More on Heineken & Other Carib Races

Thanks to a complete brain fade, we neglected to mention a third big winner from the West Coast in last weekend’s St. Maarten Heineken Regatta. This would be the J World Bareboat Team.

Wayne Zittel of J World San Francisco, San Diego and Puerto Vallarta reports: “The Heineken was a hoot! The wind was terrific, we had a great crew mostly from the Bay Area, and we pulled off all bullets in the 12-boat one-design fleet of Beneteau 50.5s. The Bay Area sailors in the team were Dan Brumlik, Keith Rarick, Kathy Erblund and Barry Demak. While it’s true that the 50.5s are no MOD70 like Lloyd Thornburg’s Phaedo3 or Greg Slyngstad’s J/125 Hamachi, the racing was close against other teams from around the world, and I was so proud that we came out undefeated. What a fantastic regatta! We’ll be back to the Heineken again next winter — and perhaps some more of the other terrific Caribbean regattas.”

Speaking of other Caribbean regattas, the St. Barth Bucket, for 40 boats over 100-ft, is next week. The 185-ft Rosehearty, the first of the six big Perinis that will participate, pulled into Gustavia this morning. The huge yacht is owned by…well, for the Bucket the owners are to remain anonymous.

Errata: This is unbelievably embarrassing, but in recent articles on the Heineken we reported that Doug Baker’s Kernan 47 started life as a ID35. We’d misread that twice and wouldn’t have believed it for a second had Bob Lane not done all the stuff he’s done with his Andrews 61 Medicine Man. That said, True is ‘Dr. Laura’s’ former Tim Kernan-designed 47, now owned by a sailor from Chicago, who put a towering TP52 rig in her. The boat has been chartered by Doug Baker of Long Beach for the Caribbean 600, the Heineken — where he got all bullets — and April’s Voiles de St. Barth. Baker used to race his sled Magnitude in the Caribbean races.

By the way, April’s Voiles will be the first head-to-head epic battle between George David’s new Rambler 88 and Jim Clark’s $100 million (reportedly) 100-ft Comanche. Of course neither will be the fastest boat in the regatta, as that honor will belong to Thornburg’s Phaedo3, which hit 40.6 knots the other day.