A record forty boats with sixty-five sailors took part in this year’s edition of the Powerade Multi-class Regatta organised by the Sint Maarten Yacht Club. More than a dozen young sailors travelled from Anguilla and St Barths to compete in the Simpson Bay Lagoon in a series of races in tricky and demanding conditions on the race course, punctuated by a jolly lunch of Domino’s pizza on the beach at Grand Islet.

With the wind shifting from the South to the East as fast as the race committee could handle, the sailors were tested by the wind Gods nearly as much as by their fellow sailors.

Among the six classes of boats sailing were the new RS Vision sailboats recently added to the St Maarten Yacht Club’s fleet of boats for their popular Junior Sailing Programme. This type of boat is particularly spectacular to watch with its trapeze allowing the crew to lean outstretched on the side of the boat for extra speed together with a huge spinnaker that makes the boat plane over the water even in light winds.

The RS Vision class included two teams from St Barths, who being new to the boat struggled occasionally, but still seemed to enjoy the event tremendously placing fourth and third. Team Anguilla with Ethan Lloyd and Soni, are also new to the boat, but found their stride early on taking a win and a series of second-place finishes to complete the regatta in second place. But the stars of the class were the St Maarten team of Jolyon Ferron and Steven Looser who won every race but one in the eight-race series.

The Optimist fleet of 22 boats was divided into three classes based on age and experience. The Optimist Green class sailed a slightly smaller course than the others, but the competition was still intense with Klaas Buitenhuis, Dino Bonev, and Alice Pru all taking race wins, but Alice’s consistency was enough to take a win the class with three first-place finishes ahead of Dino in second and Klaas in third.

Competition in the Optimist Blue class was equally intense, with Saint-Barthéléminois Gilles Elie taking third place with 17 points narrowly behind Nicholas de Tullio with 16 points. The class was won by Nathan Smith whose nine points in seven races left him the easy winner.

The largest class of the regatta, Optimist Red, with Meal Gilles and Hagis Matheo taking third and second respectively behind an incredible performance by Leonardo Knol from St Maarten, who won every race of the regatta.

The Laser Class competitors enjoyed close racing as well. Bart van Vliet and Bodine Beentjes were tied on points at the end, but Bodine’s win the in the last race secured her second place finish behind Rhône Findlay, whose nearly-perfect string of race wins in the shifty and light conditions once again showed the talent of this young sailor.

The largest boats in the regatta, the LSR 20 foot boats, seemed to delight in the tricky winds and produced some of the closest racing of the day. Heineken Regatta Chairman John Gifford and his crew turned in a very creditable third place not far behind local physician Luc Knol. But the star of the class was Caribbean sailing legend Frits Bus with his Team Coors Light.

The day was certainly a success for the St Maarten Yacht Club. More important: the Powerade Multi-class Regatta was a great success for the sailors from all over the region who enjoyed a day of challenging competition on the water and friendly partying at the prize-giving where Jose Brignoni from Powerade presented generous prizes and trophies to the worthy winners, and Powerade shirts for every
Competitor.

For Results: http://result.vg/smyc/minisite?series_id=4

Article by Paul Miller
Photo’s Michele Korteweg & Petra Gilders