LES VOILES DE SAINT-BARTH

Les Voiles de Saint-Barth is five days of racing in mid April in the trade winds around St. Barthélemy, sailed from the harbour of Gustavia and finished each evening on the quay.

It is the island’s own regatta, and it is kept small on purpose.

The Island

St. Barthélemy is French, and its capital has a Swedish name. In 1784 France gave the island to Sweden in exchange for trading rights in Gothenburg, and the Swedes made Gustavia a free port and named it for their king. The island went back to France in 1878, and the name stayed.

It is small, steep and dry, with no large hotels, and it has long been the most discreet of the Caribbean’s expensive islands.

In September 2017 Hurricane Irma, at the top of the scale, all but flattened it. The regatta was sailed the following April regardless.

The Regatta

The regatta was founded in 2010 by François Tolède, who had lived on the island for years, and Luc Poupon, an ocean racer who had found it at the end of a transatlantic race and never quite left. Fewer than thirty boats came the first year.

They wanted a regatta for the owners of big boats that stayed open to small ones, and that is what it is. Maxis and fast multihulls race on the same water as boats a quarter of their length, each class on its own course among the island’s rocks and islets. The longest course goes out to Tintamarre, off St. Martin, and back.

The organisers keep the fleet to a size the island can hold.

In the evenings the crews and the owners come ashore to the quay at Gustavia and meet at the same bars, and the prize-giving at the end of the week is a party the island joins.

What to Know

The island is reached by small aircraft from St. Martin, onto one of the shortest runways in the Caribbean, or by ferry.

Rooms on the island are few and go early. Many who come stay aboard.

The racing is best seen from the water, and a spectator boat, or a friend’s yacht, is worth arranging.

The island’s other great weeks are the Bucket, for superyachts, in March, and New Year.

The Court

Les Voiles de Saint-Barth is not the Court’s own. A place aboard one of the racing yachts, a berth on a yacht to watch from, and rooms on the island are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of the week: getting there, where to stay, and the table afterward.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.