SMYC News: Yacht Racing back with a vengeance

November sees the start of the St. Maarten Yacht Club Keelboat Racing Season and the club has come up with a whole new idea. Points will be awarded for yachts that take part in races throughout the season and these include the French side Course de L’Alliance, Captain Oliver’s Regatta, the Anguilla Regatta and the Statia/Nevis Race. There are 13 races and a total of 14 points up for grabs. The season will end with the presentation of perpetual trophies for spinnaker and non-spinnaker classes at the St. Maarten Yacht Club on Saturday July 24th next year. The first of the races is around the cans and that’s on Sunday the 22nd of November and it’s followed the week after by the Course de L’Alliance. People have fought hard to bring yacht racing back to the SMYC and this series deserves everyone's full support. I’ll be talking to someone about how and why this 13 race series came about on YachtBlast next week, in the mean time if you want more details then email info@smyc.com or log on to http://www.smyc.com

Thieves are at it again!

Outboards are the target of thieves operating around St. Maarten’s Simpson Bay Lagoon. Having been shown a heavy stainless steel chain that has been cut by an even heavier set of bolt cutters, and an all but severed stainless steel lock, one of the strongest that money can buy, then I suggest dinghy operators take care. Having been the target of thieves in the past, I know the horrible feeling of finding what you have worked so hard for has been taken by a lowlife. I was sad when I found my self-tailing winches were gone and even sadder when I realized that the sextant and dividers that have accompanied me across so many oceans are now in the hands of someone who probably doesn’t even know what they are. And to think that for years, and on just about every island’s in the Caribbean, we never closed our boat!

On Sea-anchors, Bridges and Chunks of Missing Concrete

Mention of sea-anchors on Sunday’s show drew quite a response on Twitter, and I was delighted to learn that some yachts still carry them. Like life-rafts, sea-anchors are something you hope to never use but, unlike life rafts, too many sea-anchors find themselves shuffled to the bottom of the lazarette, only to be found by the boat’s new owner and either chucked out or sold at the next nautical flea market. The old canvas sea anchors were a bitch to stow, set, and retrieve but the latest sea-anchors or series-drogues are much more user friendly. I would love to hear from anyone who has used a sea-anchor in anger. Please leave your comments below.

St. Maarten’s Simpson’s Bay Bridge has snagged another! I went out of the bridge this morning and noticed a massive chunk of concrete has been knocked off the starboard support. Worse, the wooden fenders attached to the steel pilings on the final approach to the bridge have all disappeared leaving a series of naked steel lugs ready to gouge the topsides of the next vessel that misjudges wind or tide. The lugs will do more than scratch your topsides; they will peel them open like a can of sardines. Mariners beware!