2017 Antigua Sailing Week - 50th Anniversary

[Zanshin]

I've been a volunteer on the Committee Boat for several years and that offers a good platform for taking pictures of the "B" course boats which are usually given short shrift by the professional photographers who tend to take pictures of the bigger, sexier boats.

Here are some pictures of the whole "B" fleet of boats (75 of them!) over the course of the 50th Antigua Sailing Week; there are lots of cruising boats and charter bareboats in there, all doing a great job racing:

[Privleoplag]

I was in Antigua shortly before the sailing week (which I think is more like a sailing month). There sure were some beautiful boats there! I had to get to Grenada so I thought I'd open up one more anchor spot in Falmouth so I left when it started to get crowded.
I could see that Antigua would be a fun place to be the month of April.

[svHyLyte]

Good snaps. Friends of our sailing our sistership, Ocean Angel, have been there as well but this year, it seems, opportunities for seeing the yachts close at hand or participating in any way by the general public reportedly seem much more limited/exclusive, since the relo to English Harbor/Nelson's Dockyard, no?

[Zanshin]

While some of the prizegiving ceremonies were relocated to English Harbour this year as Nelson's Dockyard has been chosen as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the format of the event has not really changed and access to the boats and vantage points has remained the same. There were 50% more boats this year and an influx of visitors - plus the parties have gotten significantly bigger and wilder

[Eleuthera 2014]

I was in ANU the week before Race Week; though the olde girls exhibited much class and speed.

Frankly, the season was over with lots of anchoring room in English Harbour which was not the case a week earlier... perhaps you got a visitor refill as I left... oh well!

[Zanshin]

I spoke with one of the agents in Antigua who deals with the big boys (Maltese Falcon and the like) and he said that a number of factors including weather, Zika & Chickungunya, Brexit and Trump helped to make the annual exodus in May an exodus in April.