TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Heineken Regatta Photos - volunteer view

While there are numerous pictures of the "Big Boys" sailing around the course, I've put together a page of some of the pictures I took while working on the committee boat. I don't have many from the starts/finishes as I was busy, but the shots show what the Regatta looks like from the point of view of the volunteers and race officers. Just click on the picture thumbnail to go to the page if you are interested.


Heineken Regatta 2017

Thanks for the pictures! With the high winds and waves, I think I heard there were at least a couple of de-mastings?

One of the Open 70's had a dismasting, she's anchored right of Palapa marina with the top half of the mast hanging by the rigging - that'll be expensive to repair. I'm not sure about the round-the-island-race but that was the only one I'm aware of. There was only one other big incident, a medical emergency on the start where a crewmember lost a finger (which I gather was successfully re-attached in surgery). We had a lot of barging and some of it left scratches/dents and broken lifelines. But that's it - the winds were perfect and only picked up after the Regatta ended.

Sounds like it was a decent time overall. I remember a couple of times when there was NO wind, and that was a problem..

I think two years ago the last day was in Marigot and we did a "Wind Dance" (a sailor's version of an indian rain dance) to get that last knot of wind to allow us to make a valid start. We got the wind, but only barely.

On our second trip to the island, we booked a chase book for the last day, and the races were cancelled for lack of wind. That was in 2006.

I really enjoyed your pictures. Very nice to see from the perspective of being on another boat. I also looked at your website for the first time - informative and quite pretty!

I did not realize you were such a newbie to the island. Was your first visit only in 2005?

Carol - here are 2 pictures of what remains of Green Dragon's mast. They are moored off Palapa Marina and since IMOCA 70 parts aren't stocked at Budget Marine or Island Waterworld or FKG it might be a while before that mast is whole again.

I'm sure that will be a lot of money to fix!!

I remember that! We were in Flat Island on friend's boat just sitting there. It was horrible. LOL
Cheers
irina