Blog / Sailing

On a busmans holiday Team HIHO sailing aboard the Sunfast 33 “byte” lined up for The 2020 New England Solo/Twin. The event featured a 70-mile ocean triangle course starting and finishing in Newport, RI with a course around Block Island and then down to the Elizabeth islands.  What should have been a quick sprint turned into a slow trek.  The “byte” team battled light wind, adverse currents and ferocious competition to finish in 25-hours and claim a 2nd in class position.

HIHO started in 1979 as inter-island windsurfing race through the Virgin Islands. In the 1980’s it was known as the Hook In & Hold On, and was sponsored by Johnnie Walker Scotch Whiskey.  A youthful Andy Morrell took first place in the 1986 edition, and then went on to buy the event.  With the name shortened to HIHO and a fun sun graphic logo the event was re-started in 1983 and endured for another 20-years.  Famous for a week of great windsurf racing, a yacht flotilla and legendary parties, the HIHO race was one of the biggest water sports events on the Caribbean.  And the sun graphic logo shirts evolved into today’s HIHO brand of island inspired apparel.

Our interest in collecting charts & maps must have started when we were young and sailing boats up and down the Caribbean.  Pouring over the chart we were using as we made our to or from Antigua or down to Puerto Rico we always fascinated over the islands we were passing.  Even though we were sailing in our backyard it was always interesting to see exactly where were or learn the name of the point, rock or islet we were passing.  (Confession- we still pour over charts, though they are now digital and you can zoom in and out electronically…)  Now we collect all the charts we can get our hands on.  Of course we favor ones from the Caribbean and we have a cool collection of UK, US and French charts with some dating back to the 1960’s.  We started framing them and hanging them in our stores.  We take sections of torn charts and frame them too.  The attached photo shows one wall in our store.

On Sunday we clambered about an IC-24 for the inaugural ABI Regatta in St Thomas.  It was a fun race featuring a run down the South side of St Thomas followed by a couple windward-leeward courses off the beach at Frenchman’s Bay.   We were the envy of the fleet in our matching HIHO suntek jerseys.  Our winning speed also turned heads!  The fleet comprised 10 identical IC-24 sailboats manned by teams of friends and families.  We were sailing with friends against our friends- what could be better.  A group of kids from the clubs junior sailing program beat us to the first mark but we sailed a great downwind run to lead at the buoy off Green Cay.  We succumbed to course misinterpretation on the dogleg reach to the next buoy of the beach and slipped to 4^th but managed to get back to 3^rd by the downwind finish.   We aced the first windward-leeward course and settled for a 4^th in the next which put us in end overall.  By Noon we were anchoring off the beach and swimming ashore to ABI beach bar for drinks, lunch and a casual awards ceremony.

Here at  HIHO we make casual and comfortable clothing for all the things we love about the Caribbean: hitting the beach,surfing,sailing and liming around. Liming means to hang out and relax. So  show us how you lime around in your HIHO clothing. Send your photos via email to limingaround@go-hiho.com .We will be posting a selection on our blog over the next  few months.

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Taking a few days off and heading down to Antigua to race wooden boats is a treat, even by our standards.  Our annual pilgrimage to the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta sponsored by Panerai combines our passion for racing with a love of wooden boats.  The event, which is one of the largest gatherings of its kind in the World, blends competition with a wonderful celebration of traditional sailing.  

The starts are jammed with drop dead gorgeous boats including elegant schooners, racing sloops and traditional wooden working boats.  We race aboard Zemi, a 40' sloop built on the beach in Carriacou in the Grenadines by the renowned shipwright Alwyn Enoe.  The Carriacou sloops form a virtual one-design class within the regatta.  The racing is tight, and the post-race camaraderie, fueled by Mount Gay and local Antiguan rum, is boisterous.  The boats are traditional in every way with just two winches, a long boomed mainsail and a genoa.  You sweat in the main sheet by hand and the spinnaker pole is a length of bamboo.  There are no instruments.  It's all about boat speed and tactics.  Local knowledge is king, and with a boatload of Antiguan's there is no shortage of tactical opinions, occasional disagreements and plenty of jokes.  Oh yeah, everyone is on the lookout for fish too.  (Antiguan's, the lot of them, all love to fish).  

Zemi was off the pace on day one of the regatta but we pulled it together and posted solid 2nd place finishes in the remaining three races, including an excruciating 5 second margin on corrected time in race #2.  We had all conditions from squally 30-knot squalls with 15-foot seas to gorgeous 15-knot trade winds under blue skies.  Rain or shine we were comfortable in our HIHO Suntek shirts!