Creative boost for St Barths charity success

What started as an Owen design theme for crew T-shirts raises €16,000 for charity in 2019.

A late evening phone call in 2015 from Michael Koppstein, who sadly passed away earlier this year, started a process that saw the St Barths Yacht Club Youth Sailing Program benefit by €16,000 from the sale of St Barths Bucket Regatta posters for the 2019 event.

Andy Smith, creative head of Owen Superyacht Marketing in the UK explains: “Our client, Royal Huisman was supporting its client’s yacht Meteor at the 2015 regatta and we designed the crew T-shirts for the event. The design was taken up by the Bucket Regatta who commissioned Owens to design a series of posters based on our Meteor design. I produced illustrations for a series covering 2016 to 2019, so each year there would be a complementary poster. They were a great success and have become quite collectable items.”

The next year, the 30th anniversary event, 300 were printed and 100 were sold through the Space SBH contemporary art gallery at €50 each with the proceeds going to the SBYC Youth Sailing Program.

Event Director, Peter Craig explains: “With the poster series designed by Andy at Owens becoming synonymous with the St Barths Bucket Regatta brand style, we were really pleased that the uptake from so many people resulted in such a big result this year. The 2019 poster was a hit beyond all expectations! At €80 each, we were able to commit €16,000 to the SBYC Youth Sailing Program. The St Barths Yacht Club is not a typical yacht club. Its membership and programs are focused on the kids and its budget is always tight. They were very excited.”

Initially, 2016 was the first year of printing, featuring the famous St Barths airport and was highly coveted, 200 were printed as mementos for Bucket participants.

2017 was the 30th anniversary event, so the image was required to celebrate the year.

In 2018, 350 were printed and 140 were sold through the gallery, this time €80 each, with the proceeds going to the “Help St Barths” post-Irma recovery.

For 2019, we had 450 printed and made 200 available for sale. They sold out quickly. Each entry yacht received three, the remainder were VIP gifts and promotional ones placed around town.

Find out more at their website (https://bucketregatta.com/charities).