The 30th January 2019 marked the start of the 9th edition of the Antigua Superyacht Challenge. RSB Steve was there with S/Y Rebecca to report from the heart of the action…

‘’Race 1 was sailed in 15 to 20 knots of breeze, 1.5 seas and sunshine. The course set by the race committee meant that there was plenty of opportunity to gain or lose time going round the corners. On Rebecca we had a great sail, frequently seeing the leeward side decks underwater while going up wind. After a couple of hours of great racing we corrected out in 2nd place in class, 1 minute behind Nilaya and 10 minutes ahead of Spiip. We look forward to more of the same tomorrow.’’

‘’Day 2 wasn’t such a good day for Rebecca. We started well and were holding our own in 17 to 20 knots of wind against Nilaya and Spiip right up until the point where we lost the spinnaker over the side at the leeward mark and ended up trawling for a few minutes!
After 7 minutes recovering various parts of the sail and tidying up we started to chase down Spiip and were pretty happy to be only a couple of minutes behind them by the finish line.
The amazing team at North Sails Antigua are taking care of the repair tonight, we owe them a huge thanks and look forward to having the kite back in the morning.’’

‘’Day 3 started early with a trip to the sail loft to pick up the genoa and get it onboard the boat. The repair to the A3 was still underway and the sail would come out by tender to the start area. With 20 minutes until the start it arrived and a very hasty pack was completed as we made the final approach to the start.
The race committee gave us a 32 mile course and with a great forecast of 12 to 16 knots we got underway and started to chase down Spiip whilst being hunted down by Nilaya. The racing was nip and tuck all day with both Spiip and us trading tacks and gybes the whole way round the race course. At the end of the day we came away with a 1st, Spiip 2nd and Nilaya 3rd.
Day 4 is a winner takes all race: No pressure then!!!’’