It’s hard to believe that Stan Honey, the Hall of Famer and navigational wizard of globe-girdling race boats big and fast, had never sailed the Newport Bermuda Race on his vessel. He’d completed the course plenty of times on boats built for line honors and setting records (check and check). But there he was on a late June morning backing the family Cal 40 Illusion into a slip at the Royal Bermuda YC not long after the big boats had arrived. In a few days, Stan and his teammates would be confirmed as Class 10 winners and the next engraving on the St. David’s Lighthouse Trophy. It would be the last time Stan and his Hall of Fame bride, Sally, would race their Illusion as its caretakers. Fittingly, it was, in Stan’s own words, “a terrific experience.”

“Our race was all about preparation,” says the 67-year-old navigator, whose team sailed the 635-mile course in 87 hours. “We had an unimaginably good crew, perfect sails, a perfect bottom, and we were lucky that we were the right-size boat.”

There’s a lot of truth to the saying that one makes one’s own luck, and it’s equally true that this team of five friends from the West Coast did indeed craft their own good fortune—and then some.

The Honeys have owned their Cal 40 Illusion for 33 years, with their first ocean race for the boat being the 1990 Pacific Cup from San Francisco to Kaneohe, Hawaii, sailing doublehanded, finishing second, and beating most of the fully crewed boats. “That was fun,” Sally says. Stan raced the next edition singlehanded, and they followed that up by winning the Pacific Cup’s doublehanded division in 1996.

“When we bought the boat, it took longer than we thought to pull it back out of the state that it was in, which wasn’t very good,” Sally says. “There were bullet holes, fleas and homeless people living in her.”

The boat had been sitting in a Northern California boatyard for seven years, and to say it was in tough shape would be understatement. “We thought we would have her in the water within six months,” Sally says. But reality bit one rainy December day in Santa Cruz, she says. “We were sitting down below going through our lists, and we noticed there were waterfalls coming along inside the hull. We said, ‘Well, I guess we have more to do.’”

The refit that followed included ­removing and replacing all of the deck hardware, and replacing the hull-to-deck joint, an ongoing effort that has resulted in there being “almost nothing original on the boat,” Sally says. They’d originally bought the boat to go cruising after racing 505s for decades, but in 2014, after dozens of coastal races, they finally committed to “cruising her.”

They spent the next five years linking passages on and off, sailing down the West Coast, through the Panama Canal, and then up the Eastern Seaboard. “We got to know the boat in a different way—as a cruising boat,” she says. But at some point, Stan had the itch and the urge to enter Illusion in the 2020 edition of the Cruising Club of America’s Newport Bermuda Race.

“Stan had to talk me into it,” Sally says. “I was enjoying the cruising, and he said we had to do one more Bermuda Race.”

Of course, like everything Stan Honey does, this was calculated and carefully considered. “We’d bought the boat when I was 33, and we’ve sailed it very hard in both ­single- and doublehanded races, including five Hawaii races, and dozens and dozens of inshore races,” he says. “But as we’ve gotten older, it’s been hard to sail the boat as hard, so I thought it would be fun to do one more race where we could sail the boat really well.”

If they could get the best possible ­amateur crew for the race, who would it be? Stan asked Sally, to which she responded: Don Jesberg, Carl Buchan and Jonathan Livingston, all West Coast friends and sailing legends themselves. “But I said they’ll never agree to go with us.”

On that one and only point, she was wrong. Within 10 to 15 minutes of Stan sending an email to the three of them, the universal response was, “I’m in.”

“When they immediately responded, it was like, OK, I guess we’re going to do it,” Sally says.

With the COVID-19 pandemic ­eventually shuttering the 2020 running of the race, however, the Honeys resumed cruising in the Northeast, with two seasons in Maine. As the 2022 edition approached, they enquired once again of their crew, and Sally’s dream team remained committed.

Jesberg, she says, owns a Cal 40 on the West Coast and came with a quiver of sails, and Buchan came with his unique Olympic-medal-winning skillset. “He’s inhuman in his way of steering through anything,” Sally says. Stan says he’s an alien. “He gets into a zone, and he’s just amazing. Jonathan is a fabulous guy on the foredeck.”

With nearly 10,000 ocean miles ­having slid past the boat’s perfectly smooth bottom, Illusion was well-prepared and equipped to win when the Honeys and their mates set off with the Class 10 start on a sun-and-fog-kissed afternoon in Newport on June 17.

“Leaving the start, we were the leeward-most boat,” Stan says. “In fact, people were yelling at us for missing Mark 2A because they were confused about Mark 2 and Mark 2A, but we were the leeward-most boat in order to be able to get to the [Gulf] Stream easily and where we wanted to enter it. We knew we were going to get lifted and didn’t want to have to fight low to enter the top of the meander. We got within about 3 miles of my entry-point goal. We started out east and then went west to the Stream entry point, and then the Stream took us east again. We only jibed twice in the Stream to stay centered up in the eddy.”

