Rhode Island The predicted battle for the elapsed time victory in the Newport Bermuda Race between the three Mini-Maxis in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division is coming to fruition. Based on the tracker report as of 5 AM on Saturday with 485 nautical miles to the finish, Bella Mente, Shockwave, and Caol Ila R are racing head to head, though at slower speeds (3 knots) than they were making before midnight. Some 20 miles astern are the 70 footers Kodiak, Rima 2, Irie 2, and Terrapin.
By 12 PM Shockwave had taken the lead at 435nm from Bermuda. Caol Ila R and Bella Mente were close behind at 438nm and 442nm respectively. Shockwave's vmg from the start is reported as 9.2Kts.
The rest of the 163-boat fleet is in a large clump extending about 50 miles, where the wind may be a bit stronger. Wind under 10 knots are predicted for most of Saturday. Everybody is a few miles to the west of the rhumb line, indicating that they're all headed toward the favorable predicted current in the Gulf Stream, some 100 – 150 miles ahead. The sea is reported to be flat.
Right in the thick of things, the two yachts that have won all the St. David’s Lighthouse trophies since 2006, Rives Potts’ Carina and Peter Rebovich’s Sinn Fein, were well up in the pack. At the 10 AM report — tracking positions are still delayed for 4 hours — Sinn Fein in Class 1 was actually three miles ahead of the Class 3 Carina, 490nm from the lighthouse finish line. Christopher Dragon, owned by Andrew Weiss, was the St David’s Lighthouse Division estimated elapsed time leader and was 477nm from the finish. Sinn Fein stood second.
Who would have thought that spinnakers would be flown at the starts of two Newport Bermuda Races in a row? The race did not gain its well-known nickname, “The Thrash to the Onion Patch,” because it’s usually a downwind sleigh ride, like the Transpac. The 2012 start was a fast run before a fresh northerly for every one of the 165 boats in every class.
This year was a little more complicated for the 164 starters. As the five divisions in 15 classes got going over a period of two and one-half hours, the first half of the fleet in seven starts got away in the leftover northerly breeze under spinnaker. Not so the last seven. Like a typical summer day on Long Island Sound, the mouth of Narragansett Bay was full of confusion. If it was more fun for the spectators than the sailors, the reason was the sea breeze that inched toward the starting line until it finally dominated the northerly.
The afternoon's winners, at the start, appear to be the boats that started early— Classes 1, 2, and 3–the smaller and medium-size boats in the St. David's Lighthouse Division. In the light to moderate northerly on their stern, they tacked downwind to the buoy marking the outer reaches of Brenton Reef, and carried their chutes around the mark and onto the southeasterly course to Bermuda. When the southwester filled in like a light summer blanket, all they had to do was raise the jib, douse the spinnaker, and tack onto starboard, while holding the same course.
Friday, June 20 at 12:50 EDT the New York Yacht Club Race committee will sound the first warning signal for the 49th Newport Bermuda Race off the deck of the 125 foot ketch Axia. She anchors the starting line that will stretch west to east across the mouth of Narragansett Bay. The sail-training vessel Spirit of Bermuda owned by the Bermuda Sloop Foundation will start first in Class 0 leading the fleet to her island home as the sole boat in the Spirit of Tradition Division. Spirit will be racing her second consecutive Newport Bermuda Race, chartered this year by Bermuda businessman Jim Butterfield.
Ten minutes later, the first of 14 other classes is scheduled to start. Classes should start at 10-minute intervals after that. Class I features two regular top finishers in this 635-mile classic. Selkie, a McCurdy & Rhodes 38 footer with past Cruising Club of America Commodore Sheila McCurdy at the helm, has come second in the St. David's Lighthouse division twice. Pete Rebovich returns to try to earn his recently rebuilt Cal 40 Sinn Fein a third St. David's Lighthouse win. Pete has had the same crew of friends and family since 2006.