Speedy fleet sets sail
Navigation key to taking victory
NEWPORT, R.I. - Though the America's Cup has been long gone from this yachting capital, another historic race fanned out across Rhode Island Sound yesterday as a fleet of 198 set course for Bermuda.
This is the 42d running of the biennial Newport-Bermuda Race, a 635-mile southeasterly slog through the Gulf Stream to the tiny island they still call "the Onion Patch."
The fleet, among them some of the world's fastest boats, starting under blue skies and 10-knot southwest winds, represented some of the newest state-of-the-art designs, including some capable of speeds up to 30 knots or more.
Among them is Il Mostro, the Volvo 70 sailed by Puma Ocean Racing as part of its tuneup for the Volvo Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread Round the World Race) that begins in Spain in October.
Ken Read, former helmsman for Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes, drove Il Mostro off the line.
Speedboat, the well-named Juan K 100-footer owned by Alex Jackson, is capable of 30 knots with just main and jib flying, if the conditions are right.
Speedboat and Il Mostro started at opposite ends of the line, with Read opting to start on port, harden up, and simply sail across the top of the other three boats in Class 16, the final start of the day.
But soon Speedboat showed why she was built to set world records as she powered her way over Il Mostro, hitting speeds over 16 knots on an upwind breeze that rarely surpassed 11 knots.
Though it looked like round-the-buoy racing - with the first five classes having over-early violations because of a strong ebb current - sailing to Bermuda is largely about navigation.
Though talk of record crossings always buzzes around these docks in the prerace hours, this may not be the year to break the 50-hour record set by Pyewacket in 2004, as the weather may not cooperate.
According to Frank Bohlen, a consulting oceanographer and professor at the University of Connecticut, some strong winds developing in the Gulf Stream late today may be too late to help the larger boats, which may have passed them to the southeast.
"It's going to be pretty light going for the first couple of days," said Bohlen, who is also sailing on one of the entries. "So the big boats that can do 250 miles a day may be through the Gulf Stream just as the smaller boats that do 125 miles per day get to the edge.
"So the smaller boats will get the good wind in the Gulf Stream and should be closing with the larger boats ahead.
"I would say this race will favor a well-sailed small- to medium-size boat."
While something of the Corinthian spirit prevails in many classes, there are the flat-out professional crews flown in. One such crew aboard Numbers, a brand new IRC 66 owned by Boston's Dan Meyers, featured America's Cup veterans John Barnitt as skipper and several Alinghi crew, including tactician Brad Butterworth, Warwick Fleury, and Newport's Jerry Kirby.
On Moneypenny, an STP 65 owned by Jim Swartz making her first bluewater start, America's Cup- and Volvo-winning skipper Paul Cayard made an appearance as watch captain.
Cayard, who sailed with Conner and the late Tom Blackaller, last sailed the Bermuda race 26 years ago.
"The only time I ever went in this race, 1982, I was here getting ready for the America's Cup," Cayard recalled. "So I was stuck up in a loft going through a bunch of old Courageous sails when someone asked if I wanted to go on the Bermuda race.
"I said, 'Yeah, get me out of jail here,' and we took off. That year it blew so hard we broke our rudder and never finished."
First boats should arrive at the finish at St. David's Light late Monday.