The eddy that Honey had targeted proved to be the magic carpet ride they needed to jet them down the racecourse, and you can bet your sextant the winning move was all very calculated.

“It played out as expected,” Stan says. “There is some stuff [in the models] that I set aside as being unpredictable—like the first set of eddies that are south of the Stream. That whole area down there… All the models show stuff, but I have learned to have so very little confidence in it that I won’t invest in miles to optimize for it. If I’m confident in a model, I’ll trust it for the Stream, for eddies north of the Stream and for the single eddy south of the Stream, but nothing south of that. So, that part was just luck of the draw.”

With spinnakers and reaching gear ­getting all the action, their progress down the track was swift. “On a slower boat like the Cal 40, we can go 22 and we average 8 [knots], but we are often averaging something like 7, and if the Gulf Stream is going something like 4 [knots] it’s a huge deal, so you have to get the Gulf Stream exactly right.”

You heard that correct: Seven hours of fast sailing with a 4-knot turbo boost.

“[Stan] chose a good course,” Sally says with a chuckle. “The conditions were just what the boat loves—heavy air reaching—and it was perfect. When reaching with this boat, she just heels over, and the more wind you get, the faster she goes.”

With staggered four-hour watches, every two hours someone new would come on deck. Jesberg and Sally swapped with Livingston and Buchan, allowing Stan to do his thing on deck, in the nav station and in the galley, making coffee and serving up Sally’s fresh lasagna.

“Don was terrific on what was happening next, and plotting it out and keeping everything organized so that everyone knew what was going to happen,” Sally says. “Stan would call the jibe, and Don would do the details.”

And whenever Buchan was on the helm, they made haste toward Bermuda. “He has total confidence,” Sally says. “He doesn’t chatter at all—he’ll talk, but there are times where he’d say, ‘I’d love to talk to you now, but I can’t…’”

“During the race, you’re totally focused on doing everything you can and taking Advil when you need it. But all of a sudden, when you finish, you can appreciate what’s going on, let out a sigh that you’ve done it. We fulfilled what we wanted to do.”

It’s perhaps fitting that Buchan logged the team’s top speed—a burst of 22 knots, which Sally says was one of the true highlights of the race: “We were on starboard, and I was behind him playing the sheet. There was one wave that started to pick him up, and another wave behind that and then another—it was at night and I’m going, ‘Woo, woo, woo!’ Which woke everyone else up. Stan came up and asked what’s going on.”

“Cal 40 surfing is like surfing a brick off a curb,” Stan says. “It goes really fast for a short period of time.” For the record, it’s not the boat’s personal best, Sally says. That was 25 knots in the Pacific Cup, with the two of them under spinnaker outrunning a squall.

With an early jump on the fleet, the crew on Illusion were confident in the yellow brick road that Stan had laid out for them, and the final stage went according to plan as well.

“We knew the wind was going to shift to the north and northeast toward the finish,” he says, “so we worked our way west again to be inside that final shift and came into the finish on port. Overall, we went east, west, east and west over the course of the race.”

The early-morning finish was “magic,” Sally says. They were confident they’d done all the right things to give Illusion its Bermuda Race win. “It was beautiful seeing all the tall masts in front of us, and I thought, What are we doing with all the big boats? I’ve done two Bermuda Races in very different conditions, and it was pretty amazing. During the race, you’re totally focused on doing everything you can and taking Advil when you need it. But all of a sudden, when you finish, you can appreciate what’s going on, let out a sigh that you’ve done it. We fulfilled what we wanted to do. It’s a great way to end it, and we have done everything we can think of with her, so it’s the final chapter.”

It may be Stan and Sally’s final race with the boat (they’ve since bought a powerboat to cruise), but it’s certainly not the last we’ll see of her. They’ve sold Illusion to their nephew, so it remains in the family.

“She’s not out of our lives,” Sally says. “We brought her back to life as a full racer, and now we’re hoping our nephew and his soon-to-be wife will fill it up with little kids and turn it into a family boat and start another chapter.”

Whatever happens will happen, she ­concludes, before reflecting on the fact that her father sailed the Bermuda Race eight times back in the ’60s and ’70s, and that was her first race with him. “He loved it, and so it’s nice to know whatever happens, up there he’s smiling.” ν

Editor’s note: The Honeys’ account of their Bermuda Race experience was one of many competitor interviews recorded at the Royal Bermuda YC, which are viewable on the Newport Bermuda Race’s YouTube channel.

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The idea to compete in the Bermuda Race started off as kind of a joke, something that was seemingly impossible. After all, as some of the girls pointed out, it’s a huge race; the word “crazy” was used. But the seed had been planted.

The young sailors, made up largely of teenagers, had been racing with the Collegiate Offshore Sailing Circuit in summer 2021. Their final race, the Ida Lewis, was canceled thanks to Hurricane Henri, so they were figuring out what to do next over pizza when the following summer’s Newport Bermuda was thrown into the mix. 

