Mariquita Book - mk2.5

LES VOILES D’ANTIBES
5 – 8 June 2014
The irony of classic yachting is that the part most viewed by the
world is the one that occupies the least number of days in our year.
Matty Oates
The start of the season at Les Voiles d’Antibes
therefore comes as a relief to all the crews who
have spent the close season maintaining and
honing their yachts:
the brightwork
touch ups, leather
renewal, rig and sail
inspections. The year
2014 marked the
10th Anniversary
of Panerai’s Classic
Yacht Challenge –
the premier classic
yacht series in the
world. Where better to show off all the hard
work over the winter. After the steep learning
curve of 2013 Mariquita was ready to race,
“This Antibes was easier than the year before,
where the entire team structure was new”,
commented Matty Oates. “The boat was in
her pristine start-of-season state, having a
winter of varnish and maintenance behind
her. Although there were still many new faces
among the crew, you had the trio of George,
Billy and myself,
along with Pippa
and Robyn. That
kind of consistency
went farther than I
think we realised at
the time. It was also
the ‘standard setting’
regatta of the season.
That was the bar that
we had to set for
the races to come in terms of how the boat
would look, how we would carry ourselves,
how we would humbly win and graciously
lose. We had much less time on the water in
preparation than in years gone by, but that
hadn’t stopped us in 2013 and wasn’t going
to stop us now either.”
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