JUNE 14th to 20th – Dubois and Super Yacht Regattas – Palma de Mallorca.
Timoneer arrived in Palma at the end of April and has been undergoing extensive maintenance and a short trip with guests to Ibiza during May and early June. On the 12th June our crew had all gathered in preparation for the Dubois Cup which consisted of 4 races (each about 15 miles) over two days in the Bay of Palma. Winds were light the first day but on the second day we had a great breeze and Timoneer won the last race, putting her in second position overall out of the 7 boats entered. The organisation, social events particularly the final prize giving party was fantastic. Ed Dubois has really raised the bar for future events of this kind and everyone had a great time. The old castle that houses the modern art museum was chosen for the prize giving party and the band featured some of the members of Dire Straits. It was a night that will be remembered for many years to come and Ed managed to raise about 150,000 pounds sterling for the cancer charity ClicSargent! See www.duboisyachts.com and also www.professionalyachting.com where there are photos taken by Mike one of our crew.
We had one day before starting the Super Yacht Cup also held in the Bay out front. 52 large sailing boats had entered, most over 30 meters (100 feet) in length so special docking arrangements had to be made to accommodate us. Put end to end there was over 2 kilometres of very expensive boats tied up in part of the commercial port which had been transformed for the event. It was a Who’s Who of the yachting world and a meeting of friends some of which we had not seen for many many years. With the sponsors, organisers and others involved the social functions catered for about 3,000 people and huge marquees were erected for various bars and eating facilities.
The fleet was split into two divisions, one race per day, each of about 30 miles on a triangular course. We do not start in the conventional manner due to the size of these boats so, like the Dubois Cup and previous rallies, it is a pursuit race with use of engine right up until your start time. Start times are adjusted each day depending on how you did the day before which works quite well if the breeze stays similar but in this case was a bit of a disaster.
Day one we had a light breeze and started at the end of Division 1, 27 minutes behind the first boat. We are pretty heavy so these conditions did not suit us very well and we were happy to achieve 12th place in our Division. Day two started with about 12 knots of breeze off the land (NE’ly) and we set off on a close reach at good speed to the first mark. As we got to the mark we were overtaken by Maltese Falcon – an incredible sight! Leg two will go down in the history books for Timoneer. Having a benefit of starting late we could see the boats ahead all sitting becalmed and stuggling while we carried our spinnaker on a beam reach doing about 12 knots. The wind looked favourable over to the right so we continued in that direction and sailed past most of the fleet all sitting there idle – it really was a strange situation and no one could believe it, least of all us! We ended up second in our class for the day so picked up a large trophy but that meant we started even further back on the third and last day – a victim of our own success. We sailed well in the stiff breeze and managed a very credible 17th place thus putting us in 5th overall for our division and 7th in the entire fleet – not bad! The final night was a big party – black tie sit down dinner for 1,200 people and the others at a free for all BBQ on the dock, a big firework display and a rock band that finished up at 0400 the next day. Everyone really had a memorable time but now it is time to rest!
Timoneer will stay around Palma for the summer with a 3 week trip up to South of France in September. We will update the website once we start moving again later this year.