“It was [our coach] Richard Feeny who ended up saying, ‘That’s not completely out there,’ and it put this idea in our heads that we could do it,” team member Milla Clarke says. “And we did it!” And that’s how the country’s oldest organized ocean race got its first-ever all-female youth team at its 52nd edition this past June. 

The team is made up of seven students from the Lincoln School in Providence, Rhode Island, ages 16 to 18—Milla Clarke, Sophia Comiskey, Callie Dawson, Gigi Fischer, Elizabeth Gardner, Phoebe Lee and Olivia Vincent—plus Sarah Wilme, age 20, a boatbuilding student at IYRS in Newport, and four female coaches. They not only “did” the race, but they did very well, finishing 27th overall out of the 187-strong fleet, and placing eighth in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse division of 18, which comprised mostly professional crews. 

Bitter End Yacht Club became their title sponsor when its President, Kerri Quinn Jaffe, was reading about them in Newport This Week over her morning coffee and realized that one of the girls had gone to preschool with her daughter, which really brought it home for her exactly how young they were. 

“That had me daydreaming about being a mother of one of these brave youth sailors, and how I might feel if my daughter came home and told me she wanted to compete in the 635-mile offshore race, considered one of the more challenging offshore races in the North Atlantic,” Jaffe says. “From there I started thinking about the face of sailing and our industry, and how Bitter End has always been a training ground for youth sailing, and the importance of us continuing that tradition as we evolve our next chapter.”

The girls had been training at Oakcliff Sailing in Oyster Bay, New York, which is run by Dawn Riley, a three-time America’s Cup sailor and also a Bitter End ambassador, representing its Bitter End Provisions clothing line. “Dawn and I talked about how this was a moment in time not only for these young sailors, but also for women in sailing and for youth in sailing. As we look to the future, it is critical that we develop more youth and more diversity in the sport, and we felt this team stood for something important,” Jaffe says.

In the months leading up to the race, the girls lived and trained together at Oakcliff Sailing every weekend, leaving straight after school on Thursday, sailing Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and returning to Rhode Island on Sunday night in time for school Monday morning. They trained and raced in the Farr 40 that they would use for the Bermuda race under head coach Libby Greenhalgh, who had been the navigator on the all-female Team SCA in the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean race.

This intense lead-up and the fact that they had been sailing together for over a year helped them tremendously, they say. “We know each other really well, and we understand what people are going through, how to help them, and what they need in order to do well. When you have that dynamic within a team, I think it’s a lot easier to do well,” Sophia Comiskey says.

Gigi Fischer seconds that: “We have this aspect where on land, and even sailing sometimes, we have so much fun, but we also know how to come together as a team, and click into what we call ‘race mode’ and stay focused.”

They describe the mostly downwind race as fairly seamless, until the last morning, when they lost their gooseneck pin connecting the mast and boom overboard and had to jury-rig a solution out of Dyneema. “It was definitely a tense moment for our team. But we were all able to rally and come together and safely work out this problem. Other boats had encountered this as well, and they had to head back unfortunately, but we muscled through as a team and were able to finish,” Olivia Vincent says.

Their watch schedule was grueling, with little sleep to be had over the three-plus days it took them to reach Bermuda: four hours on deck, where they would rotate positions, two hours of standby watch, and just two hours of sleep, “which you didn’t even get most of the time because we would have either an all-hands-on-deck situation, or you weren’t able to sleep,” Fischer says.

In the tough moments, such as being roused from their bunks, faced with wet leggings and “waterproof” socks that weren’t doing their job, their camaraderie pulled them through. “My partner, Callie, would always say, ‘We can’t get out of this; let’s just get into this,’” Clarke says, and they made it fun together. They also had the mindset of “I get to be here, instead of wishing I were somewhere else,” Comiskey adds. “And I think that makes you appreciate everything you’re doing.”

In general, they played it safe with sail choices, averaging 13 knots over the course of the race, while preserving their sails. “We ended up ripping only one sail, which we were able to repair on the boat with the sail-repair kit,” Fischer says.

An unintended factor in their success was the fact that they had no satellite weather data, so they did not end up routing around potential systems as some other teams did. When they neared Bermuda and their phones came back to life, they were able to access the tracker app, and it came as a surprise to them how well they had done. 

In contrast to their departure from Newport, where they said they had felt empowered and respected, in Bermuda they felt that they were treated differently because of their gender. They didn’t get offers to sail on better boats with more established teams as boys who hadn’t done as well as them did, but they found their own networking opportunities—in the women’s bathroom of the yacht club of all places.

“That was our favorite place,” Comiskey says. “We did some serious networking in there,” Clarke adds. “There were so few women, but the women who were there have experienced the same things as we have, and they were much older than us. They shared their wisdom and told us how they’ve made it. It was really encouraging.”

More than 30 years have passed since Dawn Riley was part of the first all-women’s team to sail around the world in the Whitbread race. “There’s still a place for all-women and all-girls teams. But it isn’t a fight; it’s a celebration,” she says.

