From November 16 to 19, the Cata Cup St-Barth international regatta for F18 catamarans will be held, of which this is the 10th edition this year.
I arrived at Tom Beach around 10 a.m. for my interview with Jeff Ledée, originally from the island, creator of the event and both an experienced racer.
The catamarans were lined up on the beach and the participants already at work with their sails. There was some excitement and positive energy triggered by the crews, the organizers, the sea and the sun. St-Jean beach is magnificent at this time of day.
Jeff arrived and we talked a long time about the regatta and St-Barth after Irma: I appreciated his calm and his positivity.
What I would like to highlight from our conversation is that making this regatta, one of the first important events after the cyclone was possible thanks to the people of St-Barth who worked hard to try to bring things back to normal.
He reminded me that the population has “the culture of cyclones” and has always been used to dealing with post-cyclones.
Everyone including children participated in collecting garbage all over the island. There was an extraordinary solidarity and participation which should make us think a lot. Jeff also added that the population felt very strongly the support of the institutions.
Regarding the Cata Cup if he had to give a slogan he would say "Caribbean solidarity". Indeed the participants are from St-Barth, St-Martin, Puerto-Rico, St-Thomas from the USA…
St-Barth Cata Cup celebrates its 10 years and for the occasion the celebrations will be memorable. The winning crews of past editions were invited for this edition and they immediately joined. Among them Keki Figueroa, Antoine Joubert, Emmanuel Boulogne and many others…
_Roberta Ceccarelli
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