The French had it pretty good this May. Four long weekends this month, and in the French islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique and St. Martin, this weekend is a four day long weekend, since May 22 is the celebration of the Abolition of Slavery. Great if you work here, not so convenient if you actually want to accomplish anything.
However, Ken and I are sitting in Grand Anse d'Arlet, a decidedly touristy area (the lack of any appreciable supermarket, or even hint of farmers' market, is very telling), so our need to get anything done is non-existent. This is certainly not the place to try to be in a hurry. If you want to get amazing rotisserie chicken on the weekend, or excellent baguettes everyday, than this is the place to be. You want to hang out in a little beachside bar, here is a suitable location for that. And this weekend, if you wanted some very decidedly nautical entertainment, it would also fit the bill.
Our cruising friends on "Pinnacle", Bob and Ginette, had to shift from where they were anchored because they were notified that a catamaran race was going to be occurring on Saturday. Simon and Paul on a small (under 8 meters, small Swedish sailboat, "Risa Risa" also had to do the same. We were fine, as we are on the farthest out mooring ball on the south side of the bay, in about 30m (100') of water, with little chance of neighbours and far enough from the finish line.
I had invited Simon and his father Paul to lunch on our boat, since we had taken some nice pictures of them sailing from Fort de France to the bay. It isn't often that you get pictures of your own boat under sail, so we snapped away, figuring that the odds of us seeing them would be high. We were right. And since Simon's boat is small (Paul is visiting) and doesn't have refrigeration, I also figured a meal aboard our boat might go over well for them. Hey, I was 2-for-2! We enjoyed the freshly procured "poulet roti" and baguettes (the chicken was reserved that morning as I was running), plus a cold beverage or two, and chatting. We realised that we had an ideal spot to watch the finish of the catamaran race. This is not a small race, with possibly up to 80 large catamarans competing.
Most of the catamarans were charter vessels, which automatically made us assume that the people operating the vessels may not be as experienced at racing them as many racers normally would be. it also means that these multihulls would not necessarily be rigged for the best racing performance. This had the potential to be very interesting.
The first couple of boats were fine, as was to be expected. Then it became interesting. Up to this point of the race, it had been reaches for the racers, but now they actually had to tack into the bay to cross the finish line. These catamarans were not capable of pointing very high, and they are not as maneuverable as many monohulls in the same conditions. With our platinum seats, we had the best viewpoint to observe the mayhem.
One boat tried too hard to come tight onto the wind, and almost rammed the committee boat. They ended up having to turn the diesels on and go into a hard reverse to avoid a collision. Crisis and damage to the boats avoided, but the skipper's pride had to have been damaged by having to do that.
We saw many cats trying to point too high, or pinch, and then trying to tack after losing way. This often occurred as another competitor was coming up on them, creating confusion and some evasive maneuvers. The worst case of this had Ken cry out "they are gonna hit", and they did, hard. We heard the crunch (I think we all cringed when we heard it, we certainly exclaimed), and observed the crews looking for damage. I think if it hadn't been so far forward on the t-boned boat, which is a strong area, they might have been holed.
We became concerned enough at the poor examples of boat handling that we kept the air horn and the loud hailer close at hand.
It was generally pretty ugly all around. And the committee boat blaring the "Olay" song, oft heard during the soccer World Cup, was comical. Equally comical to us was the fact that the French committee boat slowly dragged anchor over the duration of the race.
When I went for my run this morning, I saw some of the competitors proudly wearing their t-shirts from the Martiniquais rum distillery that is one of the sponsors (Mount Gay apparently is wise enough to avoid this one). If they had seen the race from our perspective, they might not have wanted to admit to being a part of that circus.
And then they were off in the mid-morning again, to enjoy more havoc in another race. If we are lucky, they will finish here again. It's a pretty quiet afternoon.