Day two of the 36th annual Antigua Sailing Week dawned with more glorious Caribbean sailing conditions. Periodic overcast skies accompanied 15-18 knot winds in the morning but the clouds gave way to sunshine in the afternoon and the winds held.

Division A tackled a three-loop windward/leeward course in the morning followed by an Olympic-type course in the afternoon. Division B’s course had the fleet wending its way to Jolly Harbour, party central and overnight stop for day two.

Arien van Vemde’s Sotto Voce ended the day top of big boat racing while Swan 56 Lolita leads racing B and fleet after two wins today. Sotto Voce and Equation went to arbitration after Sotto Voce’s spinnaker brushed Equation’s backstay as they were gybing their way to the finish and received a 40 per cent penalty putting her at the bottom of the class in race one. However, she bounced back in the second race with a first place.

The Swan 56s are starting to move in on Flirt in racing II who found herself bumped to third in class and tied with Vellamo 2 after a fourth and third today.

Antigua’s Vallicelli 44 Caccia all Volpe has jumped to the top of racing III after a third and a first today and Lost Horizon II is one point behind in second place. EIB Marina Bas du Fort is in third place after a win this morning.

Credit Moderne has bumped local Melges to second after two bullets today in racing sport boat.

Bermudian Farr 72 Starr Trail is sharing six points with Swan 62 Constanter in racer/cruiser I with Spirit of Diana in third. Spirit of Diana’s position took a bit of a dive after a first race kafuffle in which it appears that her chute ‘escaped’ as the were heading to the windward mark and she headed back downwind with it flying at half mast to recover it. Javelin, after a good a start yesterday, has dropped down the rankings to fifth with a short-handed crew on the 75-footer.

Swan 59, Tazani, with Eddie Warden-Owen at the wheel has moved herself to the top of racer/cruiser II with J/46 Jacana second. Celerity, after a promising start yesterday, ended third in class today; a poor start in the first race contributed to a sixth place finish and she finished fourth in the second. Disappointed with their results but happy to be in the Caribbean one crew member said: “It’s still better than beating your brains out in the Solent.”

1st Away and Grain de Soleil are in a neck and neck battle for racer/cruiser III.

On the division B course Igoodia topped performance cruising I for the second day. In the melee of the marinas Bobby Velasquez of Bobby’s Marina and his St Maarten crew sailing L’Esperance beat Hugh Bailey and his HuGo crew of Antigua’s Catamaran Marina. Bobby is looking to even his score after his defeat to Hugh in St Maarten’s Heineken Regatta but has an uphill struggle after posting a 12th place yesterday.

After a fifth yesterday, Kevin Paul, skipper of Frers 76 Kalikobass and charter guests from the Brill Nautical Society were delighted with their win today. Helped along by Tony Brooks, Whitbread veteran and a man with twenty years of local knowledge, Kalikobass had to beat Hark, a Beneteau 53, round the course by over twenty-five minutes to win today. An ebullient Mike Tuckey, charter organiser, also mentioned that it was one of two recent victories with the crew having beaten the Antiguan Defence Force in the tug-of-war yesterday on Dickenson Bay Beach.

Jan Soderberg and his Lofoten I team secured Bareboat III against young pretenders Sea Biscuit. Fabi clinched another win in bareboat I, Rosco racked up another bullet in bareboat II with Blue Bayou and Taz taking IV and V.

The fleet heads back to English Harbour tomorrow in an ‘uphill’ race; good news for the grinders. While sailing a predominantly similar course, division A’s course is 25 miles and division B’s is 20 miles.