Our Man in St Tropez

Andy Nicholson writes from the comfort of a shady leather sofa in hotel reception

Frightening most people with just how white my legs are, I have for the first time this year brought them out in the sunshine. Sailing on Tony Buckingham’s Mills 40 Ngoni we are competing in IRCB at the Voiles de St Tropez. Not having done this regatta before it has been fantastic to sail in a new area and to also brush up on my meagre Superyacht knowledge.

There are about 45 boats in our class ranging from a Halberg Rassey 60 to Swan 45s. So far we are in the hunt with a 1,2,11 – the race on Wednesday featuring one of the most impressive sea-breeze shut downs ever witnessed. We crossed the finish line with the spinnaker up while two boat lengths ahead and to leeward another yacht was hard on the wind on starboard tack in 12 knots. This cost us dear and our main rivals – the Swan 42 Cuordileone of Leonardo Ferragamo did well to sniggle away just in time before the crap shoot came in big to take third to lead the class.

We are tied up next to Cuordileone in Cogolin boatyard and they are a nice bunch. I think this is because we take our shoes off in the morning to cross their deck, thereby avoiding unnecessary additional chamiox-ing of dirty footprints. Good etiquette has allowed us to set a good tone with our friendly neighbours.

The Swan 42s are doing pretty well in the light airs we have had so far had (It did build to 17 knots yesterday but only for an hour or so). With their bow sprit Cuordileone has been flying an IRC code 0 spinnaker and this has worked really nicely for them in a couple of races. That and sailing very well.


Nick Partridge, our spinnaker trimmer

The race we won on Tuesday we actually won line honours too. A nice bit of work on the beat in a bit more pressure on the right hand side got us to the windward mark first and for the following two legs (each about an hour long) we kept at it and avoided the rocks to get back into the bay of St Tropez ahead of the pack.



We had started the day well – tea, coffee and croissants on the deck of Tony’s 40m Royal Huisman ketch Antares sitting out the postponement in what can only be described as perfect luxury. The two nippers took the boat off to the race course and we then took the rib out when the sea breeze filled in a couple of hours later.

The successful day ended with Ngoni tied up to a cleat on the bathing platform of Antares and a happy crew drinking chilled Chablis as the sun set on aft deck.



Talking of chilled wine, I was chatting to the crew of another boat and they race with the generator on all the time – not for the powered winches but for the seven fridges on board!

We saw Senso One (ex Mari Cha) crash into a little tiddler of a 60 footer. The incident happened on the start of IRCA’s race yesterday, the ‘mounter’ sticking the bow sprit through the split backstay of the ‘mountee’ and spinning the boat round 180 degrees as the two were locked together like an amorous Great Dane and a nervous Highland Terrier. Whatever the sailing rules, and their implications with this incident, a very good source, very close to the crash told me that Senso One has played the ‘we’re bigger than you’ card once too often now.

So you have to keep your eyes peeled for big boats that could eat you for breakfast and the numerous rocks on the rocky headlands that we journey around.

Cape Lardier was a bit eye watering for me as navigator as we rounded it going upwind inside a big rock and then shaved the other edge of it coming back with the spinnaker up. On Tuesday’s race a large boat was three lengths further inshore that us and twatted a rock quite spectacularly. They are now out of the water in the yard with a large crack running from the hull-keel joint forward.

The race lengths are enormous too. Five hours yesterday and we have been doing the same courses as the big Mauve fleet which includes Rambler and Numbers. The French love their sailing. Nice long legs do enable the catering to take place though. We have caught the back end of the Mauve fleet each day to witness the silver platter with the sandwiches being taken around on some of the bigger yachts! We rounded one mark yesterday and two crew on one yacht were on the bow drinking cans of beer!

The regatta is a conundrum though. The fleets are large, some of the hardware extremely impressive and many big name sailors are here (and proper Rock Stars – Simon Le Bon is doing the leeward runner on Charles Dunstone’s Rio). But it is a crazy place and you wonder where all the money goes? The Wally class started their first race on Monday only to get to their first mark to find it not actually there at all. They then laid a windward leeward course, but the leeward mark wasn’t there! All of the marks we use are pre-laid and we’re given the lat/lon. – but on Tuesday one mark of our course was in the wrong place as the location had been changed in an amendment and no one had told the mark laying boat. There are lots of boats who have seeked redress from the Committee for all manner of things and that doesn’t sound right.

Thursday is a lay day and classically there is a cracking breeze of 25 knots. There are two more races – Friday and Saturday and we hope that we can plug away with another couple of good results to keep it all alive. A discard comes in if we complete all races.

Tony has had to leave and is back in Jersey on business – this also means that we don't have our Superyacht mothership. In St Tropez you feel pretty naked without one.

More pictures on page two