HELD on the last weekend of the rainy season, St. Lucia Mango Bowl Regatta sailed in beautiful conditions for the fourth time this past weekend.
Six classes of vessels participated from Martinique, Barbados, Grenada, UK and host St. Lucia. Racing and Cruising Yachts, Melges, J24 and Surprise Classes fought in fierce competition in a series of races over the two days.
Among six J24s in the regatta were newcomer “Aurora Rose”, owned and crewed by local wellness resort Body Holiday and the veteran “Die Hard” from Grenada, St. Lucia’s “Jabal”, “Grayling” and “Attitude”, which were looking for a hat trick in the one design class. In a keenly fought first day it was “Die Hard” and “Attitude” vying for top position in virtually every race, with the young St. Lucian crew taking four out of the first six races.
Day two started with a fourth place for “Attitude”, as “Jabal” came back and St Lucia Yacht Club boat “Grayling” took third. By the end of the racing it was simply too close to call until the official results revealed the Saint Lucia Mango Bowl 2015 (J24) went to skipper Fredric Sweeney and “Attitude” on total first places, with “Die Hard” in second place and “Jabal” in third.
Competing against the J24s in their own class were six Surprise keelboats from Martinique, which are very similar in size and design. There were gasp-inducing tussles around the windward mark in front of an appreciative spectator boat, and the Mango Bowl 2015 (Surprise) went to Kreyol Sandwich BipBip for the second year running, with La Morrigane in second and Digilife in third.
In the new Melges class, also from Martinique, GFA Caraibes looked impressive as it took first, with Regis Guillemot Charter in second and Maximarine in third after being forced to miss the races on Day 1.
The bigger boats were a spectacular sight racing towards the north, past Pigeon Island and into the channel “Cruising 1” had four entries, and “Happy Morning” from Great Britain was a convincing winner, over “Leonora” from Barbados and “Jaystar” from St. Lucia. Only two yachts competed in Cruising 2 class after one had to retire, and Saint Lucia sail training charter company First 4 Sail’s Papagayo was in top form as they took four out of five first places over Europa from Martinique to win the Mango Bowl 2015(Cruising 2).
Finally in an extremely competitive fleet of six Racing yachts from Martinique, it was Eliott in a whitewash of five firsts, while the tit for tat rest of the field resulted in Fiser in second and JBoss in third, with X- TremC’Silon just missing out on the prizes.