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Musket Cove Regatta Week 2025

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It’s that time of year again – the Musket Cove Regatta Week!  We had so much fun in 2022 racing on “Wow” and again in 2023″ racing on “Wings.”  This year we will be racing on a beautiful SVD60 (Simons Voogd) designed 60′ catamaran called “Marcato”.

Matt and I both admired this boat in the earlier regattas.  It has stunning lines, clean look, and wicked fast reputation.  The owners Anthony (Ant) and Janine Robinson were kind enough to let Matt and I crew with on this year’s Musket Cove Regatta!

Be sure to read about our 2023 and 2022 adventures of the Musket Cove Regatta.  Simply type in “Musket Cove” in the search bar or click here.

Ant and Janine invited several of their friends to help manage this incredibly fast rocket.

But, mostly Ant was at the helm, Phil and Janine worked the main sheet and headsails, Chris, Matt and I (mostly Chris and Matt) were on deck handling the sail changes.

During the longest race, around the Malolo Island we had at least 8 sail changes!

The first day of the regatta is kicked off with hobie cat races.  Matt and Chris (from SeaGlub) join together to be team SugarGlub.

The easily win their first heat despite the light winds.

Unfortunately, they lost their second heat during single eliminations.  But they had great fun!

Beachcomber’s Pirate Day

Day 2 brings Beachcomber Island’s Pirate day!  

Anything goes during this race!  That means that boats can use their engines, sails, and whatever means necessary to get to the anchorage first.

Marcato started off slow (captain’s choice) and crossed the start in 11th place.  Never good when you take photos with boats in front of you. By the end of the race we were catching up to the 1st place boat.  Unfortunately, this boat displayed really poor sportsmanship and refused to let us pass and pushed off off the course. 

True that anything goes, but this was beyond rude. 

Beachcomber Island Resort really knows how to host an authentic pirate party.  Yachties are captured, and tied together as they step foot on shore.  The pirates then walk them across hot coals at knife point and into the vaccine tent for a retched shot of rum.

We did win 2nd place and I won sexiest pirate 🙂

Around the Island Race

There are 3 sailboat races during Musket Cove Regatta week.

  1. Beachcombers Pirate Day
  2. Around the Island
  3. Sandbank Race

The around the island is by far the most prestigious race.  Racers have to navigate around reefs, corals, and more as they sail around Malolo hitting almost every point of sail.

We had over 9 sail changes during this race (which is a LOT).

We had a great start and managed to stay in the top 3 for the majority of the race. During the last 1/4 of the race we edged in front of both the 1st and 2nd boats.  As we neared the finish line, with a mere 100 meters to go the wind died to zero (see photo).  The good news it died for everyone.  After a painstaking 45 minutes, it picked up and we crossed the finish line first doing a whopping 3kts!

Super Hero / Villain Party

Besides having an amazing boat, Ant and Janine are great party planners.  They went all out on the costume party.  We were Gru and his minions complete with a “moon” strategically placed in the rafters of the bar.

We won first place!

The Sandbank Race

This is an interesting race as the racers follow the committee boat with a marker. 

The committee boat does not drop the marker until it deems it prudent. The racers never know where the marker will be dropped.

Marcato came in 3rd during this race.

All in all the Marcato crew came away with lots of prizes and wins.

  • 2nd place Beachcomber Island Pirate Race
  • 1st place Around the Island race
  • 3rd place Sandbank race
  • 1st place Superhero costume contest
  • 1st place sexiest pirate

We sailed in the Musket Cove Regatta 2025 in mid-September.

Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind actual live events.

Don’t miss out on our bushwhack hike along the ridgeline of Malolo Island.

Ridge Hike on Malolo Island

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What does a ridgeline hike look like?  Well, we start at the far left end of Malolo island (left end of the photo) and hike up several hills.  We cross over the reef at low tide (2nd arrow, middle) and make it to Malolo Lailai (3rd arrow far right).

Another view of the ridgeline hike.

The Start

Sarah dropped Matt, Chris, and I off at Funky Fish Resort. This is a really cool, easy-going, surf resort with a pool.  They are super cruiser friendly. 

You hike up a hill, behind the resort to the helicopter landing pad.  To our surprise there was a helicopter.  The resort has posted signs at the beginning of the path.

