Genuuine Risk (Photo by George Bekris )
IRC 1 (IRC – 4 Boats)
1. USA 8390 Genuine Risk, Canting Keel Super Maxi, Hugo Stenbeck USMMA, Kings Point, NY, USA
2. HKG 1997 Beau Geste , Farr 80, Karl Kwok, Hong Kong, CHN 08Feb11- 09:27:41PM
3. USA 25555 Rambler 100, JK 100, George David, Hartford, CT, USA – 08Feb11- 02:53:52PM
4. USA 53560 Bella PITA, Tripp 75′, Jim / Meghan Grundy, Horsham, PA, USA - 09Feb11-05:53:27PM
IRC 2 (IRC – 5 Boats)
1. CAN 84248 Vela Veloce, Southern Cross 52, Richard Oland, Saint John, NB, CAN 09Feb11-04:42:20PM
2. NED 46 Tonnerre de Breskens 3, Ker 46, Peter Vroon, Breskens, Zeeland, NED — 10Feb11-03:59:22AM
3. USA 45045 Sjambok, RP 45, Michael Brennan, Potomac, MD, USA – DNF
PHRF 1 (PHRF – 4 Boats)
1. USA 66 Donnybrook, SC 72 Mod., James Muldoon, Washington, DC, USA — 09Feb11-07:52:05PM
Rambler 100 also takes Line Honors as first across the finish line.
More results to follow as boats complete the race
Great Video of the PHRF and IRC start
Pineapple Cup IRC Start
Carina Winner Of St. David's Lighthouse Division At Start (Photo by George Bekris )
Owned and sailed by Rives Potts (Westbrook, CT) with a crew blending four families, Carina is the 46th winner of the race’s top trophy in the 104-year history of the race, which runs 635 miles from Newport, RI to St. David’s Light, Bermuda.
The 48-foot McCurdy & Rhodes designed sloop won on corrected time under the Offshore Racing Rule by the very large margin of 3 hours, 35 minutes over Gregory B. Manning’s Sarah (Warwick, RI). Belle Aurore, a Cal 40 owned by R. Douglas Jurrius (Easton, MD) was third, seven minutes behind Sarah.
Carina’s chances for winning looked good but hardly certain when she finished the race at dawn Tuesday. Her chief challenge came from Belle Aurore and three other boats in Class 1, the small-boat class. Any of them could save their time and elbow Carina off the victory podium should she finish by about 7 PM. Many sailors at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club and elsewhere spent much of Tuesday following the quartet’s progress on the online iBoattrack tracker. In the end, nobody was able to save their time on Carina.
Those four smaller boats still did well. Belle Aurore won Class 1 and took third place in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division. Two other Cal 40s, Peter Rebovich’s two-time defending champion Sinn Fein (Metuchen, NJ) and Bill Leroy’s Gone with the Wind (Tiburon, CA), took second in the class and seventh in the division, and third in class and eighth in the division, respectively. The fourth boat, David G. Dickerson’s Peterson 38 Lindy, was fourth in class and 20th in the division.
Carina also won the North Rock Beacon Trophy as the top boat under the IRC Rule, with a margin of nearly four hours over Gracie, a custom 69-footer owned by Stephen and Simon Frank (Darien and Rowayton, CT). Gracie was also designed by McCurdy & Rhodes. Third under IRC was Arbella, a First 44.7 owned by James Shaughnessy (Greenwich, CT).
As of Noon ADT Wednesday, 9 boats in the 183-boat fleet were still on the race course. This is the third largest Newport Bermuda Race since it was founded in 1906. The St. David’s Lighthouse Division, for amateur crews, is the largest of the race’s five divisions, with 103 boats this year.
Invictus At Start (Photo by George Bekris)
FOR NEWPORT BERMUDA RACE START PHOTOS CLICK HERE
2010 Newport Bermuda Race
PROVISIONAL RESULTS
| Place, Yacht, Owner, Origin, Results (ORR(Cls, Div) / IRC(Cls, Div)) |
| Class 1 (11 Boats) – St. David’s Lighthouse Division
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Speedboat Crew On Deck
Stan Honey and Crew Of Speedboat Arrive In Bermuda
It was a slow race, with Speedboat making the 635-mile course in just over 59 hours after the start at Newport on Friday. The crew of 25 never reefed the boat. In the light to moderate conditions that prevailed through most of the race, Speedboat was hard pressed by Il Mostro, Rambler, and several boats in the mini-maxi 70-80 foot range over the first third of the course. “We really didn’t get away from them until we were in the Stream,” navigator Stan Honey said after Speedboat tied up at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club’s marina early Monday morning. “Then they gained a lot in the light stuff as we came into the finish.”