“Overall, it was just an amazing experience,” Clarke says. “I feel so privileged to be able to do this and also so grateful to be able to do it with these girls.”

“What these young women did was an incredible adventure at sea, and we encourage and celebrate those adventures, albeit on a different scale,” says Lauren Hokin, third generation of the family who has Bitter End since 1973. “Our mission is, ‘Get out there, get on the water, get under the water, get close to nature and the elements.’ There’s so much to learn from the adventure.”

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A pair of Pac52 class boats, Christopher Sheehan’s Warrior Won and Jim Murray’s Callisto, renewed a lively rivalry in a race to the finish of 52nd Newport Bermuda Race last night.

That the two were racing in different divisions—Warrior Won’s Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division is more oriented to professionals and Callisto’s St. David’s Lighthouse, for amateurs—didn’t matter. It was the third head-to-head showdown between the crews over the past year, and they were within sight of each other on the water, which allowed each crew to gauge their performance against a well-known competitor. Trial and error are how racing programs advance.

Sheehan (Larchmont, New York), however, placed another notch on his belt when Warrior Won came out on top, finishing at 02:10:34 ADT for an elapsed time of 56 hours, 43 minutes and 34 seconds and line honors in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division.

Murray’s (Lake Bluff, Illinois) Callisto wasn’t far behind, finishing at 02:55:01 for an elapsed time of 57:48:01 and line honors in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division.

The two teams were the third and fourth finishers overall in this year’s Bermuda Race, and now they’re the provisional leaders in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse and St. David’s Lighthouse divisions, respectively. There are many more finishers to come, but this year could be a year that the bigger, faster boats do best.

“The Callisto program and Jim are wonderful people,” said the 56-year-old Sheehan. “They pushed us hard in every race we’ve been in. We’re pushed to be as good as we are because they’re as good as they are.”

Sheehan’s Warrior Won captured overall and class honors in the Transpac Race last year and in the Caribbean 600 last February. In both races, Murray’s Callisto placed third in class and fifth overall.

“Chris and his team are setting fire in offshore racing,” said the 49-year-old-Murray. “We’ve had the opportunity to line up against them three times in the past year, and it’s great to race those guys. They set the standard.”

Berthed next to each other at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club marina, members of the two crews both spoke of difficult conditions, which started before the race even began.

“I think it was an incredibly challenging race,” said Murray. “The forecast went out the window when the front moved through the starting line (on Friday). It immediately became a downwind race. We chased the front all the way to Bermuda, so we had a confused sea state. The winds were up and down and quite shifty. It was a whole mix of everything you could get. It was a great race.”

“The pre-race forecasts had us doing a jib reach the whole way. It transpired on the day of the start that it would be downwind and we brought a couple of spinnakers for that scenario,” said round-the-world sailor Stu Bannatyne of Warrior Won. “It was a tricky race at the end. Hard on the gear. A lot of boats sustained damage but we kept it together. We pushed the boat hard; it was a great effort.”

The Warrior Won crew outdueled Callisto in part because they had all-hands on deck for the final 17 hours or so, from 0900 on Sunday to the finish.

“I reckon one key part of the race was the full court press,” said Bannatyne. “We had everyone on deck, pushing 110 percent. We watched tracker religiously over the last day and that made a difference. It was cool to do a downwind race to Bermuda.”

Being in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division, Callisto’s crew had 10 amateurs and four professionals. The pros, however, are not allowed to helm the boat. Murray said that they rotated through six amateur helmsmen who knew how to handle the boat, and the pros were great at coaching in the very hard conditions.

“Saturday night we were going 20 knots and launching off waves,” said Murray. “They were only 3 to 4 feet, but quite steep and coming out of nowhere. And it was pitch black. The crew buckled down and kept their heads in the game. We were able to get through the evening and keep everybody present and focus on driving the boat to Bermuda.”

Murray said that they broke one important spinnaker due to the rough conditions. Warrior Won also blew out a similar sail.

“We lost one spinnaker, just due to the incredible sea state,” Murray said. “It was our A2+, our up-range spinnaker, so pretty important. We used an A2 the rest of the race, but had to nurse it. We dialed back about 10 percent. Luckily, the kite we had was really well made and held together to the finish.”

The bulk of the fleet is making good progress towards Bermuda, and more and more boats are beginning to cross the finish line off St. David’s Lighthouse.

About 32 minutes after Callisto, the Reichel/Pugh 74 Wizard, chartered by Fred Detwiler (Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan) and Bruce Aikens (Birmingham, Michigan), was the fifth overall finisher and second in St. David’s Lighthouse Division.

A little more than two hours later Zygmund Beatty’s (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) TP52 Hooligan finished, followed by Dawn Riley (St. Clair Shores, Michigan) and crew aboard the Maxi yacht OC86 from Oakcliff Sailing, both in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division.

