About the second week of February, we decided to check out whether or not we could get a ride on Javelin (The big Frers) for the much anticipated Havana to Baltimore race in April. The owner (Larry) told us that he had no room for that race, but could we take the boat down island to Saint Martin and do the Heineken Regatta. We thought about it for a while, and decided to make the trip. A week and a half later we were aboard the boat in Palm Beach waiting to take off.
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 Jan (the Captain) |
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After waiting till the next high tide at 11:00 AM, we got off the dock in a stiff North-Easterly and set the #5 and delivery main close hauled making for Great Issac. As we pushed into the Northwest Providence Channel, the wind stayed East and a bit North allowing us to fetch Eluthera without tacking. Over the next 5 days, we had winds from 15 to 42kts and seas to 15 feet. The boat loved every minute of it! After we set the staysail and reefed the main, the boat balanced out perfectly and we barrelled down the chain about 100 miles offshore. The days were filled with wind and seas...
The sunsets were spectacular...
The nights were fantastic! The wind cooperated and backed a bit every night, allowing us to make our East and keep offshore.
Somewhere around the DR, we went through a school of mahi and hooked two at the same time. Tom managed to boat the small one, but the monster on the other line broke the 40lb test line and was gone.
After 5 days and 19 hours, we made Dutch Harbor (Phillipsburg) on Sint Maarten where we picked up Larry's wife Mary Lou and their son John...
Then got some much needed rest.
The next morning, we took off across to St. Barths for some R&R.
We anchored in the outer harbor after taking water on at the town dock, and went ashore to take in the sights. In contrast to Dutch St. Maarten, St. Barths is oh so French. Full of quaint little bistros and grossly expensive boutiques. The food is remarkable, and we partook fully... We rented a car that afternoon and took a daring drive around the island, stopping off at a beautiful beach for some body surfing. In the evening, we hunted down a small private club and ended up taking the joint over. We persuaded them to play 50's swing music and danced until we couldn't stand it any more. The next morning we headed back to St. Maarten to pick up the rest of the race crew and prepare the boat for competition.
Race One, we won...
The next day, we kind of got a second place, after giving the fleet a five minute head start... The problem is... We hit a Beneteau 39 in the pre-start... They had no business being in our start area and came out from behind an 80 footer and gave us no time to react to them being there.
That explains the headstart we gave the fleet.... Javelin didn't suffer too much on the racecourse...
Worse though, the race committee disqualified us from the race... Guess they felt they had to since we were on Port. The boat we hit was also DSQ for being in the start area during our start sequence. The next day was the Round The Island Race...
Tom did some quick calculations after we rolled into Simpson's Bay...
And we had kicked the fleet's collective behind, taking first in class, and also getting first non-spinnaker boat to finish. The two first place finishes plus the disqualification added up to a second place overall.
Then we flew home...