ANTIGUA CLASSICS
D
own time at the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta finds me with an afternoon off and swimming with turtles off Galleon Beach. I’ve swum out to see Lucy, the 47ft (14.3m) 1966 Royal Huisman steel yawl
belonging to East Coast photographer, Den Phillips, and her husband Dicky.
They are not racing her this year, but they are anchored near the entrance of English Harbour and, as I tread water shooting the breeze, they keep pointing out turtles. There seem to be four or five in the water around here. Of course, I can only see the heads as the turtles lift them up to breathe, some 30 or 40ft away; they don’t let me get close enough to see them underwater. It would be great if these were endangered leatherbacks, coming home to lay their eggs, but they look more like the hawksbill species which is making a comeback with local conservation efforts.
Like Classic Boat, the Antigua Classics was celebrating its 25th birthday this year, and some 56 beautiful boats had turned up for the five days of racing and partying in April that mark this event as one of the best in the calendar. It is certainly less intense than Antigua Race Week, always held the following week, but many locals
said they preferred the Classics. “You wouldn’t believe the difference between this and next week,” one restaurant owner told me. “It’s like night and day. People in the Classics have a lot of respect, but race week is full of brash, loud people.”
J-CLASS NOT MISSED
Nor were the Js much missed this year. The hissy fits of owners and social exclusivity of J folk had not fitted well with the ethos of classic sailing. Some organisers seemed relieved to be given a year off! “We’d like to see them back though,” they added.
Instead, there was a good crop of schooners, from modern replicas like Gannon and Benjamin’s Juno to the impressive Vigo-built Elena and Coral of Cowes, 1902 or Charm III, a 1937 Alden design. Philip Walwyn’s Mylne 12-M reproduction, Kate, 2006 (CB229) looks great in her yawl rig and dark blue colour scheme and, of course, the Carriacou Sloops: 40-ft-odd local boats, some recently built, and always a joy to watch. Star of the show, though, must be Eilean, the 1936 Fife ketch restored by the event sponsors Panerai, whose boss Angelo Bonati is sailing aboard. I was lucky enough to be a part of her delivery crew (CB286), sailing her to
CLASSIC BOAT JUNE 2012 39
Above top: View from the deck of Summer Cloud, with Tuiga, starboard bow. Above: Time to get busy – dowsing a spinnaker after rounding a mark.
TIM WRIGHT
CORY SILKEN
GUB GUB
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