Wildcat Sailorgirl

Classics Week - Day One Race Day Pics

Boat Porn

Smallest boat - Norwegian folkboat - sailed across the Atlantic

Three beauties heading out for racing

First time racing for the owner/skipper

Tug Flying Buzzard was the Race Committee Boat again this year

Start of one of the classes

Off the line for another class

Big 3 - Rebecca, Rainbow and Elena of London start - WOW

Rainbow crosses our bow

Going

Gone - that fast

Elena of London crosses our bow, Rainbow in front of her

Private yacht Nero

Non-racer Picton Castle

Classic Week 2015 - Watching the Races

Captain Morgan

Saturday April 18th, 2015
We were fortunate this year to be invited to watch the racing out on the water. Morgan and Lindsey invited us and several others to go with him and Lindsey to view races one and two. Morgan owns sv Nirvana, a 64 ft Outremer catamaran. This is a bigass cat and thus a nice, wide, somewhat stable platform that is perfect for race watching. He also has two bigass engines to help him maneuver around his bigass cat.

Great platform for race viewing

Morgan has done this several years running now and has it down to a science. We all arrived via dinghies around 9Am. Next to sv Nirvana, Morgan had already put down a large aluminum fortress anchor with a huge buoy on it and a long line trailing behind with several loops. We each tied off our dinghy to the loops in the line and scrambled aboard sv Nirvana. The last aboard were the dinghy wranglers. When the time came, Morgan just released the line holding the huge buoy to sv Nirvana and we carefully and slowly motored away from the floating island of dinghies and out to the race course.

A Carriacou sloop sails past our floating dinghy island

Crewmate Lindsey was an airline hostess in a previous life. Two of her longtime fellow airline hostesses (Kelly and Eileen) were aboard sv Nirvana visiting. They kicked into high gear acting as the ultimate hostesses, assisting in getting our gear (backpacks) stowed, drinks iced down, taking money for the lunches that had been ordered and generally setting the mood for what was sure to be a great day.

Morgan's Angles - Kelly, Lindsey, Eileen

Morgan keep sv Nirvana near the start area so we could take in all the pre-start maneuvering and than the start of each class. We weren't the only ones out there so he had to keep a sharp eye out. He did a terrific job and we got some spectacular views and pics of all the various yachts. It was exciting. I goofed up and didn't bring the yacht info so we had to guess which yacht was which. The second day Helen brought the listing from her day of volunteering so we were able to know who was who. Additionally, the first day we didn't know what VHF radio channel the race committee was on. For some reason it was a big secret. But I found our from our man Roy of sv Guiding Light, so we were able to listen in on day two which made it that much more interesting.

Some of the gang enjoying their day onboard sv Nirvana

The ladies

On the first day after all the racing classes had started Morgan made a big announcement. "Folks, we needed to make some decisions here. We can head downwind and watch them round the third mark, but I am going to tell you that the trip back in this boat will be bumpy and wet as we will be pounding directly into the wind and waves." This didn't seem to faze anyone - we are sailors and used to it. Then he said "OR we can head in now and drink beer and have lunch." Oddly no one reacted. We decided Morgan should make the call as captain and thus we headed in.

Lunch

We anchored in the back of the anchoring field near the channel with full view of the finish line and enjoyed lunch. One of the dinghy wranglers that stayed behind, came up and delivered one person to the floating island of dinghies. Then that person came back to sv Nirvana and got two others and they retrieved the aluminum anchor holding the dinghy island and slowly towed the island back to the mother ship so we would all have easy access tour dinghies. Day two, Morgan carefully maneuvered up to the floating dinghy island and Tom jumped into one of the dinghies in order to move the dinghy island back to the mother ship.

Tom ready to jump aboard the floating dinghy island

Day three racing is a short day ending with the yacht parade in English Harbor. The parade is preceded by a Red Hat Mount Gay Rum party - Morgan's favorite so he cancelled "the cruise" aka race watching so he could attend the Red Hat party. Additionally, we are unsure if the dinghy wranglers will be able to attend because they would probably be needed to get those yachts with engine problems back into the dock in Falmouth as those won't be able to participate in the parade of yachts in English Harbor - it's too narrow with fluky wind in there.

Out near the start

Chatting between starts

Being out on the water to watch the racing gives one a unique feel for the vibe of the race vs watch from the cliffs ashore. We appreciate being able to experience that and want to say a big thank you to Morgan and Lindsey.

Captain Morgan

Classics Week 2015 - Volunteering

Upstairs is Race Headquarters

Friday, April 17th
Tom and I were asked to be volunteers at this year's Classics Regatta. An honored and highly popular thing......limited spots.

Race HQ and Hospitality

I did a full day in the Racing and Hospitality Center doing whatever was needed. This consisted of walking the docks getting missing information from various yachts and reminding them to put up the official flag for the Concours D'Elegance judging. It was day one of Classics Week and things were hectic on more than a few yachts - mainly those that are liveaboards and not professionally maintained. I also helped assemble the skipper packets, which was not an easy task as some info (like yacht ratings and thus classes) kept changing until late afternoon. We had to smile and try to keep a few skippers calm as they huffed over their rating or asked repeatedly for "just a look" at the racing instructions that they would get officially later. I helped dress the stage for the Concours D'Elegance awards that night, served complementary sparkling wine and then assisted in break down afterward.

Inside Race HQ

Tom is a Dinghy Wrangler along with several other guys. This means that each morning they help these classic beauties get out of their med moored slip safely and then each afternoon they do the reverse helping them get back in. It seems that if you spend $1 million dollars + on a Classic yacht or in the case of a few, put every single thing you own and blood, sweat and tears into your classic liveaboard, then you don't really want to bang it up getting into and out of the dock. Imagine that! Anyway wrangling is not an easy task. The first day many boat said initially "No thanks. We've got it." To which the wranglers said "Ok." But stayed near and when the reality hit the proverbial fan of pre-racing dock departure, the wranglers often had to jump in last minute to assist with a push here or there. A few of the high end, professionally run yachts said up front "Hands off, DO NOT touch our boats. Not a finger. Thank you very much." as they had their own super size dinghy to push them around, plus bow and stern thrusters, plus highly paid and trained crews. One engine failure resulted in multiple wranglers towing the boat back into the dock from the channel. The second day of racing saw higher winds and more boats calling for help getting in and out. They towed the previous day engine failure out into the channel so it could race and then back in again after racing. Equipment and engine failures increased so others had to be helped in as well. Three of the six Carriacou sloops lost their engines but two of the three sailed through a very crowded anchorage nearly all the way into the dock and then got assistance from the wranglers for that final bit. In our dinghy, I followed one sloop in - it was truly amazing to watch again and again as three of the crew hardened up the big heavy main enough to just clear an anchored boat A third Carriacou Sloop sailed in as well just for fun or perhaps practice in anticipation of losing the motor.

Wranglers Tom and Lee ready to hand over an anchor bouy

Tom has reported a few close calls - mainly captains coming in too hot or a boat that just won't respond well. Remember, these are classics - heavy boats with full keels = yachts that backs like a stubborn mule. However, so far no yachts have been damaged and no one has gotten hurt. Yay! Most of all, Tom is having a blast.

Helping with a little push

As volunteers, we received special Classics Week t-shirts and Tom got a special Dinghy Wrangling hat. We also each received one of the coveted Red Mount Gay Rum Classics Hat! Which we have been proudly wearing. Woo hoo! More than one jealous cruisers has offered to buy mine off my head. See.....very sought after.