In my experience, the Dutch never fail to be able to show a sense of humour even when the chips are down, so it was no surprise that after their galley caught fire during racing on day 1 of the BVI Spring Regatta, the team on Glad 2 B Here, a beautiful Moorings 52 organised by skipper Ronald van Riet, found the situation nothing short of hilarious, safety aside.
“There we were on starboard tack when we saw smoke coming from down below,” van Riet laughed. “We had no idea what was going on!”
The team abandoned racing for the day, returned to the Regatta Village and turned their misfortune into a night of Mount Gay fun, and as the drinks flowed, so did the stories about the smoking galley which became more uproarious with every shot of rum. Moorings quickly rectified the situation with a replacement boat.
Five of the team, ironically, met in a cooking club about twenty years ago; van Riet being the only true sailor in the group.
“We get together eight times a year with a chef who puts together a menu and helps us to improve our skills,” van Riet explained. “He splits us up into three or four groups and we each do a different course and drink a lot of wine with a lot of good conversation!”
Back home, some of the team sail on typical small Dutch boats like the Valk on small lakes, including van Riet who has sailed since he was a young boy. Van Riet enjoys bringing people together to sail; he’s raced Caribbean regattas some eight or nine times over the years but this is a first trip to the BVI for all on board Glad 2 B Here.
“We’re an easy group and we all just take turns at whatever needs to be done, we have lots of buttons on the boat so it’s pretty easy,” van Riet laughed.
At the end of race day 2, Team Orange Breeze, also from the Netherlands and sailing a Sunsail 46, was holding strong with a second place in Bareboat 1, just a few points behind the leading Team Painkiller also on a Sunsail 46. Team Orange Breeze comprises six amateur racers including Eva Hermans who lives in Delft and sails on a X362 Sport.
“Some of us started racing the Heineken regatta five years ago so we have a core crew plus new additions to the group this week,” Hermans said. “Some of the crew sailed the BVI Spring Regatta two years ago but it it’s my first time here. It’s great racing although the squalls earlier in the week were not what we anticipated,” Hermans laughed.
Dick Blom is also racing with Team Orange Breeze; he raced Spring Regatta two years ago and he’s happy to be back. Sitting second in class is as good as being first according to Blom, “We’re always first in our minds!” Blom claimed his crew make him sleep midships in the salon because he’s the oldest so needs to be close to the “facilities” – resounding laughter followed THAT comment.
Team No Escape are racing on Baga Jaga, a Moorings 4500; they’ve been ahead of the cat curve having chartered multihulls for some ten years in the BVI. A group of five, this Dutch team are also full of good humour and doing well in the Cruising Multihull class, finishing day 2 in third overall.
Team No Escape are good friends who met years ago as students, and now, they all sail as often as they can on bigger keel boats; each of them owns a yacht and belongs to the Willemstad sailing club in North Brabant, Netherlands.
“This is our fourth time racing Spring Regatta although we’ve been coming here for ten years, and we always charter a catamaran,” Frank Kastelein, skipper, noted. “We have been trying other racing destinations; we went to Thailand last year and raced in the Kings Cup but it was very serious, the Queen was there and all her entourage, it was crazy and uptight, not like the BVI which is so relaxed so we came back. What we enjoy most about being here is that the wind is good and the people are nice, there is a really good spirit here.”
Team No Escape finds racing a bareboat catamaran mostly comfortable but not without its challenges.
“It’s not easy to race and you do get very close to other boats,” Kastelein laughed. “But we live aboard, it’s very comfortable, we each have our own cabin with head and shower – we call it the ferry. We cook hamburgers while we are racing. But it actually goes very fast. We did 11.3 knots today in the waves, then we had to put the brakes on because we were almost foiling…”
