St. Maarten Heinie Revs Up Today

A lot of skippers — 24 — have gone to the dark side for the 36th annual Heineken Regatta in Sint Maarten this weekend. The event has attracted about 2,000 sailors from 36 countries in… well, we’re not sure how many boats, but it’s a lot. 

Twenty-four of the entries are in the three multihull classes, and they include representatives of the entire spectrum of multihulls, from Lloyd Thornburg’s all-conquering MOD70 Phaedo3 to a variety of Caribbean charter cats.

One of the most interesting entries will be Greg Slyngstad’s wild-looking Bieker 53 Fujin, which was built of all carbon by Gold Coast Yachts of St. Croix. A very successful round-the-buoys, Transpac and Caribbean racer, the Seattle-based Slyngstad made Fujin’s racing debut in yesterday’s Commodore’s Cup, which is a preview to the Heinie.

“It was a 17-mile course in 10-22 knots of breeze,” reports Slyngstad. “Fujin did great, winning the multihull class by a good margin both boat for boat and on corrected time. We beat Flow, the only Gunboat that raced, by 20 minutes. We hit 27 knots, and when the breeze was up had a five-minute stretch when we averaged 25 knots. We still have lots of room to improve, but the crew did great. And we had an awesome ride, flying a hull for more than half the race.”

Another interesting entry to watch will be Annie Gardner and Eric Witte with their Point Loma, San Diego-based Catana 47 cruising cat El Gato, which they bought in the Med about 18 months ago. Annie was a trial-horse skipper on an IAAC America’s Cup boat back in the day, and has held many sailing titles.