The 2009 St. Maarten Heineken Regatta was a great event. I raced with Dave West out of Tortola on his Melges 32 JURAKAN with a nice team of guys. We had huge wind out of the North for the whole regatta. Friday was the around the island race in winds of 20-30 kts and after reaching down the south coast, we had a short beat around the western tip before tight reaching all the way up the north shore in the Anguilla Channel. This is usually a tough beat, so the quick fetch in this breeze was a relief. After rounding the Tintamare mark, we had a long downhill ride to the finish where this Melges 32 showed its true colors. With no working instruments I can only guess that we were doing low 20’s for most of the ride. We corrected out to 1^st over the J100 Bad Girl of St. Croix.

Day two was windward / leewards on the South side to hide from the massive swells from the cold front that was causing all the wind. Again high 20’s for wind, and our team struggled with a few wipe outs, which doesn’t help you correct out on handicap very well. We got a 2^nd (by 4 seconds!) and a 4^th for the day.

Day three was a new course up to Tintamare and back. The wind was low 20’s and we did a nice job figuring out how to depower the M32 upwind, with outboard leads and vang sheeting to help her go uphill. The run home wasn’t as exciting as the first day, and we finished second to the J100 by 50 seconds.

We ended up second in class to the J100 Bad Girl who sailed a clean and consistent regatta. Our team learned a great deal from the event about how to sail a Melges 32 in heavy air, and our mistakes were all clear to see and learn from. Hopefully the team can put these lessons to work and have a good result in the other upcoming Caribbean events.

And when a regatta ends with dancing on the beach to the Wailers on Sunday night, everybody was feeling like a winner!