Winds have been lighter across the course on Monday, and the double-digit speeds of many boats yesterday have fallen significantly, and the bulk of the fleet still at sea is expected Tuesday into Wednesday.

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The Rolex Fastnet Race started early again this year, kicking off at midday on a cold and gloomy January Monday. This start wasn’t on a crowded Solent, but rather at the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s offices in London when the online entry portal opened for business. There were 340 places available in the IRC fleet, and they were all gone in 4 minutes and 37 seconds — a mere 13 seconds outside the record achieved in 2017. The reserve list has a hundred boats on it.

The record sign-up runs counter to all the things we read about modern life — ­attention spans are dropping; no one wants to do anything for more than a couple of hours; the multiplicity of entertainment now on offer is diluting participation generally; and sailing in particular has lost its way in attracting and keeping its people.

None of which seem to apply to the Fastnet Race. The first boat to enter this year was Venomous, a Farr-designed, Carroll Marine 60 owned by Derek and Sandra Saunders. Derek has completed 14 Fastnet races, going back to the 1980s. They now race their boat as a business called Windward Sailing, which offers paying clients the opportunity to do the race, along with all the qualifying sailing.

The desire to participate in the RORC’s classic has made the entry period a stressful time. “It’s led to a stressful New Year for those who really want and need to do the race,” Derek says. “As a charter company, we need to reassure our clients that their participation is assured as long as the sailing part is complete, and not be told ‘sorry we can’t sail the race as we do not have an entry.’”

The demand to do the Fastnet — whether from individuals signing up with companies such as Windward Sailing or owners wanting to take their own boats — comes at a time when the entry and qualification demands are stricter than ever. In the case of the Fastnet, the experience ­requirements mean that at least 50 percent of the crew must sail 300 nautical miles of RORC (or equivalent) racing, sailed within 12 months of the start of the race. There are additional rules mandating that survival and first-aid training be undertaken as well. And that’s just the crew. Each boat must meet OSR Category 2, plus the RORC’s additional prescriptions.

Given all hurdles — and let’s not get started on the cost — what is it about these races that keeps bringing people back in such huge numbers? The first boat from the United States to enter the 2019 race was Joseph Mele, with his Cookson 50 Triple Lindy. Ironically, he didn’t have to rush — as a RORC member he gets a week to register interest in the race, since members have first priority — but he did anyway. “I was too excited about the race not to submit my entry as soon as possible,” he says.

Mele’s crew consists of committed offshore racers; they raced the Newport Bermuda, Sydney Hobart, Fastnet and Middle Sea Race in one 16-month period and also have done the Caribbean 600. When they first entered for the Fastnet in 2017, the entry period came right after they had completed the 2016 Sydney Hobart Race.

“I was vacationing in New Zealand with my family, and because of the time difference I had two crew members back in the USA assigned to submit our entry as soon as the process opened,” he says. It turns out the back-up was necessary, after an internet connection failed. “It took us 28 minutes to submit the entry, and after reading that over 400 boats had applied in the first five minutes or so, I was sure we had missed out.”

RELATED: Full for the Fastnet Race

What is the appeal for Mele?

“I came to offshore racing from a cruising background,” he says. “I love the natural beauty of being offshore for sunrises, sunsets and different weather systems. I enjoy putting a fun, compatible and competent crew together to tackle the adventures and challenges that offshore racing involves.”

Derek Saunders also sees the ­attraction of the personal challenge. “The Fastnet Race is an iconic race that represents to many weekend sailors their personal Everest,” he says.

Saunders started taking people around the Fastnet Rock 30 years ago. “The 1979 Fastnet disaster brought the race to the attention of the general public, as it received a lot of media coverage. It’s ironic that instead of putting people off the idea of competing in the race, many see it as a challenge — which of course it is.”

Eddie Warden Owen, the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s chief executive, has noticed that offshore racing now appeals to an entirely different group of people than those that race inshore. And he feels that this might be the key to its growth — the sustainability of so many other long-distance ocean races such as the Bermuda Race, Transpac and the newer Caribbean 600.

“There used to be quite a big overlap years ago,” he says. “People would do the Solent points [a series of inshore day races], and they would do offshore racing. Now it’s clear from the IRC Europeans that we did last year that inshore racing appeals to a much narrower band of people. We only had 30-odd boats; we had half the fleet that we expected. Very few of those were the boats that really sail with us offshore.

“The offshore people didn’t want to do the inshore racing, and the inshore guys didn’t want to do the offshore, and that was interesting. Also, when the Offshore Sailing World Championships was going on in Scheveningen in Holland with just under 100 boats, there were 125 boats doing the Cowes to Dinard to St. Malo Race.”

There are people who want to go offshore, he adds, because of the quality of the crews they have.

