#PortoftheWeek: St. Barths

Saint Barthélemy’s beautiful warm white sand and turquoise waters will await the Picton Castle in Gustavia this World Voyage, for the West Indies Regatta. There, our crew will join various Caribbean sloops and schooners for a few days of racing and fun!

Here is an excerpt from a Captain’s Log post in 2011 written by Bronwen Livingston describing the excitement of the West Indies Regatta:

“The Captain, absolutely adamant that everyone get a chance to sail on these smaller vessels during the West Indies Regatta (a regatta founded partly in order to encourage the revival of West Indian boat building and sailing for islanders), stood watch aboard the Picton Castle in St. Barths with a skeleton crew during the race days. The ship was stern-to the quay with two anchors out, pretty secure she was, and the rest of the of the on-watch crew, after washing down and cleaning below as we do every day, were cut loose to find a sloop to sail on. With nine handsome Carriacou sloops (Tradition, Pipe Dream, Good Expectation, Genesis, Summer Cloud, New Moon, Ocean Nomad and Sweetheart) and schooner Alexander Hamilton to choose from, everyone got on their boat of choice.

While absolutely impossible to capture everyone’s emotional experience during the weekend, one could easily hypothesize that all felt feelings of elation, exhilaration, pleasure, stimulation and contentment. The Captain and mates are the first to agree that small boat sailing makes a sailor. This is why they have encouraged as much small boat handling as possible during our circumnavigation.”

To read the rest of the post, visit https://www.picton-castle.com/captains_log/the-west-indies-regatta/