The 2025 edition of the Snipe World Masters Championships was our first opportunity to visit South America. The regatta was held in Frutillar in the Lakes region about 600 miles south of Santiago. This was one of two major stops on this trip, the second being a trip further south to Torres del Paine in Chilean Patagonia. While we journaled a lot of this in our Find Penguins blog, this and the post about Patagonia are presented in a more retrospective way.

Not without complications (a delayed flight and missed connection in Santiago), we have arrived at the regatta venue, a large lake with a stunning volcano backdrop. It’s funny to me that both of our excellent sailing adventures this year have had iconic volcano backdrops (Fuji and now Osorno)!

Lessons learned for future travels: if the custom agent gives you something, even a tiny slip that looks like a credit card receipt, DO NOT THROW IT AWAY. Turns out that little slip is the Immigration Ticket and though the Customs guy failed to mention it, is required for rental cars, hotels (to avoid the 19% VAT), and departure. Luckily Lisa found hers in a pocket after rifling through her suitcase so we could get our rental car in Puerto Montt to get the the regatta venue, but I’m pretty sure mine went into the trash along with the used bag tickets. The epilogue to this saga was that I applied for a new one via the immigration web site based on everything I read on the web, but never heard anything back and leaving Santiago for the US, the customs agent never asked to see it, so it was a non problem. After two weeks of reading about how to resolve this issue, that was the best of the possible outcomes. The worst possible was a stiff fine but as we learned, these “rules” are all highly variable in this part of the world.

The venue in Frutillar is a small boat lot with a lovely rustic clubhouse with good food and drink available for Chilean Pisco Sours (similar, but not the same as the more common Peruvian Pisco Sour!), good local beers, empanadas and hot lunches. We stayed in an AirBnB just down the road right in the town of Frutillar Bajo (Lower Frutillar) which is a beach town on the lake. This part of Chile has strong German roots from the late 1800’s and most of the architecture rhymes with a Bavarian village. The Air BnB was a super cute log cabin style chalet.

The first two days were the usual stress of getting the charter boat squared away and through the measurement process. We opted to go for one of the less expensive charters ($1300) which got us a 1997-ish Chilean Persson. I figured that would be the devil I knew, which was pretty accurate. I brought a bunch of parts that I ended up adding to the boat and I got it all tuned up. The only issue was the shrouds were a little long (another lesson: I should have brought mine) so we only had about a turn and a half more than base, but since this is a masters regatta, we were never going to be sailing in a lot of breeze so not that big a deal. The only measurement issue we had was when I unrolled the new main, it had no country or sail numbers! A miscommunication between Quantum lofts and interestingly I never noticed it when I packaged the sails the day we left. Doh! Lisa worked out a deal with the jury that we could sharpie on the “USA” and we found a set of two numbers, “13”, to use. Lucky 13… The plan was for me to steer this regatta but given she had been steering most of the year and the unfamiliar boat, we felt it would work better if she steered so I could handle any boat issues on the water, which turned out to be right delegation of duties.

Masters events in the Snipe exemplify the class motto “Serious Sailing, Serious Fun”. We knew the racing would be challenging with some of the best sailors in the class – 54 boats from 11 countries with skill levels from World Champions and former Yachtsman of the Year to teams coming back to the Snipe after long hiatuses – but also there are only 2 races per day and a “15 knots sustained for 3 minutes” wind limit so there was lots of time for socializing before and after racing.

In general, the 1 pm schedule start time was nice as there generally was not much breeze in the morning and (usually) a great southerly thermal develops in the afternoon, even to the point of being too much for a masters event. Launching was an interesting game of Tetris with one small launch ramp and 54 boats to get in the water. The launch process took more than an hour to get the 54 boats down the steep ramp. Thankfully they covered it with astroturf and hired a bunch of local kids to help get down, and more importantly up, the ramp and to stow and fetch the dollies. The sail out was generally much longer than it appeared taking a hour or so, but they typically got the course set up: “DEPLOY THE BOTS” as we joke about the marks when they all take their positions. They used robotic Mark Set Bots that are remote controlled and not anchored as the water, making it easy to set up the course especially in this lake as the water is 300’-600′ deep and no one wants to haul that much anchor line!

In most races we had multiple general recalls with the really aggressive fleet pushing the line even with the U Flag out. These made starts really hard for those of us who are less aggressive and not used to such large fleets. And this is not sour grapes just a lesson learned, the willingness to let people go even if they are OCS (over the line early for the non sailors) because you don’t see their number is pretty astounding in my opinion, which reinforces the need to be in that first row even if you know you are over. You just hope they don’t see your number. As a side note, this is one of the parts of this game that really grinds my gears.

