From the following article submitted to Sail-World by Fabrice Thomazeau
http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?Nid=121028&refre=y&ntid=0&rid=1
Les Voiles de St. Barth, which in five short years has become one of the most beloved regattas on the Caribbean sailing circuit, is getting ready once again to rock the waters off the island of Saint Barthélemy. Scheduled for next week, April 14-19, the event has become progressively more seasoned while its participating teams have, in parallel fashion, become increasingly more impressive in terms of talent on board. Currently 70 strong and counting, the Les Voiles fleet of racing boats -ranging in size from 24 to 112 feet- will be divided into Maxi, IRC 52, Spinnaker, Melges 24, Non Spinnaker and Racing Multihull divisions.
No one knows yet how the Spinnaker division will be further divided into classes, but White Rhino, the Swan 56 chartered by Steve Cuchiarro (Boston, Mass.), is hoping to have a good run against Canadian Leo van den Thillart’s Kernan 47 True, with Jono Swain, of Volvo Ocean Race fame, at the helm.
'True will be very difficult to beat if we sail against them, and there is a good chance of that,' said White Rhino’s tactician Jack Slattery (Marblehead, Mass.), who in the years since twice being named a Collegiate All-American has worked his way into demand as an afterguard pick for various grand-prix racing programs. 'Also Otra Vez (William Coates, Houston, Texas), which just won Key West Race Week and was second at the Heineken Regatta, is a frontrunner, but you never know…both of those boats could be put with the (IRC) 52s since they are more similar to them than to us (sport boat vs. displacement). We are the longest boat in the division but not the quickest. But either way, we are ‘going for placing.'
Slattery is neither a newcomer to Les Voiles nor a neophyte when it comes to optimizing a charter boat for racing, as he finished second last year aboard the chartered Marten 49 Defiance (with Cuchiarro at the helm) and won the prior year aboard the same boat. 'White Rhino has been optimized for racing and has an up-to-date inventory,' said Slattery. 'Since the owner of Defiance wanted to put his own team together for this year, we started looking around for a reasonable boat to charter and White Rhino came up on the radar screen.'
read more here
and a promotional video for the event with a few multihulls included:
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