Newport Bermuda: Challenge and Variety
The Newport Bermuda Race has long been well known for the variety of the challenges it throws at sailors. Sometimes there are calms, at other times storms, often there’s overcast, and occasionally there is the distraction of a stunningly beautiful night. This year, a full moon rose over the fleet with such brilliance that one sailor (Bermuda Race Organizing Committee Chairman A.J. Evans, sailing in Vamp) took a break from his steering and sail-trimming duties to send out an email at 2 o’clock one morning saying, “Spectacular evening of sailing here on a gentle sea with a decent breeze under a full moon and stars.”
The sea is not always so pleasant. When weather forecasters predicted before the start on June 17 that the entries would be battered by brutal storms, 50 crews dropped out, leaving 133 boats start the race off Newport, RI, on June 17. The grim forecast turned out to be correct, but only in the far eastern part of the race course. The few boats sailing there survived the 45-knot winds with discomfort but no reported damage, and sailed on to Bermuda.
Fleet's in. WARRIOR ONE leads
By Talbot Wilson and John Rousmaniere
Based on Wednesday’s provisional results, Warrior Won, the Xp44 skippered by Christopher Sheehan out of Larchmont YC has emerged as the St David’s Lighthouse winner for the 50th Thrash to the Onion Patch, the 2016 Newport Bermuda Race. She finished Tuesday morning at 10:10:25 and her corrected time was 70:40:03.
The St. David’s Light House Trophy goes to the corrected time winner of the largest division. This year Warrior Won defeated 70 boats vying for the silver lighthouse replica. Only amateurs are allowed to drive the boats in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division
Second place in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division goes to the little Cal 40, Flyer, owned by Douglas Abbott. She finished Wednesday morning at 7:20:24 with a corrected time of 71:33:05. High Noon, the first ‘Traditional’ boat to finish, came third on corrected time.
After a slow approach to Bermuda, the Newport Bermuda race organizers expect the entire fleet to be in Hamilton Harbour Wednesday night. There were nine boats moored at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club marina overnight. At 08:00 this morning three more had made their way around from St. George’s where yachts are asked to stay after arriving after dark. By mid-afternoon 102 boats had finished off St. David’s Head in Bermuda. Another 25 were closing in on the line. 133 boats started in Newport and nine had retired during the race for various mechanical problems or gear failures.
High Noon: Passion and experience
As the Newport Bermuda Race fleet rushed to the finish line on Monday in the wake of the first-to-finish boat, the powerful 100-foot grand prix Comanche, to the surprise of many they were led by an unusual boat and crew. High Noon, at 41 feet, is fully 59 feet shorter than Comanche and tens of feet shorter than many other entries.
Yet High Noon was the second boat to finish this Newport Bermuda Race. She also was the first finisher to have a traditional design, very unlike the one of the extreme stripped-out Comanche. And consider High Noon’s unusual crew. Of the 10 sailors, seven are teenagers between ages 15 and 18, sailing alongside three adults.
The story of High Noon 2016 is about new ideas in training young sailors. For decades they sailed only small boats. Enter Peter Becker, who sails out of American Yacht Cub, in Rye, New York. He was an eager 15-year-old when he sailed his first Newport Bermuda Race. “I was the kid on the boat, up on the bow changing sails,” he recalls. Since then he’s done 16 more Bermuda Races and a race from New York to Barcelona, Spain.