Dateline: 24th June 2014 - Royal Bermuda YC, Hamilton Bermuda
Only six boats had finished the 2014 Newport Bermuda Race by late Tuesday afternoon in Bermuda— Shockwave, Bella Mente, Caol Ila, and Constellation have finished in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division. Kodiak and Stark Racing Mad VII have finished in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division. The tally is six boats retired, six finished and 152 still racing.
The 2014 Newport Bermuda Race may set a record tonight. According to the Pantaenius Race Tracker estimated elapsed time calculations, as many as 120 yachts will cross the finish line between sunset Tuesday and sunrise Wednesday morning. That is an average of 14 finishers per hour and must be a record for the Newport Bermuda books.
Eugene Rayner and his St. David’s Lighthouse finish line team will certainly have their hands full. Officials will place two committee boats at the finish to make sure they can identify all the boats that will probably be squeezed together in packs as they cross the line.
Will there be chaos on the Bermuda line tonight? Boats need to cross the 291º magnetic bearing to the tower between the confining markers and then turn left, out to sea, to avoid the reefs inshore. Think of 10 boats finishing within minutes and that’s chaos.
Constellation, the US Naval Academy TP52, was the last arrival on Monday. They finished at 8:25 PM. Kodiak, skippered by Llwyd Ecclestone, was in at 2:17AM Tuesday and Jim Madden’s Stark Raving Mad VII finished at 7:19. Times are all Eastern Daylight Time, the race baseline. Kodiak, a 66-foot custom racer, was the first to finish in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division. She leads Stark Raving Mad on provisional corrected time in this Cruiser-Racer, amateur group of 97 entries.
Royal Bermuda YC, Hamilton Bermuda: Three boats had finished the 2014 Newport Bermuda Race by late Monday afternoon— Shockwave, Bella Mente, Caol Ila R
George Sakellaris’ big white Richel/Pugh mini-maxi Shockwave crossed the finish line off Bermuda’s St. David’s Lighthouse Monday morning at 5:34 race time EDT (6:34AM local time). Her elapsed time was 63:04:11. Bella Mente, Hap Fauth’s 72 foot Judel/Vrolijk mini-maxi, followed by seven minutes with her time at 63:11:25. The two had battled head to head within sight of each almost continuously for over 635 miles.
Caol Ila R, Alex Schaerer’s 68 foot Mills IRC racer, crossed third at 8:33 local time, three hours behind Shockwave at 66:03:52.
Based on preliminary ORR results, Shockwave stands first on corrected time in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division, Bella Mente is second and Caol Ila R is third.
“The big difference between the faster, leading boats and those further back is the Gulf Stream. Carina and Christopher Dragon, two of the leading boats on corrected time, are nearby and in the axis of the Gulf Stream which is flowing west to east. The current may actually be making wind for them, giving them additional apparent wind to sail with. At 2:AM today, the leading mini-maxis had reached the southbound cold core eddy, and were picking up a free ride toward Bermuda. The slower boats in the drifting conditions are north of the current and will suffer till the wind builds today, maybe this afternoon.”
For many of the 1500+ sailors on 162 boats on course to Bermuda in the 49th Newport Bermuda Race, yesterday’s Summer Solstice must have seemed like the longest night ever. Shockwave, the line honors leader at noon Saturday then 438nm from Bermuda, was still 336nm from Bermuda at 2:00 AM Sunday.
The 2012 Gibbs Hill Lighthouse winner was averaging a velocity made good to Bermuda of 8.3kts, compared to 9.2kts up to noon Saturday. At 2:AM Shockwave was doing 10.3kts making a good course of 152º toward Bermuda.
For those 14 hours, Shockwave had averaged 7.2kts. George David’s Rambler had averaged 16.1kts on the way to smashing the record in 2012. Rambler sailed the entire course in 39hrs 39min. The mini-maxis are well beyond that now, so no record will fall in 2014.