Fleet review

Dick Johnson looks at the line-up for this year's St Maarten Heineken Regatta

As registration closed this afternoon after a blisteringly hot final day in the Sint Maarten Yacht Club compound, the final total of entries for the 2005 St Maarten Heineken regatta topped out as a remarkable 261, five more than the previous record of 256 set four years ago.

Spanning a size range from the 115ft Sojana, Peter Harrison's ketch to the 16ft beach cats, the regatta splits its entry between 19 classes. There are Bareboats, spinnaker and non spinnaker classes, racing and cruising multihulls, beach cats, and of course the open class ­ and in Bareboat and Spinnaker for instance, there are six divisions each.

The bareboat classes that have a very tight range of handicaps between them. Bareboat 2, for instance is entirely made up of 50ft Beneteaus all sailing off the same handicap. The 28 boats here are guaranteed to have some very exciting racing. In Bareboat 3 the handicap range is just eight points, from 0.852 to 0.860; more tight racing there.

Multihull racing has a new entrant in the shape of Anne Caseneuve and her bright red 50ft tri racing under the name of Restourante Plaisancier. This boat looks likely to be at the front of the fleet, probably fighting it out with Laurus Roc, the former Paragon. One entry from St Croix, Free Air Sailing Team, is still battling to get here, struggling along in the light winds ­ and without an engine.

The much anticipated contest between local St Maarten marina owner Bobby Velasquez with L'Esperance and Ralph Johnson from Barbados and his Rapajam has fizzled out as the Bajan boat has decided to sail with a spinnaker rather than just jib. Rapajam is now a fancied contestant in Spinnaker 4.

In Spinnaker 1, the biggest boat is Sojana, but she isn't the top rating boat in that fleet. That honour goes to Joseph Dockery's Carrera, the 81ft Reichel Pugh design that is packed with top racing talent including Kenny Reid and Chris Larsen. Tom Hill's RP 75 Titan 12 is a fancied boat in this fleet too, though Stuart Robinson with the Swan 70 Stay Calm can't be discounted. He has Mr and Mrs Ocean Racing aboard, Neil and Lisa MacDonald, as well as Ian Budgen and other UK sailing luminaries, so there is no reason that the big blue boat shouldn't do well.

Spinnaker 2 also looks interesting, with the Caribbean-built Storm taking on a matched pair of Swan 45s, Plenty and Vixen, Edgar Cato's Swan 56 Hissar, Ocean Ready, the first Ker 11.3 to be seen in the Caribbean, and Carlo Falcone's aged but effective Vallicelli 44 Caccia alla Volpe.

In the small boat Spinnaker class the boat that everyone is talking about is the modified Six Metre Trouble, sailed by Geoffery Pidduck from Antigua. Trouble was brought across the Atlantic by CSA measurer Tony Maidment ­ who is sailing his own Dehler 34, Budget Marine in the same class ­ and since then has blown a hole through the CSA rating system. She is short on the waterline, heavy and lots of other things that make for a highly advantageous TCF. Trouble sails off 0.801 as against 0.867 for a Jeanneau Sun Fast 37 ­ and we all know how fast they are...

So already it's a record year. More boats, more people and more fun, guaranteed. Let's just hope that the wind knows what¹s in store. So far the forecast looks uncomfortably light.