Rolex Regatta

Rolex Regatta. St Thomas Yacht Club's favorite week of the year. This one has been going for a long time. I don't know how long, but I remember my first participation back in 1992, now twenty one years ago. And it was already a classic back then as I recall.

So how did it go? Well, the last time I did this (maybe four years ago?), I participated on a two person, 20 foot long high tech catamaran called an Inter-20. As fast as they get, as crazy as it can get. Had a blast, but man was I worn out and physically abused by the end of that weekend. It didn't help that it happened to be one of the rougher weekends of racing they had seen in many years.

Well, 2013 was eventful. I was invited to sail with Tim Snow aboard his 44 foot modified Beneteau named Three Harkoms. Great sailing boat, and we had an equally awesome crew led by Chris Thompson driving, and Brian Walden on the bow. We sailed great and were poised to win our class. But some troubles stirred up on the last day.

In the first race of the last day, we ripped our jib. Well, thanks to a good start, we were able to get another jib in place without losing too much ground to our competitors. However, shortly after getting that jib up, the main ripped!! Luckily it was low near the foot, and we were able to reef it down (so we weren't using the entire sail). Regardless of these problems, we still got second in that race!!

So we still had a chance to win it all. But the last race proved to be our demise. We ripped the other jib (again, after a great start and taking the lead), and since we were out of sails, our racing was over for the day.

Even with a last place in the final race, we still placed second to a great boat named Crystal. Congrats to them. We will be hunting you down next year...

Great job by the yacht club. Rolex is an event that everyone should see at some point in their lives.