The Bucket is the regatta the superyacht sailing world plans its year around. Four days of racing out of Gustavia each March, run under a pursuit format that sends the slowest boats first and puts a 30-metre sloop and a 100-metre schooner on the same finish line. The rule that matters is written on the entry form: this is a gentleman’s regatta, and the boats are raced hard but sailed as yachts, not stripped as racers.
You can do the Bucket two ways. Charter a sailing yacht and take part, with your guests on the rail and a professional crew trimming, or charter and watch, anchored off Gustavia where the fleet passes close enough to read the sail numbers. The first is the reason people come back. There is no comparable way to sail alongside boats of this calibre with your own family aboard.
Entry is by invitation from the organising committee, and it is not automatic for a charter yacht. The boat must be invited, and the owner and management must agree to race her. We handle that conversation early, because the invitation list closes long before the charter market does, and a yacht that is available in March is not necessarily a yacht that is entered.
Our Caribbean sailing fleet runs from a 27-metre Jongert to Black Pearl at 106 metres, at weekly rates between roughly 41,000 and 830,000 euros. Between those extremes sit the boats that define this regatta: Maltese Falcon, Atlantic, Vertigo and four Perini Navi ketches.
