Sailing-Britain's Caffari set for Antigua's Nelson's Cup challenge

Feb 13 : British sailor Dee Caffari arrives in Antigua fresh from a sub-58-day round-the-world race and will next week swap the vast emptiness of the Southern Ocean for the tight, tactical racing of the 2026 RORC Nelson’s Cup Series.

Competing aboard the Swan 58 WaveWalker, Caffari headlines a regatta that has become a key Caribbean proving ground ahead of the RORC Caribbean 600.

The Nelson’s Cup, which begins on Tuesday, is designed as both a stand-alone regatta and the final dress rehearsal before the RORC Caribbean 600. Over two days of inshore racing and the Antigua 360 circumnavigation, crews are pushed into constant manoeuvres, rapid decision-making and immediate debriefs in racing that compresses the learning curve.

For international teams arriving from winter campaigns in Europe and beyond, the series provides something no training programme can replicate: real opposition in Caribbean conditions. Trade winds, Atlantic swell and heat place their own demands on sailors and equipment.

Caffari has described the shift from round-the-world endurance to short-course intensity as “active recovery”, but the stakes remain high. The Nelson’s Cup is a final chance for teams to fine-tune performance before the Caribbean 600, with Antigua quickly exposing who is ready and who is not for the 600-nautical-mile offshore yacht race that will start and finish in Antigua later this month after circling 11 Caribbean islands.