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Duke and Duchess in Regatta

Photos by Patrick Hanna

DESPITE the inclement weather, it was a momentous day for the crew on both the Susan Chase and the Ants Nest as they entertained The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton - in a special regatta sailed in Montagu Bay on Friday.

As it turned out, they finished at the two ends of the spectrum in the one-lap race with Prince William on board Susan Chase, skippered by Stefan Knowles, taking bragging rights over Kate Middleton and Ants Nest, skippered by Lee Armbrister.

The other Class B boats that made up the fleet were second place finisher Old Boy, skippered by Roger Forbes, third went to the Cobra skippered by Dwayne Higgins and the Barbarian, skippered by Delworth Gibson, was fourth.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge participated in the event as a part of their Royal eight-day tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas from Thursday to Sunday.

For Knowles, getting to spend less than an hour with Prince William on his boat gave him a much better appreciation for Prince William.

“I got the impression that Prince William wasn’t a social person, but he was really down to earth,” Knowles said.

“He was very likeable and he enjoyed the time we spent together.”

After letting Prince William pull up their anchor at the start of the race, Knowles said he allowed him to eventually captain the boat and he enjoyed himself.

“He told us that he didn’t have as much sailing experience as his wife, but he was surprised that we still wanted to sail because of the inclement weather,” Knowles said. “But I told him he brought this weather straight from England. Yesterday (Friday) was Bahamian weather and tomorrow (Sunday) will be Bahamian weather. But today, it was British weather. He only laughed.”

And while they got a good joke about the weather, Knowles said Prince William was even more stunned when he realised how far the Susan Chase was ahead of the rest of the field in the one-lap race. “He didn’t know because he was skipping the boat,” Knowles said.

“He said ‘wow, where’s my wife’. I told him not to worry, she’s in last place. He was really shocked. But he had a jolly good time.”

In preparation for the regatta, Knowles said he and his brother, Mark, had a lot of work to do on the boat since it was sitting on dry dock for the past two years because of the coronavirus pandemic and there was no actual sailing event.

But he noted that they discovered that there was so much more to be done and while they couldn’t get it all done in time for the regatta, they did enough to make the boat seaworthy.

“We will take the boat back into the yard and get the rest of the work done to it,” he said. “But everybody was quite pleased about sailing again, especially because it was a race for the Duke and Duchess.

“Like I told some people in a conversation a few days ago, when we got hit by Hurricane Joaquin in 2015 in Long Island, the first boat that arrived was the Royal Navy, so we have to be very careful who we align ourselves with as a country and who we keep and who we get rid of.”

While there won’t be any National Family Island Regatta in George Town, Exuma, this year for the third consecutive year because of COVID- 19, Knowles said they are eagerly looking forward to participating in C and E Class regattas in Exuma at the end of April.

And following that, the Long Island Sailing Association is expected to bring back their regatta in Salt Pond, Long Island, over the Labour Day holiday during the first weekend in June.

“We already have a lot of private funding for it, but we’re just waiting on the funding we will receive from the Regatta Desk,” he said.

“Once we get full support from the government, we’re good to go. A lot of people have been calling me asking about places to stay because apparently a lot of places are already booked up,” Knowles said.

“Once they heard that we are going to have the regatta, people started booking their accommodations.”

Regattas, according to Knowles, are back and after the Royal event in Montagu Bay, they are looking forward to all the excitement with the return of the regattas around the Family Islands.