Mt. Silo Gun site and Lookout

The first part of the trail is really well maintained and fairly easy to navigate.  The only issue is that it is straight up hill. 

We enjoyed some beautiful views along the way.

The anchorage looks so small from the top of the tallest mountain peak.  There are roughly 100 boats in the anchorage.  Can you spot Sugar Shack?

We make it to the Mt. Silo Gun site and lookout after an hour of hiking.  The peak is roughly 750′ elevation.

2nd Half of the Hike

The second half of the hike was more challenging as the trail was not well-maintained and requires good shoes and a machete.

It was so darn hot as we were in the direct sunlight, at the peak heat of the day. 

We ended up sliding down several slopes as we continued down a make-shift path.

The second half of the hike took almost 2 hours and was much slower going.  In part because we had to create our own path and we had to go slow on the slippery parts.

We met a lovely friend on the way down the mountain.  This beautiful horse met us on the trail and was so very friendly.

I was so tired and overheated that I stopped taking photos. 

Unfortunately, I did not even get a photo of the reef crossing or Malolo Lailai.  I know, I suck!

The Results

  • Ascent 1200′ (up and down several mountains)
  • Tallest Peak 750′
  • 1200 calories burned
  • 4.5 miles walked
  • 2:53 hours
  • 1hr of resting time/breaks or stops

Matt and Chris were in much better shape than me. 

I required multiple stops along the way.  We also stopped at the 3 lookout points. 

Evidently, according to Matt’s Garmin we had 1 hour of resting time.  Eek gads.

No Foreign Land Malolo Ridgeline hike

Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  We hiked Mt. Silo on Malolo Island on 5 September 2025.

Did you read about our adventures at the World Surf League Finals in our last blog?

World Surf League Finals (WSL): Cloud Break

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The World Surf League (known as WSL) hosted the 2025 surfing finals at Cloud Break, Fiji.  Lucky for us we happened to be 6nm away from this prestigious and monumental event!

The athletes stayed at the exclusive and private island resort of Tavarua  which is conveniently located near the famous surf spot, Cloud Break. Rumor has it that clients of Tavarua Resort not only have to be very wealthy but they have to commit to surfing in order to stay here. 

We are not allowed to land on the island at all.  We tried to “walk the beach” and were promptly shooed away by security.

World Surf League  (WSL) Finals

There many famous surf spots in the world including Teahupoʻo  in French Polynesia, Pipeline in Hawaii, and Cloud Break in Fiji.  

Do you remember when I had the opportunity to watch the WSL competition in Teahupo’o, French Polynesia?

Fijians built is a permanent judge’s stand into the reef many years ago.  They add the banners to the stand each year and remove immediately after the event.

In the swarm of spectators there is a boat with the announcers.  The announcers let the surfers and their coaches know who has wave priority, what the scores are, and what is needed to move on to the next round.

The popular floating bar, Cloud 9 donates their transport boat for the competitors.  The locals wrapped the competitor boat in advertisement and outfitted it to comfortably house all 10 competitors and their teams.

The Spectators

Between 25-35 boats anchored near the reef to support and witness this great event.  In addition, there were dozens of dinghies, long boats, tourist boats, surf boats that came out to the “line” to witness the WSL competition and be part of the mayhem.

We took Sweetie, our dinghy out which was 6 nautical miles away from our anchorage.  That is a long way to take your dinghy!  We met up with our friends Chris and Sarah on Seaglub and Chris and Michelle on Beleza.

WSL Competitors

The WSL competitors have spent 7 months surfing all over the world in 11 competitions.  During the finals the top 5 men and the top 5 women compete to be world champion.

Michelle on Beleza shared some of her photos since I don’t have my phone (it died many months ago).

The waves started out slow but by mid-morning they filled in and provided a beautiful landscape for the athletes.

The wave curls around so we were only able to see about half of the surfable wave.  But still very impressive.

At times we had a 3meter swell pushing all of the boats and dinghies up and over. 

Cover photo by Ed Sloane, World Surf League

Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual live events.  We enjoyed the WSL on 2 September 2025.

In our last blog post, we finally fix the last part of our standing rigging by replacing the furler and foils on our forestay.