At 5 AM EDT the mini-maxi Rán on its blog reported less than 10 knots as she beat to windward toward the buoys guarding Bermuda’s reef. “Titan is downwind from us and is not a threat. Rambler and Beau Geste are upwind and in front as we thought they would. We are still in a strong position although it now looks like Beau Geste is the biggest threat. Just a few more hours to go.”
At 6:30 the blog reported, “As we are approaching the finish slowly but surely, we are all on deck, no more watches, all are on duty for the final stretch. Coffee and tea served on the rail – black only as no more milk powder onboard. Very calm water. Wind speed of 9 knots –
just over – and land in sight.”
Traditional Dark n Stormys Being Prepared At The Dock For Speedboat Crew
Speedboat From Above (Photo by Daniel Forster / PPL )
The lead boats entered the Gulf Stream at around sunset Saturday, heading upwind into a moderate southwesterly wind with as much as 4 knots of favorable current in the long, hot meander that they have been steering for since the race start on Friday afternoon. Speedboat, at 100ft the largest yacht in the fleet, was making more than 12 knots over the bottom. The earlier “champagne conditions” were behind them as they pounded into big, square, confused seas.
iBoattrack positions at 11 AM EDT Sunday showed Speedboat averaging almost 11 knots with 175 miles to the finish. At this rate she is behind the 48-hour elapsed time race record for cant-keel, Open Division boats – She has to average 13knots for the whole race to beat this time.
Rán was 38 miles back. Following close on the heels of this English boat in the Gibbs Hill Division were Titan XV, Beau Geste, Bella Mente, Rambler, Il Mostro, Vanquish, and Genuine Risk. This tightly bunched pack of eight has been separated by only a few miles since the start.
Ran From Above (Photo by Daniel Forster / PPL )
By this morning the ‘big boat’ leaders were clear of the Stream and entering the 250-mile stretch of often confused wind and currents between the Gulf Stream and Bermuda. Race veterans wryly call this “Happy Valley,” for it is where the race is often won and lost.
Chris Museler, on Titan XV, filed this report just before midnight:
“Now this is what we came for! The boat is literally crashing into waves close reaching onto the Gulf Stream and the water temperature has leapt into the 80s. It’s getting darker and the Aramid rigging has been humming and groaning, and the deck bounces from each loud crack when a sheet or the traveler is eased. This wild ride comes from being in a positive eddy heading south, straight into it! (Wind and current collide to stack up the seas that the boats are crashing into.) This is getting to be fun after losing a bit to competitors this afternoon. The bright sun and the flat water sailing are gone. Can’t write anymore, quite hot and uncomfortable down here. So I’m on watch and will be seeing you in the morning. Knew I wouldn’t want to sail a Bermuda Race without a proper ‘thrash,’ as Mr. Rousmaniere calls it!”
'Sinn Fein' a Cal 40 skippered by Peter S. Rebovich Sr. leads 'Frolic', a Sabre 362 owned by Peter Brown, in class 1 of the St David's Lighthouse at the start of the 635 mile Newport Bermuda Race(Photo by Daniel Forster / PPL)
The Smaller Boats
By dawn today, Rán was out of the Stream, and the team was speculating in their blog whether the smaller boats – a hundred miles astern, and just entering this zone – have had consistently more wind than the big ones.
In Class 1, the St. David’s Lighthouse Division class for boats of about 40 feet, Sinn Fein, the two-time defending St. David’s champion, has chosen a course well to the right of the fleet leaders, and her close class rivals sistership Gone with the Wind and the Tartan 41 Aurora, and charting a route 50 miles west of the rhumb line.
