After competing in the RORC Caribbean 600 later this month, Bella Mente Racing will shift gears for Les Voiles de St. Barth, the third event in its 2015 campaign. The team, led by owner/driver Hap Fauth, will go up against a number of famously talented sailors and highly skilled teams at the six-day regatta, scheduled from April 13-18 off St. Barth.

2014 Les Voiles de St Barth (Photo Credit: Amory Ross)

Les Voiles de St. Barth’s Maxi Division boasts seven teams to-date, including two of the world’s newest racing yachts, Comanche and Rambler 88. 

Bella Mente Racing’s Terry Hutchinson, US Sailing’s most recently named Rolex Yachtsman of the Year added that he looks forward to meeting up with his old friend Loïck Peyron, who has been named “Ambassador” of the regatta this year. Peyron, too, has just won his country’s highest sailing honor, having been named the French Sailing Federation’s 2014 Sailor of the Year for winning the 10th edition of the Route du Rhum with his 130-foot trimaran Banque Populaire (designed by the same French contingent behind Comanche).

2014 Les Voiles de St Barth (Photo Credit: Jouany Christophe)

“I know Loïck well,” said Hutchinson, explaining that the two overlapped during the last America’s Cup at Artemis Racing, when Hutchinson was the skipper and Peyron was a consultant (before transitioning into helmsman) due to his vast multihull experience. “He took me sailing on Banque Populaire when I was in Lorient, and it was just awesome. To consider some of the stuff he has done…all that goes into it…all the planning…that stuff doesn’t just happen.” (Peyron is also athree-time winner of the Observer Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race, two-time winner of the Transat Jacques Vabre, and current holder of the Jules Verne Trophy (for the fastest circumnavigation around the world.)

Terry Hutchinson at the 2014 Les Voiles de St Barth (Photo Credit: Jouany Christophe)

“I always came to Saint Barth at the end of a transatlantic race and was so tired I never had time to enjoy myself,” said Peyron, who remedied the situation by competing aboard the maxi yacht Sojana in the inaugural Les Voiles de St. Barth (2010). “By participating in Les Voiles de St. Barth, I was finally able to appreciate the island, as picture-perfect as a post card. The trade winds, the turquoise waters, and these magnificent boats…. We are really lucky to be able to sail in such an extraordinary place!”

Hutchinson, who sailed on Bella Mente during last year’s event only to have all hopes of winning dashed when the boat broke its mast, concurred: “Les Voiles de St. Barth and the RORC Caribbean 600 – those are the go-to regattas in the Caribbean,” he said. “The island (of St. Barth) is beautiful, and the sailing is really great: coastal racing with some good windward/leeward elements to it. And shoreside…you’ve got to work pretty hard to complain about St. Barth.”

For more information on Les Voiles de St. Barth, visit http://www.lesvoilesdesaintbarth.com/