Antigua Classics Regatta

The Antigua Classics regatta is one of our favorite events of the cruising year and this will be our third year of volunteering. We love the classic boats and it's nice to be helping not just watching. It's 6 days of racing this year with round island, single handed and 4 races. There are some really stunning yachts as usual and the 30th year anniversary has drawn a lot of competitors and being based in Nelson dockyard it feels very special. However we can't help feel it's a shame the 6 J-boats between the two harbors here don't compete in the races anymore.

Well we hadn't exactly expected so much work for classics but Liz has been given 3 days work, one pre-race and then the round Island and Single handed races. It was a lot of admin and chasing skippers for paperwork as well as making sure hospitality was living up to its name and keeping drinks and snacks flowing. 

Liz working the docks

Liz heard at registration that one or two boats needed crew, so knowing our friends race and a would love to get on a boat she helped put them in touch. It ended up that Russ from Uproar and David from Sans Cles got on Iris-J and David's wife Sue got on Petrana. They all seem very excited to be able to get a ride.

Iris-J

Iris-J returning from races

Petrana at the parade of boats

Devin had an unexpected call to the single handed race for dinghy wranglers to help move boats into slips, they normally don't need us, but a lot of boats in a tight harbor lead to a call for help. 

Dinghy warnglers in action

Well that kind of set the tone for the week, Liz was asked to do a bit more and readily volunteered for a few mores days helping out. Devin being already over on the dockyard side decided to stay over to cover boats needing help or dropping out of the race early. So both we ended up with almost 10 hour days for 5 days, it felt a bit like w**k by the end.

A lot of waiting over lunch time

There were lots of events during the week in the evenings but after such long days we didn't stay to late to anything and just crashed when we got back. 

A classics start line

A loely setting for classics

Beautiful

What people come to see

The week went very quickly as we were so busy and before you know it it was prize giving. We had had a wonderful week and enjoyed every minute of it, we finally got a Braii in on the beach too. We missed our usual noodling in the mornings so we were feeling a bit lethargic and in need of some exercise. We took the offer with John and Jo to walk on the hills behind Falmouth harbor and had a nice day with Jo from Serenade and Sue from San Cles joining us too.

Wrangler buddies

Well all that racing had us juiced. Russ had approached Devin to ask if he wanted to race in Antigua race week, he decided it was time to accept as it was also a banner year and the 50th Antigua race week and should be something really special. So no more play we have a boat to get ready!

Stay tuned for part two!