In the Double-Handed Division, two of the light-displacement Class 40s, Dragon and KamoaE, have a healthy lead on elapsed time, but Richard du Moulin’s Lora Ann remains in contention.
The Cruiser Division leader is the 56-foot Clover III, well ahead of the bigger boats in this Division.
The Gibbs Hill Lighthouse and St David's Lighthouse Trophies (Photo by Barry Pickthall / PPL)
Ran At Newport Bermuda Race Start (Photo by George Bekris )
The Newport Bermuda Race fleet made their upwind starts in 16 classes over a period of more than two and a half hours on Friday afternoon. There now are 183 boats, after Avatar didn’t start. In addition, Blue sailed back to the shipyard to get her broken centerboard cable fixed; she’s expected to start again after the repair.
The start found some skippers were surprisingly aggressive. Apparently forgetting that this isn’t a day race but a 635-mile marathon running several days, they also seem to have experienced a touch of amnesia about the tide table. As the new ebb tide ran with every great velocity out of Narragansett Bay, it pushed them inexorably toward Bermuda, but also over the starting line a little earlier than their tacticians had planned.
Of the 13 boats in Class 4 (St. David’s Light Division, 45-55 footers), four found themselves over early at the pin end, with Star Chaser getting what one of her crew called “the best start in the fleet” in an email to media@BermudaRace.com. “We were at the committee boat end of the line with some of the J-Boats but higher and faster. We all chose to be slightly late on the gun: no use being OCS on a race of 635 nm!”
In Class 8 (St. David’s Light, 65-footers) two boats were premature. One was Aurora (with Gary Jobson in the afterguard), and she had to pick her way back to the line, losing at least three minutes in the process.
The current new on the Newport Bermuda Race is that Speedboat took the lead from Titan XV at sunset Friday night as the big 183-boat fleet raced toward Bermuda on a fast close reach in a flat sea, clear visibility, and a moderate southwest wind that gradually strengthened and clocked toward the west. Two boats set Code Zeros.
For current boat positions click HERE
Chris Museler reports from Titan XV: a collision, a Code Zero, and a champagne wake
Friday, 2045 EDT. What an incredible day we’ve had! When I woke up to clear skies and glassy conditions, I knew the sea breeze was setting up nicely. After our delicious hot lunch aboard Tom and Dotty Hill’s Titan XIV, we set out in a relaxed mood, everyone smiling about the conditions. The spectators were all smiles and cheers. There were so many people camped out on the Castle Hill lawn that you couldn’t see any grass.
We started well to weather of the other mini maxis in Class 10 (Gibbs Hill Division) and from then until sunset (a few moments ago) it’s been champagne sailing conditions – sailing at 13-15 knots in a steady wind. We’ve been the lead boat for a few hours, but now as it’s getting dark, Speedboat is passing us to leeward. She started at 4:30, an hour after we did, and it’s now after 8. Rán (in our class) isn’t far behind.
At about 5:30 we hit a large marine animal of some kind. It may have been a basking shark, maybe as long as 20 feet. The hit was soft and we almost stopped. The fish made a few squiggles, spun off, and swam away in our wake. The boat appears to be undamaged.
We’ve switched to a Code Zero, and as our grinders are getting busy they look a lot bigger than before. Mark Strube, who finished second at the Star Class Europeans two weeks ago, is 250 pounds of muscle. The crew has just had dinner – hot rice and chicken with pineapple, which took an hour to cook in two large pots, plus the usual Snickers and Pringles for snacks . . . and apples, too.
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- Newport Bermuda 2010 Start (Photo by George Bekris)
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- Newport Bermuda 2010 (Photo by George Bekris )
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- Newport Bermuda 2010 ( Photo by George Bekris )
Photos By George Bekris
More Photos Of The Newport Bermuda Race Start by George Bekris click HERE
The leader for several hours was Titan XV, in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division. She was caught by Speedboat (Open Division, which started an hour later) at about 8:45 pm. Other positions have been changing in the extremely competitive group of mini maxis sailing in the Gibbs Hill Division, with Hap Fauth’s Bella Mente overtaking Niklas Zennstrom’s Rán soon after midnight, and Rán then catching Rambler and Beau Geste in parking-lot conditions. The wind slowly faded during the night, swung into the north for a while. After dawn, two boats reported a very light breeze from the southeast, which is the course to Bermuda. Later on Saturday morning the wind filled in nicely with a report of 15-plus knots, whitecaps, and the first sighting of cumulus clouds over the Gulf Stream ahead. There also were reports of U.S. Navy exercises in the area of some boats.