“If you want to win inshore, you’ve got to really be on the boil with crew, with your boathandling and performance, you really need to be up there,” Warden Owen says. “Yet offshore, you can have a really good race, and the result doesn’t really matter — you’re with your mates, you’re with your friends. You’ve got more time to change sails. The tack at the windward mark doesn’t really matter that much. It’s about strategy and tactics. And it’s probably about switching the phone off and saying, ‘I’m away from work, I’m doing something that I enjoy, and I’m with a group of friends that I enjoy sailing with.’

“I can only imagine that that’s why people prefer it. They know they can’t win inshore, but they have a chance of getting a decent result offshore, which enthuses them. Then there’s the challenge of the navigation, there’s the arrival at a port and a nice meal, a few drinks with your mates, and then somebody steers the boat back while you have a sleep.”

Warden Owen suspects that the success of the Fastnet is an extension of its popularity. “Because it has got a worldwide reputation, and the fact that it’s limited to 340 boats means there has been a bit of a push to try and get in the race,” he says. “And it has come down to how quick are you on your computer at midday, the first week in January.”

The popularity of offshore racing is not restricted to the Fastnet; while the RORC’s glamorous centrepiece is the big daddy in this field, the Newport Bermuda Race attracted 170 entries to the starting line in 2018, the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race had 92, and the Caribbean 600 (also run by the RORC) got a record of 88 boats in 2018. The Rolex Middle Sea Race also drew a new record of 131 registered entrants in 2018, the race’s 50th-anniversary running.

While such races remain popular, the entry levels are mostly static and short of the entry limit, however. There is something about the Fastnet in particular, and much of that might just be about accessibility. There are lots boats geographically close to the racecourse, particularly in some of the powerhouses of offshore racing — France, Holland, Germany, Scandinavia and the U.K. While the phenomena is reflected worldwide to some extent, it is strongest in Northern Europe, and it finds its greatest expression in the one classic race in the region — the Fastnet.

“To back up this idea that in our area, the Channel, Northern Europe, offshore racing is getting stronger is the fact that last year, all our races were above the target that we’d set,” Warden Owen says. “We were above all those targets in 2018, a non-Fastnet year. This year we would expect it to be up again [because of the Fastnet], but we think it will be above 2017, because the interest seems to be growing.”

The RORC has played its part in ­encouraging the growth by simplifying online entry with a bespoke software system that records and stores each entry’s unique details.

“If you come back every two years, it’s there, all your information is there,” Warden Owen says, “and we try and make sure that everybody gets into the same marina; we have a great party at the end, and I think we try and make the competitor experience as challenging and fun as possible.”

Whatever the secret sauce may be, long may it continue to work.

The biennial Newport Bermuda Race serves as one barometer of the health of ocean racing in the United States. Despite increased safety regulations and costs to compete, the race has maintained healthy participation for two decades.

• 2000 – 175 starters
• 2002 – 182
• 2004 – 154
• 2006 – 263 (centennial year)
• 2008 – 197
• 2010 – 183
• 2012 – 165
• 2014 – 163
• 2016 – 133 (predicted storm)
• 2018 – 170

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You know those beautifully quiet, majestically serene offshore moments? Well they don’t happen here.”

What Taylor Walker is referring to is the constant drum of conversation among the crew of Dreamcatcher, a 1972 Swan 48 currently being sailed by the young MudRatz Racing Team.

Several hours earlier, we are tied to a dock in Stamford, Connecticut, preparing for an overnight practice on Long Island Sound. Two weeks remain until the start of the 51st Newport to Bermuda Race, and with only a handful of practice nights on board, tonight’s objectives are clear: gain experience sailing in the dark, test new instruments and deliver the boat 70 miles to Mystic, Connecticut, where a morning rig-tune session and evening fundraiser await.

MudRatz was born in spring 2014 from interest in creating a junior sailing “superteam.” With advanced coaching and increased resources, these regional teams can fast-track the learning process for the more competitive-minded. MudRatz founder Brandon Flack didn’t want to cannibalize local yacht clubs and their summer programs, so the initiative began life limited to the wing seasons. The boat donations started with a Melges 24, but the fleet of toys at MudRatz’s disposal has since grown, as has its racing calendar. It now looks after a Melges 20, a 49er, three Melges 24s, a Melges 32 and, most recently, a Swan 48.

It’s April 2018, and Dreamcatcher sits high in its cradle in Jamestown, Rhode Island. “Welcome to the new team clubhouse!” yells Flack from the elevated deck to a confused 20-year-old Sarah Wilkinson, standing alongside the keel below. For a team without a physical address, there is some truth to the statement. “Brandon, what have you done?” she replies.

Sarah’s father, Don “Donzo” Wilkinson, tragically passed away while sailing in 2010. As the founding commodore of the Mystic River Mudhead Sailing Association, Don was passionate about bringing people together over a common love for sailing, and in his honor, the Wilkinsons created the Donzo Wilkinson Award, recognizing such qualities in others. The award was eventually given to Flack for his work with the MudRatz, and upon hearing of its presentation, H.L. Devore — a good friend of Don’s — called Flack the next morning to tell him that Donzo would have wanted the kids to race to Bermuda. That planted the seed, which led the group to Stephen Kylander, who was adamant that Dreamcatcher, his boat of many years, find a worthy new home. The storied racer was soon gifted to Sarah and the rest of the team now ­assembled in Stamford.

