On arrival on Thur 22 we will get a chance to relax and get used to our wonderful surroundings. We will be staying at Richard's house at Galleon Beach in English Harbour and aboard Zig Zag our Oyster 82 mothership which we will see at SailCork in June and July. Zig Zag will be moored off Galleon Beach and our raceboat, Oystercatcher XXVI will be berthed alongside whilst not racing. She will be ashore for final prep and we will launch her on Friday and hopefully get out for a practice sail in the wonderful conditions that prevail in Antigua - looks like NE 10-15 kn with sunshine and 28 degrees for Fri!

 

Saturday 25 will definitely be a practice day afloat and while some of the crew have a round of golf the rest of us will be still preparing for the racing. As navigator I examine the Sailing Instructions carefully and look at the courses on the chart. I will put in each mark as a waypoint and each race as a route. I will also note the distance and direction of each mark as the course progresses and then look at it tactically bearing in mind the probable forecast and current.

 

Oystercatcher is 42 feet long and was designed by Tom Humphreys who runs Humphreys Yacht Design with his father Rob - they are both excellent sailors and Tom will be aboard for the regatta. She was completed in late 2007 and shipped to the Caribbean for the Regatta season in 2008 and had some great victories in the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta and others and a second in Antigua Sailing Week - she was then shipped eastward trans-atlantic and we won our class in Cork Week 2008. We will be racing in the "Racing 3" fleet where we have some interesting competition including our old adversary "Storm" - a Reichel Pugh 45 from Barbados. We will have to work extremely hard to compete against the top boats- we are all looking forward to it!. The racing fleet will have 8 different classes ranging from the mighty down to little 20+ footers bouncing around in the swell. The cruising fleet is comprised of 8 different classes and this includes a huge amount of charter boats with crews from all over the world. Boats like Chippewa (picture)return to this regatta on an annual basis traveling thousands of miles to get here - it's worth it!

 

Racing begins on Sunday morning at 08:30hrs just outside the entrance to Falmouth Harbour on the south coast of the Island. Our first race will take us counter clockwise around the island of Antigua - a course of some 50 nautical miles. It looks like we will have a 10 mile beat to Green Island on the south eastern corner of Antigua followed by a close reach up the eastern side of the Island freeing as we get to the north east tip. Hopefully the wind will oblige with 20 knots +  and we will have a scintillating ride downwind off the north shore of Antigua - last time we were hitting 20 knots on a regular basis! The East North Easterly wind usually eases as we reach down the western side of the Island leaving us a very exciting beat from the south west tip short tacking along Cades Reef to avoid the current - a very exciting prospect!

 

Racing for the rest of the week will be confined to the south coast for the racing fleet. On Monday we will have racing beginning to the west of Falmouth with racing off the south coast ,Tuesday will see racing further west, Wednesday will be our lay day unless they decide to have windward - leeward racing postponed from Saturday. Racing will be off the south east coast on Thursday and  Friday will will be the last day of racing which will be held off the south coast. Racing is always exciting with a breeze from between ENE and ESE from 15 to 25 knots with 2 meter seas. Temperature is usually in the high 20s with brilliant sunshine and rarely a shower! You can follow the racing by logging on to Antigua Sailing Week.

 

Shoreside there is plenty of action! The restaurants and quality of food improves every year and among our favourites are Trappas, on the little hill between English and Falmouth Harbours, and Catherines at Antigua Slipway in English Harbour. There are some great "watering holes" including the "Galley" at Nelson's Dockyard in English Harbour, "Life" which is built on stilts in the inner reaches of English Harbour, "The Mad Mongoose", "Dougies" and the "Yacht Club" at Falmouth Harbour - and as if that weren't enough the best night life later is "Abakadabras" in English Harbour - right next to the police station!! 

 

Keep an eye on the SailCork site for a new blog on my return and go to the SailCork.Com Facebook page to see pictures of Antigua Sailing Week.