The Seafarers

At the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, wealthy skippers and their intrepid salty crews race elegant ships of every size and vintage. But out on these waters, a passion for the sea puts eveyrone on the same boat. Writer Joshua David Stein sets sail.  

The English multimillionaire Peter De Savary is behind the wheel of the Whitehawk, a 105’ foot wooden ketch built in 1978. Afore him lie a beautiful teak deck, 13,000 square feet of sail, a crew of five, a Chihuahua named Louis, a much younger “assistant” named Jane playing with Louis and a race. At his back, the verdant hills of Antigua unfold corrugated metal roof huts burrowed next to multimillion dollar homes like that of Jean Paul Belmondo. The fury of the Caribbean sun beats down on De Savary, his crew, me, the yacht, the marina, Rendezvous bay, Antigua, everything. De Savary, who everyone calls PDeS is a real estate magnate in Grenada, a real Dan Yack figure with a fat cigar stuck between his bone white teeth and dark tan face. He looks like a handsome Billy Joel. De Savary, who founded the St. James Clubs in London and New York, almost died in a plane crash in 1987. Since then has been living life expansively. The cabin of Whitehawk boasts a fireplace, a pure silver chess set, and a number of flat-screened televisions. PDeS places a battered white captain’s cap on his head: “This,” he says, “is my father’s cap. It’s 50 years old.”

This is Antigua Classics Regatta, a gathering of classic ships and classic captains. Most things here are at least fifty years old. The regatta, now in its 21st year, is one of the largest classic regattas in the world. Flank-to-flank, over sixty vessels are moored at the Antigua Yacht Club Marina in Falmouth Harbor. Since this is a Classic Regatta, all the ships--the ketches, yawls, schooners, the sloops--have been built before 1950 or after 1950 but using pre-1950 plans. The oldest ship, Galatea, was launched in 1899. The youngest, Ranger, a 136’ sloop, was built in 2003 but looks straight out of Gatsby’s Long Island Sound. Unlike the aggressive engineering of America’s Cup, there are no fiberglass hulls here. Nothing is state of the art, or rather it is but the state frozen in time. Among the assembled vessels are some legendary classic yachts: Juno, Wild Horses, The Lone Fox. These are ships people speak about with reverence. Aggressive tactics are frowned upon. Challenges are strongly discouraged. “This is a gentleman’s race,” one sailor told me. What draws these men and women to the water is a love of sailing. “The wind, the sun. It’s primal,” Johnny Summers, a salty seadog with a Hemingway beard from Vermont tells me, looking out into the horizon. The owners race for glory, not for money. The grand prize--a $15,000 Luminor wristwatch made by the Italian luxury watchmaker Panerai, who in addition to paying the docking fees and sponsoring the regatta, has also paid for my attendance--could be bought on whim by any of the owners.

Apart from the captain’s cap, the deck of Whitehawk is rather democratic. In fact, for such an elitist sport, the marina had an overwhelming air of camaraderie. It doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have inside the gates of the marina. Salty seadogs, young aimless sailors and sea-loving oligarchs, on deck a ship it’s only how well you can trim a sail or tie a knot that matters. Races are a high stakes aquatic pick up game. As long as you can play you’re pretty much assured a spot. This makes for a colorful motley crew. PDeS lives onboard with Jane and Louis. They have a mahogany bath tub and a king size bed. In somewhat smaller quarters live LT, the captain, Mattjis, the tall Dutch first mate, Ally, the stewardess and Marissa, an aimless 18 year old girl from Cornish. She figured working on a ship beats working on land.

The rest of us are just on board for the regatta. This includes those who are experienced sailors men like Phil Cowpland, a tree surgeon from Brighton who is preparing to cross the Atlantic solo in 2010 and Lucas Alexander, who flew in from Sydney to work as a tactician and also men like me to whom notion of sailing had never been tainted by actually doing it.

The day’s races start at the gentlemanly hour of eleven and finish around two or three, leaving ample time for Pimm’s cups at the harbor. Today’s race is a double sausage: vessels trace a straight six mile course to a buoy, turn around, sail six miles back and repeat. Though some regattas are held for one type of ship only, the boats competing here are all different. Velsheda, for instance, is a monstrous 130’ J Class Sloop while Springtide is a merely 24 foot. To even the playing field, each vessel is given a rating or, what in golf, might be called a handicap. This depends among other things on the size of the mast, the ship’s age, the maximum speed, the beam, the weight and the draught of the ship. But what really goes into a rating, say many sailors, is mysterious. “There’s a formula but we’re never quite sure what it is,” says LT. The rating is decided upon by some wizard at the yacht club.

