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Published: March 25th 2009
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Last year we left Georgetown prior to the beginning of the annual Regatta due to our needed saildrive repairs. This year we made sure that we stayed and experienced this truly unique cruising experience. The Georgetown Cruising Regatta has been going on for the past 29 years and attracts boats from all over the Bahamas and some come over from Florida strictly for this event. This year approximately 350 boats were in the harbor for the festivities.
The second day started the competition for the many other events. Cameron entered the “Texas Hold’em Poker tournament and placed 3rd out of 86 players. The game did not end until 11:30 one evening with the minimum bet at $32,000. No he was not betting our retirement because each player received $1,500 in chips for the $8.00 buy in. It had been a really exciting game since he was down to $100 and had to go “All In” about halfway through the tournament. The prize was a cruising pennant, a large bottle of Rum along with a cash prize of $75.00.
On Sunday afternoon a scavenger hunt was held and the crews of Ti’Matou, About Time and Double-Wide made up a
team. The instructions called for us to bring back 30 items that all had a “Red Theme”. These included a red bow tie, a red wig, a red feather boa, a red boot and a red signal flag. We found some items on our boats but Claude on Ti’Matou is an excellent seamstress and made several of the items needed. Our team finished 2nd out of 25 teams to win another pennant and more rum.
Monday morning was the annual Bocci Ball tournament on the beach. This game is very popular with the French Canadians and they have dominated the winning teams most years. Nancy was teamed with a French lady after the blind draw. They proceeded to beat opponent after opponent and found themselves in the final four out of 64 teams. For these final two matches all of the participants sit in beach chairs in two long rows and the game is played between the rows. Nancy’s team won their semi-final and moved into the final match. Their competition was two French Canadian men that had won the event previously. Nancy was the only American among the final 4 players and was the crowd favorite. They fell behind
5-0 quickly and things looked grim. However, they came back to take a 6-5 lead before finally winning 13-8. Not bad considering that she had only played the game once before. This time we had earned a Blue pennant and yet more Rum. Now we had a yellow, red and blue Regatta pennant flying from our spreaders.
Another special event held, is the “Yacht Parade”. Many of the sailboats “Dress Ship” with all of the flags and pennants they can find and form a single line and parade through the anchorage and over past the government dock and the Regatta Park along the waterfront of downtown Georgetown. Since we have a roomy catamaran we were asked to take along several dignitaries from the local business community. We had two ladies that sold goods in the straw market and the lady that runs the rental boat fleet in the harbor. None of them had ever been on a catamaran before and were very happy to go along for the ride. We managed to borrow a 6’ Texas flag and put up all of our other flags and pennants to make a very colorful sight. Our Texas Offshore Multihull Association burgee
Sign Post
The Most Photographed Site in the Bahamas was at the top of the port spreader. Next year we want to add the flags of the other states we have lived in such as Maryland, North and South Carolina.
We also competed in beach golf, a coconut harvest from the harbor, and watched the volleyball tournament.
One night was an ultimate trivia contest that took place at the St. Francis resort while eating a cheese steak dinner. We teamed with Jim & Liz from the Seawind 1160 “Imagine” and competed against 42 other teams. The questions were very difficult and when the answers were given we had only gotten 25 out of 50 correct. Usually that is not a passing grade but as it turned out it was the 3rd best and we only missed the top prize by 2 questions. That meant two more yellow pennants and two bottles of wine.
The highlight of the week is the annual sailing regatta. It consists of two races. First an around the island race which is 18 miles long with 9 miles in the ocean and includes entering and leaving the harbor through two cuts in the rock barrier islands. The second race takes place in Elizabeth
Harbor and is a 4.5 mile triangle. This year Cruising World sent a senior editor and their top photographer to Georgetown to cover the event. Cameron agreed to crew for Bernard aboard TiMatou on the Around the Island Race and Bernard & Claude reciprocated by crewing aboard Double-Wide in the harbor race.
The morning of the Around the Island race started with brisk 15 knot winds but as we left the harbor and started tacking south down the ocean side of stocking island the breeze began fading. By the time we covered the 9 miles offshore and were heading back in the south cut we were drifting along in 5 knots of wind. We still passed numerous monhulls but we could not keep up with some of the other big cats like the St Francis 50 “Artemis” or the Atlantic 42 “Windsong”. Also entered in this race was “Kaya” a Catana 401 skippered by Olympic sailor Charlie Olgletree from Kemah. We finished in the middle of the pack in the race but there were also prizes given out for the best dish cooked during the race and for the best photographs taken and for the largest fish caught. We
did not catch any fish but Liz took an award winning picture and Bernard prepared a French Brioche for the baking contest. It turned out to be a fun day for everyone. All of the race crews gathered at the St. Francis resort for drinks after the race.
The morning of the in the harbor race was clear and windy with the breeze 15-20 knots. We had the same crew aboard “Double-Wide” as we had on Ti’Matou for the earlier race. As we maneuvered for the 10 minute countdown until the start the steering began responding very slowly making turns difficult. We checked below but everything seemed to be attached correctly and working. We crossed the line 2nd behind “Kaya” and made good time up the windward leg. As I tried to round the mark the boat did not want to turn very quickly at all. We made a very wide turn but soon were headed down wind, wing and wing for the next mark. By the 2nd mark an Ocean 49 “Phoenix” caught up to us but they owed us plenty of handicap time. Once again rounding the mark was difficult but we managed. As we neared the
start - finish line it became apparent that we would need to tack to cross the line. I started to tack but the boat came into the wind and would not fall off on the new tack. We were headed straight toward the committee boat. The people aboard were waving at us to change course. Despite trying to turn left and turn right, we continued towards the committee. I decided that enough was enough and I ordered the sails furled and turned on the engines to regain control of the boat. It was time to return to the anchorage and see what was wrong with our steering system.
Luckily, Bernard, a professional boat builder was aboard and he quickly found our problem. The steering quadrant on one of the rudder shafts had slipped slightly, and this caused the steering to jam if we turned more than 10 degrees in either direction. Two hours later, Bernard and I had disassembled the steering system and corrected the problem as we reinstalled it. It was disappointing to have to retire while we were in 2nd place but it is lucky that we did not hurt anybody or anything during this breakdown.
The regatta events finished with an awards ceremony followed by another event called the variety show held in the park in Georgetown. There were acts put on by cruisers as well as performances by local musicians and dance groups. The day following the regatta we started preparations for starting our trip northward towards the Abacos and back to the US East coast.
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