Letter From Uruguay

RNSYC's Peter Stokes brings us terrific personal report from the J Lauritzen South American Championship, which was held off Punta del Este, Uruguay from November 25 to December 1 2007.

The Build-up! It all started for us at the BDA AGM at The Royal Thames Yacht Club in London. Late in the evening Chris Mehew told us that she and James had heard there was to be the first South American Dragon Championships at Punte del Este in Uruguay, and that they had heard the first 40 boats to enter from Europe would get free boat transportation. Needless to say I was on the website next day to register my interest, and found I was number 34 on the list – phew - I’d made it, as had James Mehew and Chris Dicker!

Wife Helen and I thought an ‘en-famille’ week in Uruguay, at the start of our winter, had quite a lot to commend it – to say the least!

Dragons now allow four crewmembers to race, and me, Helen, son Nick and daughter Tori can still contrive to get a good few kilos below the weight limit! So the scene was set! First lets see if we can get the crew sorted! London based ‘socialite’ Tori would take some convincing I thought, but fervent interest took over from initial hesitation, within milliseconds of the words “I’m paying!” strangely coming out of my mouth. Same reaction from surfing hobo Nick, and there we were, crew in place and our holiday funds for the next three years committed!

There then followed a period when the pre-registered boat numbers went up to around 80 boats [happily including, at a late date, our own ex commodore Nick Faulkner]. For some reason, probably not unconnected to a few rumours of the fatal dangers of shipping boats in containers halfway round the world [delaminating decks, rampant osmosis amongst others], the final numbers who finally paid the entry fee shrank to 39 boats by the eventual regatta. They didn’t know then just what they were going to miss frankly – but in the event 39 was an ideal number.

Unfortunately in early May 2007 Stig Holm, who inspired the whole event and was its primary organiser, died suddenly at the age of 46! That was a huge blow to the Yacht Club Punte del Este [YCPE] and the event team, but he was so well respected that the event almost became a legacy to him, and seemed to encourage everyone to make sure of its success.

So it was in late September that Gitane; Kuling and Comanche followed Merlin over to Rotterdam to be ‘stuffed’ – the rather concerning technical term for loading the boats into containers - and shipped on their long journeys to Montevideo in Uruguay. The next we would see of them was a month later, when pictures posted on the event website showed our boats, apparently none the worse for the journey, all neatly parked in the sunshine, next to the YCPE marina.

We all decided that as we were all already down in South America then it was silly not to take maximum advantage and do a bit of tourism around the regatta, and there followed many happy hours of ‘Google bashing’ whilst we all explored the exotic opportunities, and many emails flashing around between us of the various options. In the event we all did some different things and some the same.

The Stokes family took a week after the regatta to visit Iguazzu Falls and Rio, whilst James took Chris Mehew on a trip down memory [his memory] lane and visited some of James’ old haunts in Argentina from his days as an estancia ‘gaucho’ there, before brief visits to Iguazzu Falls and Rio. Chris and Gail Dicker went south to Patagonia for a spot of glacier viewing for a few days before also going to Iguazzu and Rio, whilst their children Mark and Selena decided to do some serious ‘trekking’, even further south in Patagonia before returning home. Nick and Antoinette Faulkner took a few days refreshing their tango skills in Buenos Aires before the regatta, and then abandoned South America for the delights of Cuba the week after.

The Regatta:

I don’t think we have ever been to a better-organised and presented regatta.

After long flights from London via Sao Paulo and Montevideo, we eventually pitched up at Punta del Este on the Saturday afternoon, where after booking into our villa, rigging and launching was performed in quick time and very efficiently, and most boats were launched that same day.

Punta is presented as the St Tropez of South America, and indeed it does attract its fair share of celebrities – apart from us of course Naomi Campbell is a regular visitor, who unfortunately we missed! The town was interesting and sophisticated, with many great restaurants, casinos and bars, and a selection of local wines, which kept us experimenting all week [have to do it don’t you?]. The YCPE was a fantastic club, which hosts many international events, and obviously knows what is required and does it in a very sophisticated but friendly manner.

After a practice race on the Sunday, which allowed all to familiarise themselves with the race process and the course, we all got ‘spruced up’ in our ‘number ones’ for the opening ceremony. None of us had an idea what to expect, but in the event we had Uruguay’s version of an Olympic opening ceremony, with the club officers; and local, government and military dignitaries, supported by the local navy band, who did a splendid job in playing every competing countries national anthem at the unexpected flag raising ceremony. As he was first on the scene, James ‘copped’ for the honour of raising the Brits flag, under the watchful eye of a local dog with an obvious flea problem! Nevertheless the task was undertaken with due deference, and after the 13 national anthems were played, we were then treated finally to 30 mins [I’m sure it was 30 mins] of the Uruguayan anthem – start to finish, all the verses, and all the words valiantly mouthed by the senior Naval Officer who turned up in full regalia, and stood to attention whilst saluting through the whole thing. Great spectacle and much enjoyed by all. But then to the important stuff, and a welcome cocktail party put on by the club allowed us to get to know our hosts, and renew and make new friendships with our fellow competitors.

