Shirley Robertson – double gold-winning Olympic sailor, veteran Bucket racer and General Manager of the Super Yacht Racing Association – explains how to do the St Barths Bucket, held 13-16 March 2025.
For one magnificent week each year, the scenery of St Barths’ Baie de St Jean is augmented by one of the most spectacular sights in sailing yacht racing. Emerging from around the headland, close-hauled and under full sail, as many as 30 of the world’s largest sailing superyachts will be strung out in a glorious game of follow the leader as they take part in a legendary regatta.
Sipping their cold rosé, the sun worshippers sitting along Nikki Beach may well gaze in wonder at the procession of giant black sails and powerful hulls. But what they might not realise is that these superyachts are engaged in a carefully orchestrated series of races that have taken years to perfect. Here’s how it works…
The format
The Bucket gathers superyachts for a week of racing, but none of the yachts are really designed to a class rule (except the J Class). Performance parameters and sailing characteristics are wildly different between yachts, and to avoid any unwelcome coming together of the fleet, they employ an almost unique racing format.
“Very few do it now, but we use Pursuit Racing,” says Peter Craig, Bucket event director and race chairman. “The slowest-rated yacht starts first, and the fastest yacht starts last. And the handicapping is such that all of the superyachts therefore finish at the same time, hypothetically.”
Fortunately, that’s not usually a reality, although Craig notes: “There was one race, early in my involvement, where we had 46 entries and as they came around the last corner, you could see 25 superyachts charging downwind, spinnakers up, to the finish line. It was pretty frightening. We had a finish line that was in excess of half a mile long, but it needed to be a mile and a half based on the huge yachts coming down – that was a big learning experience; we changed things the next year.”
Today, the organisers have it pretty much figured out. “It’s a popular racing format, because if the handicap rule is working well and everyone’s sailing their boat to its full potential, it’s pretty exciting going to the finish line. You can also explain it to your guests easily and everyone’s excited as you’re working your way through the fleet, overtaking one by one – or if you have a slower rated yacht, you’re holding people off position by position, to the very end. So that whole concept of pursuit racing is simple and fun.”
Even so, it’s pretty complex to make it work. At more than 30 metres long, most entrants are designed for luxurious cruising and are adapted mildly for a few weeks of racing during regatta season. They are then populated with some of the most accomplished, competitive sailors on the planet, who, combined with each yacht’s permanent crew, will race the boats with varying degrees of intensity. Ultimately, the fleet is split into different class bands according to a complex and carefully considered handicap system.
The classes
“I hate to use the word serious, but it wasn’t considered to be serious racing 20 years ago,” Craig says. “You came because it was a lovely venue, a great place to be in March. It was a spectacle. Some owners used to call it a Parade of Sail.” That’s changed, and now people come for a variety of reasons – including the racing.
Usually, sailors like to race against a healthy field of competition, but with this fleet, it is not simple to define that field. If you have 30 yachts coming to the Bucket, do you want three classes of 10 boats or six classes of five boats? Superyacht racing also comprises a hugely disparate group of yachts. You’ve got schooners and ketches and sloops and performance-oriented sloops that look and perform like race boats. And then you’ve got a 600-tonne yacht built strictly for cruising that takes eight or nine minutes to get back up to speed out of a tack.
After consultation with the SYRA and ORC, as well as feedback from owners, the organisers decided to take a holistic view of yachts when determining classes, as opposed to assigning them based on ratings alone. “We found that people prefer to race with yachts that have similar characteristics to themselves,” Craig says. In other words, they group yachts that perform in a comparable way in an assortment of different conditions. Yachts in 2024 were therefore divided into three “conventional” cruising superyacht classes, two non-spinnaker Corinthian Spirit classes, one 90 Foot class and one Open Performance class.
The courses
Most Bucket boats will race for three blissful days. Traditionally, the first entails an Around the Island race – anti-clockwise, an upwind start with the prevailing trade winds around the island. The second day, originally named the Wiggley course, has been simplified and is now known as the Not So Wiggley course – it reaches out to the west of St Barths, around the islands there and back. The third day, the Wrong Way Around, takes the fleet clockwise around the island, with a downwind start and a downwind finish.
The island paradise of St Barths is, of course, a wonderful-looking venue with its white sands and crystal-clear waters. But the Bucket isn’t in St Barths solely for the backdrop. The island nestles on the north-eastern corner of the Caribbean island chain, between the BVIs to the north-west, and Antigua to the south-east.
And it’s the very special location that adds to the allure of this magical regatta. “There are prevailing easterly trade winds and historically, there’s been sailable breeze every day,” Craig says. “Also, it creates nice variety on course content with upwind, downwind and reaching."
"At the Bucket, we have been very fortunate – in the 17 years I’ve been there, we’ve lost one race day due to weather. You show up for three or four days of racing and you get three or four days of racing.” In combination with a top-notch shoreside component, it makes the Bucket a regatta unlike any other.
Way to go
The St Barths Bucket features three courses designed with multiple variations to ensure fair competition across all boat classes.
Each of the Bucket’s three race courses comprises multiple variations to account for different wind and sea conditions, as well as alternative “a” versions of each course for certain classes of boats, an amendment designed to ensure fair course configuration for the entire fleet. The maps on this page offers a sample of each of the three courses – Around the Island, Not So Wiggley and Wrong Way Around. For the full sailing instructions and course notes, visit bucketregatta.com.
First published in the March 2025 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.