BVI Spring Regatta / charter 22nd April to 7th May

After much planning and a lot of preparation we are in the BVIs (British Virgin Islands) for the BVI Spring Regatta.

17 days of: charter for two then regatta for 15 followed by charter for 4.... Confused and complicated? Yes!

We arrived in the BVIs with the boat half in cruising mode half racing

Racing: stantions and rails, sails on board, everything removed that is not too necessary e.g. Coffee tables and loose saloon chairs

Cruising: well, everything else, considering at least half the time was to be spent cruising we couldn't make it too uncomfortable - cruising sails still on, all alcohol still on

But it's just the owner and wife for the first few days so no stress right...

Right

We spent the time cruising from anchorage to anchorage after late starts and long breakfasts (by the time we set sail the captain and I were having lunch snacks)

Coral and conchs taking over the strewn metal wreckage

And we were taken diving!!!!

We dived the wreck of the Rhone.

The following story is not for sensitive viewers. The tale of the wrecking of the Rhone is a tragic one. Sensitive viewers have been warned.

The wreck of the Rhone

The Rhone was a formidable 94m long postal ship which was anchored off Peter Island (one of the BVIs) in October 1867 next to the passenger ship RMS Conway, to refuel. When the barometer started dropping the captain of the Rhone got worried, as it was however October he thought it was too late for a hurricane. But a hurricane it was. Both ships survived the first wall of hurricane San Narciso but had dragged anchor. As a result they decided to up anchor. The Rhone was considered... unsinkable... As a result the passengers of Conway were transferred to Rhone adding to her 146 passengers already on board.

No unwatered Greek temple, this is the Rhone

The plan was that Conway would head for Road Harbour in Tortola (another one of the BVIs, they are REALLY close to each other) and Rhone would head out for open sea. Conway left first but was struck by the back end of the storm and sunk before reaching safety. After having worried about her dragging anchor Rhone could not get her anchor up and just before the second part of the storm hit the captain called for the anchor to be cut free and they high tailed it the shortest route to open ocean, between Salt island and Dead Chest Island. Due to a submerged rock between them the captain made the call to stick closer to Salt Island but less than 230m from the safety of the open ocean the reverse winds hit, blowing the helpless leviathan onto Black Rock Point. As the vessel was ripped open by the coral the cool sea water rushing in came into contact with the boilers operating on full steam. As you can imagine Dad, the result was a catastrophic explosion that ripped the boat in two with her bow sinking in 80 feet of water and her stern a mere 30 feet. Only 23 people survived, 22 crew and 1 passenger (an Italian of course) why did more passengers not make it? Back in the day, due to most passengers not being able to swim and not being considered particularly helpful in an emergency, they were tied to their bunks...

She is now considered one of the best wreck dives in the world



We eased into this event in stages, first with just the owner and his wife. Followed on the Monday by the rest of the crew...totalling 14... We hired Villa Tortola to house the spillover of the crew and since we obviously hadn't been able to view it before hand, I had inquired as to the distance between the Villa and Nanny Cay Marina where we were moored. The answer, in writing, was a definite 5 minutes, 10 if you're really slow.

Balcony of the middle tier complete with swimming pool

The day the crew were flying in, while the Captain swapped the sails over and offloaded the alcohol etc, the owner and I went to pick up the rental cars from Jerry, meet our Villa on island contact and see this Villa. After driving for ten minutes we reached the car rental, sorted that out and trustingly followed our guide. Another 10 minutes and we were in the mountains weaving our way along not just mud but clay tracks, crawling across the trenches some farmers would recognise as rain drains and seeing nothing but trees with more unmarked tracks fingering off in impossible directions. 50min later we were there and I was um shall we say, put out.

View from the middle tier balcony, fresh and salt water views...where would you rather swim?

The villa itself is stunning! A massive, open 3 tiered structure overlooking the ocean and the lake, complete with swimming pool on the deck, open air showers (who wouldn't want the view and if it rains, well free rinse) and heaven: a gigantic kitchen with a double door fridge any American would be proud of, a massive centre island, double sinks big enough to wash not just a puppy but full size Rottweiler and glory be... An oven you could crawl into in the event of an unexpected ice age! All very important features I assure you, when you are expected to provide 3 meals daily for 15 people!

Our on island man redeemed himself when he revealed that there was a second route to scale the mountain to reach the palace atop. It is a LOT shorter and about 90% tarred with the rest being gravel. Ok so the switchbacks are so sharp that you go forwards up one and reverse up the next and it is still a far cry from 5 minutes from the marina but at least visions of crew pushing a 4x4 up a clay slope slowly began to fade.