By John Rousmaniere
Rolex International Regatta In St. Thomas USVI (Photo by Igrid Abery / St. Thomas Yacht Club)
It just arrived on a yacht carrier in St. Thomas: Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Judel/Vrolik 52′ Interlodge, a newcomer to the International Rolex Regatta, which this year is scheduled for Friday, March 26 through Sunday, March 28. The three-day event, hosted by St. Thomas Yacht Club, has a track record – spanning 37 years – for delivering the goods when it comes to racing and island-style hospitality.
“We thought it would be fun to try something different this year,” said Austin Fragomen, who is from New York, N.Y., and plans to use the Caribbean event to shake off the winter dust in preparation for a hard summer and fall of racing in Europe. He will be joined by hundreds of other sailors and their families migrating from the States and overseas in search of quality “vacation racing” time in the islands.
“The thing I like is that there is more of a center point of activity at this regatta,” he added, noting that St. Thomas Yacht Club is not only headquarters for the regatta but also “home” to which the sailors return each afternoon after racing, with many of the competitors happy to dock at or moor off the club, where it’s mere minutes to and from the race courses. Berthing for boats expands to Yacht Haven Grande and American Yacht Harbor (compliments of Island Global Yachting) for those teams wanting full marina facilities.
Sailing in IRC class will give the Fragomens a chance to show that their class third and top TP52 finish at this year’s Key West Race Week was no fluke. Interlodge, built in 2006 and formerly sailed on the Audi Med Cup Circuit as Cristabella, got an IRC makeover – a new keel and a modified transom – shortly after the Fragomens bought it and before they re-launched it last October. Though sailing under the CSA (Caribbean Sailing Association) measurement rule is popular in the islands, this will be the third year that the International Rolex Regatta has offered dedicated IRC racing under the more international IRC rule, making it the only regatta in the Caribbean where it is not required that IRC boats also hold a CSA certificate for dual scoring.
“Our take on IRC is that we tend to race bigger boats because of our high rating,” continued Fragomen. “Those boats that will be tougher for us are the ones most dissimilar-they are the wild cards as far as how well we’ll do.”
Currently registered are a dozen IRC boats, which will most likely be split into two groups. Among the larger of them are Bill Alcott’s (Detroit, Mich.) Andrews 68 Equation, Richard Matthews’ (UK) Humphreys 42 Oystercatcher XXVI, Jim Muldoon’s (Wash., D.C.) Custom 72 Donnybrook, Freddie Mills’ Frers 80 Kialoa V, and two Farr 65s entered by OnDeck Racing.
Another 52 competing will be Richard Oland’s (CAN) Vela Veloce, while Richard Alan Fougere’s (Pocasset, Mass.) J/160 Avatar (at 53 feet) and William Coates’ (Bellaire, Texas) J/122 Otra Vez (at 40 feet) are sure to add compelling IRC racing variables from the States.
The international Rolex Regatta typically hosts up to 100 boats sailing in classes for IRC, CSA (Spinnaker Racing, Spinnaker Racing/Cruising and Non-Spinnaker Racing), One-Design IC 24s and Beach Cats. It is wholly operated by the St. Thomas Yacht Club and competitors can be certain that the organizers know a thing or two about what world class sailors look for in an international regatta. In fact, exceptional racing is virtually guaranteed with the venue’s dependable trade winds and professional race management team, headed up once again by Dave Brennan, with Dick Neville assisting and Tuna Wullschleger serving as Chief Judge. Luiz Kahl will also be on-site to fully integrate the event website rolexcupregatta.com with Yachtscoring.com for real-time race information, including blog updates and live results, which will be scrolled on large screens at the yacht club, making for lively post-racing discussions.
The event is part of the hotly contested 2010 US-IRC Gulf Stream Series and directly precedes the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, which is held next door and links the two to make Virgin Islands Race Week.
by Barby MacGowan