The whole regatta was sailed in fantastic conditions – ‘wall-to-wall’ sunshine every day, with warm winds that seemed to develop in the same predictable way every day. We would leave the marina at around 11am, which was very civilised, and allowed some time for recovery from the excesses of the night before! Wind generally very light to begin, but would progressively increase as the sun got to work, and we got out to the racecourse. We would normally get a good 10-15 knots of N-NE wind by first race at midday. As the week went on the afternoon winds increased progressively until during the last two days we were having to cope with over 20-25 knots at times – OK for some of the more statuesque crews!

James Mehew jumped ship for this regatta, and helmed Merlin for the week, with Nick Faulkner ‘in the pit’. Comanche was bravely left to the tender care of his son Thomas and ex college friends as crew. Judging by the red eyes every morning they seemed to remember well how to enjoy student nights out, and our and the Dickers offspring were only too willing to help them!!

Gitane went ‘four up’ with Helen, Nick and Toria doing the ‘donkey’ work for me, whilst Chris D had crewing responsibilities split between Mark and Selena.

All the Stokes’s can say about the week is “great sailing, pity about the performance”. Gitane never got out of the 30’s – we’re not that bad, but for some reason we couldn’t hold our line at any time all week, and I’m sure frustration didn’t help as we seemed to get worse! Overall we didn’t come last, but nearly, at 36th. Merlin managed a good result of 18th in one race and 28th overall beating son Thomas on Comanche by one place [that was all James was worried about really!!]. Family Dicker made the RNSYC result a bit more respectable with a excellent 10th in race 4, followed by a fantastic 3rd in race 7, leading to a very creditable 12th overall! The series was controlled by the ‘pro’s’ with German world champion Thomas Muller [crewed by Dragon ‘guru’ Vincent Hoesch & Max Scheibmayr] winning, followed by Denmark’s Peter Warren, and then a fantastic performance by Brit Julia Bailey helming Aimee to 3rd with husband Graham and ‘H’ [David Herimale] crewing. Petticrow’s Tim Tavinor made it two Brit boats in a row with a creditable 4th.

During the week we had events most evenings with particular highlights being the wine tasting and paella evening, and the regular visits, throughout the weeks evening entertainments, of a local troupe of drummers and scantily clad dancing girls. There was certainly a good bit ‘OCS’ and ‘barging at the marks’ when the drums were heard – must have been the exciting music they played!!

The race officer did a fantastic job all week, matching social requirements [we never finished later than 4pm] with excellent courses, racing and organisation on the water. All told a fantastic week we would all repeat ‘like a shot’ if the opportunity arose again.

So, after packing the boats up, and packing a few cases of local Tannat and Malbec wine in the Gitane sail boxes, we made off in our different directions on the Monday morning, for the rest of our South American adventures.

We started well by ‘missing’ our plane to Buenos Aires! Actually the local airline Pluna changed the flight time but didn’t tell us! So a frantic drive in hire car to Montevideo got us on another flight to BA, to just connect with our flight to Iguazzu Falls, and one of the most spectacular natural sites anywhere in the world.

A bit of a mistake with hotel choice saw us very much the minority in a hotel patronised almost solely by fat men in thongs, with and inordinate interest in my son Nick – to his extreme consternation! A check around the other hotels in the town was unsuccessful, but luckily our taxi driver had given me his card [maybe he knew!!], and after a night behind locked doors, a panic phone call next morning to him got us into a newly refurbished 5* hotel in probably the best location in Iguazzu, with river views almost on the confluence of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina borders.

Iguazzu Falls are one of the wonders of the world for sure – and if you ever get the opportunity to go you should. The trip to the falls by powerful RIB, gets you the obligatory dousing under one of the lesser falls, but that’s a relief in the heat and humidity. On our last day we also visited the nearby Itaipu Dam located on the Paraná River, straddling the Brazil-Paraguay border. The hydroelectric power plant is the largest dam in the world and supplies 25% of Brazil's electricity and 95% of Paraguay's!

From there off to Rio, not specifically for the nightlife, but a bit of R&R before returning home. Broke the bank a little by staying a few days at La Suite, a superb 6-room boutique in a phenomenal location clinging to a cliff at Joatinga, a private beach south of Rio. Ate there one night as a special treat [if you’d seen the bill then you’d realize how special!] but also experienced the traditional meat fest in local Churrascaria’s as well – every cut of meat you could ever imagine literally ‘on tap’ – fantastic experience and what meat!!

We managed lunch with James and Chris Mehew on the day of our departure, and their arrival, and Chris and Gail Dicker stayed there as well later the following week. Brownie points all round I think!!

The weather was not good in Rio and on one of our tourist jaunts to see the Christ statue ( Corcovado ) we just about saw his feet! Copocabana and Ipanema beaches were a must – if only to see son Nicks tongue hanging down to his waist [well I have to say mine wasn’t far off!]. They say Rio is one of the most violent and crime ridden places, but we had heard in recent years they have done a lot to rectify that, and we never felt threatened in any way, at any time – indeed quite the opposite!

And so to home, 11 hrs flight back to Heathrow and a drive home in pouring rain was back to reality with a bump!

The final chapter - our boats arrived back in Rotterdam in early January, but they got held up in customs for we know not what, but when we were eventually allowed to have them ‘stripped’ from the containers [another rather worrying technical term, which had us wondering if we would only have a hull to collect!] and collected, it was good to see the Tannat still in the sail boxes, and, as we’ve subsequently proved, it travelled well!

All told I think we from the RNSYC would agree, a fantastic experience all round!

Peter Stokes
Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club
Captain - Lowestoft Dragon Fleet