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She started with a 1^st and finished with an
excellent win but that wasn’t enough to bring the 25-year-old Oyster Lightwave
48 Scarlet Oyster to the top of a very tight bunch at the front of CSA Class 2
in Antigua Sailing Week. Ulrich Rhode’s immaculate Swan 53 Dragonfly Plus with
her lifting keel and twin rudders ended up taking the Class although on the
final day she was found wanting in the lighter conditions, particularly upwind.

Scarlet’s skipper Ross ‘I’m in it to win it’ Applebey and
his nine-strong charter client crew from Guernsey sailed a blinder on the final
day although they were pipped on the water by friendly rivals Christian and
Lucy Reynolds’s Swan 51 Northern
Child and their multi-national charter crew. Scarlet corrected out 25 seconds
ahead of Child.

Yesterday, as those who read my blog will know, I was aboard
the 115ft Sojana but for me Scarlet Oyster represented the real core of this
regatta, a very well sailed and prepared performance cruising yacht which
provided the perfect platform for a bunch of guys from the Channel Islands who
wanted really good sailing balanced with fun ashore.

“Sometimes we didn’t get the balance right,” said charterer
Tim Joyce, managing director of Sarnia Yachts and yesterday a 4^th in
race 5 was put down by some to ‘dustiness’ following a longish lay day.

When you step aboard some boats you immediately know they
mean business. Well sorted, organised, no fuss and a slight tiredness to some
of the gear which tells the story of a long (and successful) Caribbean season.
A win in the ARC, a very good Caribbean 600, a Heineken Regatta, which also
went well, added up to plenty of competitive sea miles and this is precisely
what Joyce and his gang, who sail regularly out of St Peter Port, were looking
for.

He explained that it was not always easy to find the right
calibre of yacht to compete at a decent level in regattas like this and they
were lucky to have come across Applebey and his Caribbean plan. For £9000 they
secured the yacht for the week, lived ashore in modest accommodation and
partied suitably hard. Applebey, they claimed, led from the front ashore and
afloat but only led them astray on land…

I floated around the aft deck for Scarlet’s final race. This
is a centre cockpit yacht and at first glance one would have thought she’d be
outclassed by much newer competition. But combine the genius of designer Carl
Schumacher and 16 years of optimisation by owner driver Ross with his
instinctive reactions on a race course and you have the classic wolf in sheep’s
clothing.

“Slay, kill, burn the Dragonfly!!” Wow these guys are up for
it, I thought, as we had a very juicy little tussle at the start where clearly
Dragonfly Plus was enemy number one.

And sure enough we poked through the middle of fleet just to
leeward of the said Dragonfly who I’m afraid couldn’t live with us with what
looked like an undersized headsail. We heaved ourselves ahead and above of the
swatted ‘Fly’ and immediately trained our sights on Northern Child who had made
an immaculate pin end start to weather.

Others in our nucleus included Andy Middleton’s strangely
named EH 01, his First 47.7 from Global Yacht Racing and Chris Brand’s Swan 53
Merel Four. These were the front runners in the 14 strong fleet.

Our worst leg I think was the long run to Bluff, some way
west of Falmouth Harbour. With the wind in the low teens and the sun
re-appearing this was ASW at its very best but irritatingly for us we let ‘The
Fly’ through on our inside. We held onto port gybe all the way to the bottom
mark while others gybed at least twice close to the mark which appeared to help
keep us in touch.

Scarlet’s killer move came on the long beat back up to the
entrance to English Harbour. Like yesterday the hot money was on those who went
right, out to sea, as opposed to the normally favoured left side and lift on
the island. But with the wind down, flatter water and traffic on the shore, if
you could find a lane to seaward there was uninterrupted pressure and Ross went
that way when he felt the smallest of favourable shifts.

When we came back to the front runners only Northern Child
led us and ‘The Fly’ had be re-swatted. Not much could stop us now although an
under par let off on a sheet winch by yours truly resulted in a nervous moment
on the approach to the top mark and there was an uncharacteristic foul up on
the hoist as the kite went up in the midst of a little foredeck chaos.

‘Calm it lads,” came the call from aft and things duly
settled down. Despite differences in so many ways it seemed extraordinary that
Northern Child, Scarlet and Merel remained neck and neck all the way down the
run.

It wasn’t quite mass hysteria on the line but we had done
well and to finish with a bullet simply rounded off what appeared to have been
a top week for the Channel Islanders. Friendly but hard fought rivalry had been
the order of the day and back ashore the cold Caribs flowed liberally as the
stories were swapped and the idea of 
top notch performance cruising race boat charter was developed.

For me it was a great combination of a modest yacht
performing really well with a crew who had gelled and performed. It epitomised
what ASW is all about.

Photos: 1. hunting ‘The Fly’

           2. job done – cold beers all round…