Sarah is one of 11 sailors preparing for the 635-mile voyage to Bermuda. There’s also 17-year-old Peter Cronin, diagnosed with a degenerative hip disease that barred him from contact sports. He took up sailing at age 12, and he brings a fiery desire to win. Fifteen-year-old Gannon Troutman, of Virginia, the youngest sailor on board, saw an ad for sailing and thought it’d be fun.

“I don’t really have an answer as to how I found this,” he claims, vaguely recalling a toy boat he once owned.

Troutman’s parents offered to put him through an introductory course, and he fell for the sport immediately. “I feel free when I’m on boats,” he says. “Especially offshore.”

Troutman now helms the family’s first boat, a J/70, but he ultimately aspires to sail professionally.

The remainder of Dreamcatcher‘s cast of young characters includes goofball Fitz Finkenauer, 22, a first-year engineer at General Dynamics, and Anne Longo, 20, who is prone to seasickness but vows to fight through. She’s given up sailing on Wednesday nights so she can fundraise while babysitting for other racers. Watch captain and recent Stanford graduate Lindsay Gimple, 22, is also an engineer at General Dynamics, and is joined by her younger sister Megan, an 18-year-old go-getter and comedian who’s missing this practice to be at prom. There’s the unflappable Morgan Buffum, 23, a gentle giant who never complains. Dreamcatcher boat captain and coach Neal O’Connell, 24, grew up sailing against Walker, and ­similarly possesses an enthusiasm for teaching kids how to sail. The adults, John Winder and Kylander, are on board as coaches, ­alongside Walker.

Whenever I try to reach Walker, he’s busy with something team related. He’s installing equipment, fundraising with parents or helping kids through personal issues. Even his fiancee is in on the effort, cooking and preparing the onboard food. At 29, he’s approachable and largely in tune with the kids, yet mature enough to create an environment of respect and discipline. What Walker says largely sticks, and that’s impressive as a young leader of youth sailors.

Walker oversees a small network of volunteers, but the kids must also fundraise themselves. When I arrive in Stamford, a few of them are writing thank-you notes in the cockpit. But tonight’s gathering is not about fundraising, it’s about practice, and as the team parents say their goodbyes, Walker tells me he’s just handed out the new wet-weather gear. “I didn’t want them to have it for the Block Island Race because I wanted them to know how lucky they are to be getting it,” he says. “We were so cold, but they know this is an enormous privilege.”

After a brief pre-departure checklist, we shove off into a windless, foggy twilight. Visibility is extremely limited, and once outside the narrow channel, Walker hands responsibility over to Cronin and Gimple, acting watch captains for the trip. Gimple runs a short but detailed safety briefing that covers emergency equipment on board and the planned watch rotation, then Cronin directs the group to get the sails hoisted.

There’s a lot of indecision as the mainsail starts to go aloft. Crew movement is rough and uncoordinated, and nobody seems too sure of what is happening next or what needs to be done. Slowly, though, all of the right pieces go into place and we edge out into Long Island Sound under main and jib in 3 knots of wind. The engine is turned off, but the boat is no quieter — the banter is accentuated by the stillness of the air. While everyone is settling in before nightfall, necessities like headlamps and batteries become a point of frustration — who stole whose, who forgot theirs — the little things that remind me these are kids and largely inexperienced in the art of offshore preparation. But that’s why they are here, and nothing is handed to them. They are learning from their own mistakes.

Darkness takes hold, yet still they talk, five of them huddled around the helm like a campfire. The stories are endless, and Cronin has seemingly destroyed a million boat trailers through no fault of his own. A personal favorite involves a blazing tire fire and an unlikely passerby with gallons of water with which to douse it.

The hours roll by. It’s now midnight, and there’s a group in the nav station monitoring the radar. A big thunderstorm is approaching from the west, and they’re apprehensive. Walker has been checking his phone’s weather app, but the lightning is a long way off. Nonetheless, with no wind, concern leads to action and the engine is turned on.

Now under power, the banter resumes, and I start to wonder if it will ever subside. I understand what Walker means when he says serenity doesn’t exist with this group. But I listen intently. This is a collection of young dinghy sailors desperate to grow into bigger boats. They are universally curious about what it takes to make sailing their life, and they are verbally ambitious.

Flack has managed to get a Q&A with Team Brunel as the Volvo Ocean Race fleet races toward Cardiff, Wales, so Walker starts filming questions from the group. Cronin wants to know why Pete Burling is called “Pistol Pete,” and Wilkinson wants to know how Abby Ehler got to be a boat captain in such a male-dominated event. Gimple is making a movie about the MudRatz adventure and has been filming everything, a media crewmember in the making.