On racing day 1 the beeze started super light from the north, but flipped around to the south for a shifty, 5-12kt puffy condition. With the first race starting around 2:30, we were still able to get in the 2 scheduled races and, thanks to being close to the summer solstice, had full sunlight getting back to the dock at 5. We had good moments and bad, but ended up 20th and 21st in the races putting us in 18th overall. For us, we are adhering to the Bermudian saying: We are not here for a long time, we are here for a good time!

On racing day 2 (Tuesday) we finally got a start off in fairly light breeze and without a great start, we got pushed out to a side that was sadly not the correct side. Despite making a number of boats back on the first run and second beat, we only clawed back to 31 and it’s no fun sailing in the cheap seats for many reasons. The second race also had a litany of restarts but the one that went was good for us and with the breeze up to the low to mid teens (what would be complained about that evening by some), we were hiking hard and making good choices as the saying goes. As we all know it’s much easier to sail in the front of the fleet especially in shifty conditions. Because the breeze was up to near (or over depending on your perspective) the limit, the RC chose to finish the race at mark 3 of 4 (second windward mark) and we had a great result at 16. On the way in it was definitely above that and really puffy but we had a fun fast reach back to the club and importantly doing well in the most important race to the ramp!

The first two days of racing the sky was very clear and the sun was HOT at that low latitude (41°S). Even though, when the breeze was up and we had full thermal hiking pants, a smock, tech hoodie, hast and a life jacket, it was not hot. But the most amazing thing was the views of the Volcanos across the lake. Lisa kept saying – endlessly! – how distracting starboard tack was with that view.

Wednesday was a reserve day again with nice weather so we went to the other side of the lake and up the Volcano. We drove up about 5km, took two ski lifts and we hiked a bit more up to the snow line. We had wanted to hike down, but were running a bit short on time so we hiked over to a scenic overlook and then took the chairs down.

Racing day 3 (Thursday) began with a cloudy, misty morning. They anticipated a heavy southerly breeze in the afternoon so the start was moved up an hour to try and get the racing done before that. The best laid plans, as they say… no early breeze materialized and there was a postponement ashore for several hours. When some breeze looked promising, we launched and headed out to the course in the early afternoon. It took almost 3 hours on the water before the breeze settled down enough to get a race off, in a pretty light southerly. The breeze built towards the end of the race and we finished at 19 a good result. We didn’t hit the shore until almost 7pm but it really didn’t seem late as there was still three hours of daylight left!

Racing day 4 (Friday) was also a cloudy, misty light air morning with cold rain forecast all day but we launched on time and headed out to the course. It was fairly cold on the water with on and off rain as we waited for the northerly/westerly breeze to settle. Once it did, we had several general recalls and they went right to the “black flag” (if you are over early you are out of the race even if there is a restart), the first time I have every seen this in a regatta. When a start finally stuck, sadly it was horrendous for us and we were back in the cheap seats, only able to claw back to 27. The breeze continued to be really shifty but they got the start of the second race (7) off in lightish breeze. It wasn’t a great start but we saw where the breeze was filling from and caught the strong shift to get to the weather mark in the top 10. At the leeward mark it was “breeze on” but sadly for us they abandoned the race – I’m not sure if it was that it was over the limit or violated class rules for being too shifty in the first lap but was probably the right thing to do – and since it was too late in the day for any more racing, we headed back to the dock with a total of 6 races and one drop to finish in 22nd. The consolation was we again finished high in the race to the ramp to get out of the water, unrigged and get the charter boat sorted for the returned and get cleaned up for the last social event and prize giving.

All in all, 22nd was a decent result. I think we had potential to be between 15-20, but we made too many mistakes, mostly around not getting off the starting line well, something that always gives us trouble since we don’t usually sail in 50+ boat fleets. And that is definitely compounded by so many top sailors from parts of the world that have different and much more aggressive starting line tactics, something we knew would be the case but were not fully prepared for. But that’s the fun and challenge of coming to a regatta like this. You learn by doing and experiencing even if the end result is below expectations. Lisa was the 2nd place Women’s skipper and I got that same trophy. The rest of team USA did very well with Ernesto/Taylor winning, Augie/Ciara in 4th, Dave/Barb in 8th, Carol/Kim in 10th, Steve/Maureen in 24th, Doug/Amelia in 25th and Carolyn/Eric in 32nd.

We went out to dinner every night, and especially at one popular seafood spot, virtually the entire restaurant was full of Snipe sailors. It was really fun to meet some new Snipe friends and reconnect with old ones! This is an experience that every long time Snipe sailor has to do at least once!

Full Results: https://masters.snipechampionships.org/assets/documents/2025_masters_results_final.pdf

Regatta Photo Album: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jGalftS_WrjAA_NUxVwgrncJSXvwK1pY

Alex and Lisa’s curated photo album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Sw2cFRngXXjk6rfQ8