way) across the entire fleet. Spectacular views and elevated pulses brought us to a starboard tack up to the windward mark. At this point we not only had the right of way to the windward mark, we were not DFL*. Though this race was not as long, we were plenty tired after beating our way back up to the finish line. The race committee had decided to add a pursuit race to the agenda. In this race, start times are staggered based on the results from the first four races. The idea is to end the race with all the boats, large and small, crossing the finish line at once. Since we were the last one in, we had the earliest start time. We drifted around for half an hour debating the merits of adding a "most plucky" award to our "best dressed" honors. Greed won over good sense and we started more or less on time. Unfortunately we had no idea where they had laid the course so we were less than our best finding the first mark which we had to do an extra tack to clear. As the bigger boats were constantly closing on us it was hard to avoid feeling we were the hunted and they, the hunters. The handicapping worked as desired and the last leg saw the entire fleet converging on a very long finish line hard on the wind. We were sagging to leeward and it became apparent we would not clear the finish line. We held on right to the point we were about to touch the marker. We did an emergency tack, backing the sails to spin around and get out of the way of the row of bows just behind us. I thought we were forfeiting the race but the race committee generously came on the radio and said we had poked our nose across the line before the tack and so had finished. At the party that night we were presented with a bottle of champagne for taking fourth place and a round of applause for sticking it out. We definitely won best of show for the shirts as well but that prize turned out to be popular acclaim in which we happily basked. With the help of a lot of ibuprofen, tired and happy, we slept the sleep of just.
*Dead F****ing Last
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