Yet another advantage of being ahead of the fleet on a downwind leg...looking back at all the kites

What a manic day. 1 day to change the boat over. We got the crates of alcohol, bags of preprepared food (a result of slaving over the stove the week before), cruising sails etc etc and more etc and carted them all along with the owners wife up to the villa (an exercise in time management: I'm not saying it was a case of getting certain people out of the way but it is slightly more efficient to just do a job in 5min than to take 20min showing someone how to do it)



Ok this is turning into an epic saga. So how's this, I'll summarise the next few days' events in bullet points

• Crew arrived at usual Caribbean speed - 2 hours late
  
• The regatta was two parts A race to and from Virgin Gorda (another of the BVIs) with a day off in between. And 3 Days of day racing
  
• We were going to do the Virgin Gorda race as a practise but as the crew arrived the night before we pulled out of the race there. As it turned out the race was called on account of a lack of wind

Our spinnikar as it breaks free of its wool constraints

Virgin Gorda race

Thus our first race was from Virgin Gorda back to Tortola and it was the first with...our Frenchman. We had to leave Nanny Cay at 5am ish to get there in time for the race. Charactor explaination: he was a professional sailor...as a grinder, and entertained us with horror stories of being in an Americas Cup race crew in the 70's - cocaine prescribed by team doctors as a legal sport stimulant etc But once we were racing he thought he should instruct us...

Three of us girls usually packed the kite but on this occasion the guys finished it off so we could grab some lunch...despite what it looks like, it's not just shoved in...

This was a problem for several reasons, predominantly though because his instructions were shouted, wrong and while delivering them he neglected to do his designated job resulting in him burning the owner's wife's legs with the spinnikar sheet...

When it became clear that he was not going to calm down and fit in the captain skilfully removed him from his position without ruffling feathers and to everyone's great relief.

Overtaking the class ahead

The day racing

• We came first over the water every day
• Once handicap was factored in we came 6th 6th 5th 4th 3rd 2nd which resulted in a 5th overall (Considering, for example, one race we came in more than 20min ahead of the boat that won on handicap, in a 50min race, methinks we need to have a chat with the chap that dols out the ratings)
• It was loads of fun!

Post race diving along Wreck Alley

• We had two local crew racing with us - marketing manager and general manager of Bitter End Yacht Club. Great chaps, fun and very useful-tactition and grinder
• Getting in and out of the marina was a nightmare! We draw 3.5m, the charts say that the marina entrance is 3m deep, the marina manager says that there is an unofficial channel that is deep enough for us... Um maybe at high tide (tides here are only a couple of cm but every mm counted here) which wasn't obliging us by being in the mornings. So most of the time we had the crew on one side of the boat, navigated through at snails pace and still ran aground albeit as the gentle caress of a butterfly...

Famous Pussers Rum, a BVI original

• Feeding the hungry sailors turned into a diplomatic act of mediation. Information gathered and relayed on beforehand informed us all that local restaurants would put up food tents in the marina selling food at the post race party every evening. I had been instructed to cook anyway as there was 'the feeling' that the crew would prefer to be at the villa rather than the party...as it happened the majority of them, 13 to be precise, preferred to well, join in the party. So some nights some crew had drinks beforehand then headed up to the villa, other nights everyone simply came to the villa and the remaining nights I cooked for some at the villa then joined the rest at the party... You can imagine how it went: "we'll eat here tonight", followed 15min later with "no, it seems like people want to go down so we'll all go down", amended 10min later (in one case, as we were walking out the door) with "actually I really don't feel like getting out of my bikini so can you make something for us here. I'm sure X and Y also want to stay", resulting in me quickly throwing a 3 course meal together (thanks to the prepreparing it took 10 min) and the unfortunate X and Y having to politely wave the rest of us goodbye

Post race dingy sailing courtesy of our Bitter End Yacht Club crew members

• Days went like this: in the morning the captain would cook breakfast for the crew on the boat while I cooked for the crew in the house and made the sandwiches with the invaluable help of two teammates. Then I would rush to the boat with the first load of crew while the later risers ate and got themselves ready. We got the boat ready following which the rest of the crew arrived from the house (one morning I received a phonecall 15min before we were due to cast off informing me that the rest of the crew were stuck at the villa with a flat tyre. I made the 20minutes-one-way trip in 20min flat, including the time it took for them to lock up the villa and get in the car...it was safe, but I won't claim comfortable for those in the back and there was more than 1 pale face on arrival) Racing, I was the pit person in charge of the halyards so quite physical tailing for the men pulling the spinnikar up; while the captain was skipper, crewboss, peacekeeper and general spot-any-silly-moves-before-they-cause-a-problem um person. No small feat. Following races, I would make my way up to the villa with the first load of crew to prepare dinner and get going on sanwhich fillers for the next day. Then it would be serving drinks and food to 15 or trips down and up the hill for drinks, dinner and perhaps even dancing in the sand to a live band.

Scuba diving with weird moving, feeling, looking starfish

Post racing the crew left in dribs and drabs, we got the boat back into cruising mode and moved out of the villa. There were still 5 crew on board who, now in cruising mode, had morphed into guests.

So we sailed around once more exploring new anchorages, being treated to more diving, dingy sailing and even a few dinners ashore!

Dropping the guests off at the airport in the dingy proved a novel experience following which the captain and I collapsed into deep sleep in a state of satisfied exhaustion.

The dessert menu ingeniously presented pictorially in a child's toy turned out to be irrisitable

 

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