Each type of ship has a slightly different start time. The Classic A Ships, which we are, start an hour after the smallest vessels. In many ways, the moments before the race are the most important. Unlike a horse race, there’s no gate to jump out of. And unlike Nascar, there’s no easy way to reverse a massive ship. Approaching the starting line, demarcated by two floating buoys, is an exercise in patience and calculation. At 11:58am, the crew of Whitehawk is panicking. We’ve approached the start to early. LT stands abaft, shouting at us to loosen the sails. Mattjis stands at the front, counting boat lengths with his fingers. Two, One. It’s no use. Our sails are as slack as can be. Our stern breaches the imaginary plane moments before a shot rings out into the air. LT hollers. “Trim the sails! Trim the sails!” Immediately all hands begin to tighten the canvas against the wind. The massive ship begins to gather speed. As she does, the ship begins to tilt along its side. When a ship is at its best, it rides along raked, like a debonair gentleman’s hat. The crew not manning the sail lines hurry to the high side of the ship, to counterbalance the wind. PDeS, still chomping on that cigar, is calling out general commands though Louis the Chihuahua doesn’t seem to notice a race is on.

Though it’s hard to detect, just beneath the surface, there is feverish computation happening. Lucas the tactician and LT the captain worry about dirty air, that is wind that has been sapped of its strength by an upwind ship. We don’t want it but we do want to give it to others. LT keeps a sharp eye on the speed and the wind. As they both lull he orders that we hoist a jib sail to the foremast to catch more wind. We scramble to untie the canvas and harness the luff--that is the leading edge of the sail--to the mast. The lines go taut and once again, Whitehawk lurches to the horizon anew. We speed down the course, running high of the layline to avoid dirty air. As we pass other ships, we wave. They wave. It’s all very friendly. Some crews seem intent on their work, hunched forward facing the wind like a dog with his head out the window. Windbreakers swooning like sails behind them. Other crews have already cracked open bottles of Wadadli, an Antiguan beer, and jollily flash us the peace sign as we pass.

There are only three real moments of drama in the race. Each time the ships clump up to jibe around the six-mile mark and change direction, there’s a frenzy of action. Turns are where races, generally, are won. The trick is to cut as close to the buoy in the sharpest turn possible. Needless to say, there’s a lot of jostling for position. A few years ago in 2005, a 55 ft schooner rammed into the back of 38 ft ketch named Aspara, sending her mizzenmast overboard. As the ship jibes and we head back to the marina, the boom describes a quick arc close above our heads. The ship groans and rolls over on its other side. The crew amidship scurries under the dangerous wood to the other side. For a moment the sails slacken and then the wind tightens them again and we’re off.

We finish well though the premature start penalty sinks us out of the running for the watch. No one seems that upset. There’s a Concors D’Elegance in a nearby harbour. All the ships sail past an assembled crown on the dock. We line up to face them and wave. As each of our fellow ships pass us, the crews lined up on deck applaud each other. An announcer with a posh English accent sts in a booth dockside manages to get the name of nearly every ship wrong. Lucas says, “This guy’s a classic. He never gets anything right.” There’s an ancient old man standing up in a inflatable dingy in a periwinkle tuxedo and a top hat. He waves to us toothlessly. Back in the marina , we wipe down the deck with chamoise clothes---sea water ironically kills boats--and sit around drinking Heineken. DeSavary has headed down below. The sun tracks its way across the sky until the blue turns to pink and the mountains fade from green to black silhouettes. The beers keep flowing and we move the party to the dockside bar, the Last Lemming. The sailors from all the ships come in. Most of them know each other, either from working on the same ship or from traveling the same regatta circuit. Even if they don’t know each other personally, they probably know of the ship or know the captain. They are a band of brothers, all men who have turned their back on land-locked fixed addresses, who, like Ulysses’ sailors, have chosen not to “deny the experience of what lies past the sun.” They drink long into the night. According to a handsome young sailor named Derek Norton, there’s a practical aspect to this debauchery as well. “A hungover ship sails faster,” he tells me.

The next morning was the last day of the regatta. The crews were hungover and the sky overcast. After sailing into the bay amidst the hurl of rain, the ultimate race was cancelled. Most of us repaired to the bar. In the afternoon however, the sun broke through the clouds. Small gig boats big enough for two people at most raced near the historic Nelson’s Dockyards. Ladies in floral dresses sold biscuits and cream tea. Little naked children jumped from the pier into the water. Captains and crews gathered and discussed their plans. Some were sailing back up to North America, in anticipation of the Newport Regatta, others were heading to St. Barthes. Johnny Summers had found berth on Juno and was sailing back to Maine. LT, Whitehawk’s captain, had little choice. Peter De Savary was heading back to Grenada and he was taking Whitehawk and LT with him. LT shrugged. It’s the life of a sailor.

As the sun set on our last day in Antigua, the marina already looked deserted. Many of the ships had already hoisted anchor and left. In the distance, the silhouette of a classic ship glided along the horizon line. The sun filtered softly through her sails before disappearing into tomorrow.