Friday, March 20, 2009

Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta news

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The Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta this year will be from April 16th to the 21st with four days of racing which will be the most racing in this particular event to date. Once again our Carriacou sloop "Ocean Nomad" will be racing in the ever growing Traditional Class together with many other traditional wooden boats from the Caribbean. Last year we raced here in Antigua less than two weeks after our maiden voyage 300 miles to the south seen here off the lee side of Carriacou in the Grenadines.
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On our first day of racing we went over the line with paint still drying and with equipment being used for the first time. It was quite a learning process the first day with many things going wrong and somethings failing altogether. When we put up our asymmetrical (big downwind sail) for the first time we could immediately see that something was wrong. We later found out that the sail designer had sent the wrong info to the sail manufacturer which lead to us having a totally defective sail. It wasn't good to find this out during the race! Anyway we did better and better to end up finishing second overall in the Traditional Class.
Over the past year a huge amount of work has gone into our sloop with a total repaint of the exterior and the construction and painting of the interior. She is now registered in Antigua, insured and licensed to do day sailing charters and tours here around the island. See a bigger version of the image below by clicking here.
sailing paradise

Our website is http://www.sailing-antigua.com/ and of course you can find The Antigua Classic Yacht tour listed on our main website http://www.adventureantigua.com/
We started doing tours and charters in January and they have been going well with people as happy afterwards as they are normally on the other tours we offer.
For the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta we are going to be racing again, but this time we will be taking small numbers of guests on board to compete with us. To be part of the crew guests will pay a per day fee of US $170 which will include a t-shirt drinks, b'fast, lunch and plenty of traditional rum punch at the end of the day. We have already had one person reserve two people for one of the days so if you are interested please email me directly on elifuller @ hotmail .com or call me on +1 268 725 7263.
You can decide which day you would like to join us by looking at the main regatta website here. From there you can see the race schedule which is also on this link here.
Here is a short vid clip of some racing action from 2006:

And another piece from 2007 done by the boys at http://www.acquafilms.com/ here:

As you can see the racing is so beautiful and exciting. I will post more images and news about the upcoming event over the next month.