Serious fun

Some facts and figures prior to this year's St Maarten Heineken Regatta

Quality and quantity.

This year the entry list is over 255 boats, with days still to go before the first gun. While there is the usual phalanx of bareboats - the numbers are slightly down on last year's record ­ the racing classes are up in numbers and quality. A Farr 115, a Wally 77, a Reichel-Pugh 75, a Farr 60, TP52s, Swan 45s, First 40.7s, J105s, 109s and 120s, the seven spinnaker classes are bristling with high quality racing boats.

More countries.
Boats from 27 nations will turn up for the regatta if two that are having difficulty getting visas ­ one from South Africa and the other, a real breakthrough in that it is the first entry from Nigeria ­ make it to the Party. The biggest contingent is from the Netherlands with 65, followed by the USA with 39, then the home island with 22 from both French and Dutch sides, 15 From Guadeloupe and 13 from France. Other contingents of note include, eight from the UK, five from Italy, Germany and Canada, four from Belgium, three from the US Virgin Islands and from Puerto Rico, two from Antigua Barbados and Curacao, and one from Algeria.

More classes.
For the first time there will be seven spinnaker classes to cater for the number of entrants in the racing classes. The class allocation committee has been able to assemble high quality groupings and the sailors will appreciate the very tight classes that have been created for this year's regatta.

More multihulls.
There is the biggest collection of multihulls in any Caribbean regatta for many a year. Twenty cruising and racing catamarans and trimarans are joined by eight beach cats, Hobie 18s, Prindle 19s or Nacra 5.5s. The Nigerians are hoping to make their mark in this class with a trimaran, and they will join local boats, boats from France, Guadeloupe, the Netherlands, USA, the US Virgin Islands, Canada, St Croix , St John and Tortola.

Big names.
Top sailors come to St Maarten. Round the world sailing gods, America's Cup Gods, Caribbean Gods, they are all here. Lionel Pean, past winner of the Whitbread Round the World Race is here sailing in luxury as skipper of a Jongert 88. Recently retired South African America's Cup skipper, Geoff Meek is also having a luxurious time of it steering Peter Harrison¹s 115 footer Sojana. Alinghi's Brad Butterworth is here with a number of his rock star crew sailing aboard Numbers, Daniel Myers' Farr 60.

Big bands. As always, St Maarten¹s Heineken Regatta has the parties and the parties have the bands. Well known bands like Intwine and Youth Waves are joined by some out of town visitors. Local youth are particularly interested in the performance of Destra, the Trinidadian Soca Artist whose hit 'Celebrate' has them humming a tune that is bringing Trinidad culture to the world. Sailors will also enjoy this music style. She will be performing in Marigot on Saturday from 10.00 pm. Bringing the whole regatta to a conclusion will be Ozomatli, an 11 piece band from LA that combines Latin and Egyptian rhythms and influences with Hip Hop and scratch ­ should be interesting.

Perseverance.
A group of sailors on the French side have been building a catamaran for the past four years. They have been working hard to be ready for the Heineken Regatta - any one of the last three would have done ­ and have now finally finished the wood epoxy creation out of wood epoxy. The boat was designed by Danson of Outremer, rather than Cheers, fame. When the boat was launched the owners thought the boat was too slow and the keels were too long. So they simply cut them off. We wait to see if it works.