Super Yacht Racing in St Barths

Well not how I usually spend my time on the waters of the world, but when invited to join Barry Houghton owner of Salperton 4 a 47 meter super Yacht and his professional crew and former Americas Cup crew Andy Green our driver, Cameron Appleton our tactition and Charlie our skipper to name but a few. This was going to be an amazing oportunity to join and be involved in a completly different professional arena and learn from some of the best in the business.

Salperton
47 meter long super racing yacht


We left the dock and joined the boat at 9.30am and following a briefing, checks and sail preporation and wooling we were on our way under sail by 1.00pm. I have to say I was blown away by the scale of engineering and equipmenon on the boat and the level of team work and skill needed to sail a boat of this size. At 250 tons Salperton is big, but amazingly nimble and fast to manouver with this very capable crew. The first day of practice was all about testing to equipment and loads on the sails, the rigging and the boat. Following tests we would then go through many of the manuvours used in tactical racing, jibes, tacking etc and of course switching between the different sails used in Racing, the reach, the blade and the larger kite sail the junica all of which are on the bow side of the mast and create that all important power and speed in sail racing!

With 6 full time crew, 25 professional sailers and 5 guests onboard, this huge boat got surprisingly hectic at times.
Especially when it was all hands on deck, to help with the bringing in of the 1550 square meter junica kite sail!



39 boats will take part in this years 3 day race, a minimum length of 100' is required to enter the Bucket Race Regata.

Location:Events