Maco Magazine - Toute Bagai Publishing

Sail away
From Carriacou to Barbados, yachting enthusiasts have waves of fun. Paul Solomon, crew member on Enzyme, the maco-sponsored boat, tells more. Photography by Rolex and Tim Wright

As our boat Enzyme is a Trinidadian-based boat, we start our circuit in the south. After many months of maintenance during the off season, we kick off in November at the Carriacou regatta. This is a wonderful small regatta in the southern Grenadines where the race courses take you by the famous Tobago Cays, the resort island of Petit St Vincent, Petit Martinique, Union Island, and, of course, Carriacou. The vistas are spectacular, the welcome warm and the sailing conditions perfect for getting the rust off and making sure the equipment is up to scratch. Then it’s back to Trinidad for some more tweaking to the boat, a couple of club races to tweak the crew as well, and then on to Grenada in January for their Sailing Festival.

This is a hot and sweaty regatta with 11 short, quick fire races for the international and local fleet as well as numerous races for the local fishing boats. This is where we really start to hone the crew work.

At the beginning of March, the real action starts: St Maarten, Culebra, off Puerto Rico, St Thomas, and the BVI all in a five-week span. These are all high-profile international regattas with very competitive fleets. There is no time to fix equipment and polish crew since between regattas, the boat has to be loaded, moved to the next island, unloaded, and prepped for the next race.

After the BVI regatta, we have a short break until the end of April when the Antigua races start. This regatta lasts a full week and involves long hard days of racing, usually followed by long hard nights at parties, clubs, and bars. After seven days of this, everything, including your liver, needs a rest.

A week later, a few hundred miles to the south and it’s Angostura Tobago Race Week - our unofficial local championship where wind shifts, currents and close competition mean that one slip can drop you out the top three down to eighth, 10th, or lower.

It’s not all about sailing, though. On the lay-day, race officials, crews, friends, and families congregate on a picturesque, remote stretch of beach straight out of Robinson Crusoe for what is called Gorilla Sports.

Teams are assigned by colour depending on what colour jello shot participants take from roving bands of bikini-clad volunteers. Angostura-assisted competitors try to catch water balloons behind their backs, run relay races on a slipand- slide, and play whatever games organisers dream up
that involve falling down, tipping over, or getting wet.

A week later is the Barbados Mount Gay/Boat Yard Regatta, usually the windiest of all, since the nearest landfall to the east is Africa. With a tired crew and boat, we tackle the Bajans and continue for another year a longstanding argument with our friends to the north over which country produces the best sailors, rum, and yes, most importantly, whose flying fish are they anyway?