At 0100, the threat of weather behind us is gone, so the engine is switched off. But the fog is thicker than ever. Miraculously, a few kids succumb to sleep. It’s FOMO, the youthful fear of missing out, that has kept most of them awake until now, but fatigue is slowly winning over their will to stay engaged. Wilkinson picks up a faint bow light off the port side. Whoever it was passed very close, but she was watching. The vessel wasn’t on AIS, but there’s also nobody monitoring at the nav station.

There’s a lot of talk about school, pending exams, graduation and summer plans. It’s clear this is a diverse group of kids that span in age and maturity, but their love for sailing supersedes all differences. Their ­curiosity for one another’s lives is genuine.

I capitalize on the tranquility to pick Walker’s brain and learn more about what makes the MudRatz different from other youth big-boat efforts. He asserts the distinction lies in the amount of preparation and work they do before and after racing.

“They are learning the work ethic necessary to survive in competitive sailing. They have no buildings, they have no funding. Group peer pressure to perform and work hard drives them,” he says. “There’s an element of self-selection to it too, where the kids that don’t put in the work don’t survive.”

Flack tries to reward that spirit using his own connections. For example, at the end of the previous MudRatz sailing season, he had the team pick two of their own — the two who worked the hardest — to join the crew of Hanuman during a practice day in Newport before the J Class World Championship. The two MudRatz representatives were so embraced by the Hanuman sailors that they were invited to join the crew dinner that night and come back the next day.

It’s now 0200, and we’re doing circles in the fog. They’re getting tired and a little disoriented. Things are pretty loose, but it’s important to remember that these are kids who aren’t home getting into trouble, wasting their time on their phones or sitting in front of a gaming console or television. It’s comforting to know that getting lost is still possible in 2018. A while later, I find out the donated radar isn’t working properly. With the heavy fog, inconsistent winds, inoperable radar and an 0900 appointment in Mystic, we again strike the sails and turn to power.

We motor through sunrise, and the boat is finally quiet save for the rumble of the diesel engine. They’ve talked themselves to sleep (or run out of Coca-Cola). I underestimated how significant age can be in terms of sleep and time management, and the effects of this are obvious with this young group.

The Bermuda Race has nonnegotiable “youth team” restrictions, requiring that 50 percent of the crew, plus one, are age 14 to 23, with an average age of 17. The Dreamcatcher crew are 15 to 23, plus Walker, Winder and Kylander, but the ­ambition for the next Bermuda Race in two years’ time is to have everyone on board under the age of 35.

Sailing experience aside, the main obstacle to that becoming a reality is safety. Older people tend to make wiser decisions, and particularly in challenging scenarios like sailing across oceans. But they are learning at that too. Walker instructs safety-at-sea courses for the Storm Trysail Club and has been drilling safe practices throughout the night. As part of its training earlier in the year, the MudRatz team sailed Dreamcatcher to SUNY Maritime in 20 knots to participate in a comprehensive safety course with life rafts and helicopter baskets in a live wave pool (from there, Cronin went straight to prom to hold court as king). Though tonight’s foggy conditions are not favorable for a man-­overboard drill, Walker maintains they conduct one every time they go sailing.

Nearing Mystic, Dreamcatcher is still wrapped in heavy fog. I’m downstairs, talking to one of the kids, when through the hatch comes a loud cry. We had nearly run aground on Seaflower Reef, an isolated rocky outcropping surrounded by deep water. Cronin, in the nav station at the time, claims somewhat confidently, “Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

I put my head to the window and there it is, right next to us. A second glance out the companionway shows our wake’s old trajectory running it right over. He clearly did not have it.

Sometime later, when his youthful ego recedes, he offers a sincere apology. “Sorry guys, that was a learning experience. I promise I’ll never make that mistake again.”

Ultimately, this overnight journey is about learning what it takes to compete, but it’s clear that being there for each other and caring for the team is paramount, as is getting firsthand decision-making ­experience, working hard and taking responsibility for actions. Nowadays, it’s far too rare that kids get such an opportunity. Yet, I also think they know it, and truly appreciate the chance to do Donzo proud.

Two weeks later, Dreamcatcher will finish the Newport Bermuda Race in four days, 14 hours, 23 minutes and seven seconds, winning its 15-boat Class 5 division and placing seventh of 85 overall in the amateur St. David’s Lighthouse Division. The MudRatz are also awarded the Stephens Brothers Youth Prize for the best performance by a youth-division crew.

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Leaving most of the fleet far behind in light winds, George David’s Rambler 88 crossed the finish line off St. David’s Lighthouse at 5:51:51 Eastern daylight time on Sunday evening. Earning line honors among the 169 boats racing in the 51st Newport Bermuda Race, the big gray boat’s elapsed time over the 635-mile course was 50 hours, 31 minutes, 51 seconds.

The custom 88-foot Juan K design ran into some slow patches with light winds early in the race, but after sailing through the Gulf Stream on Saturday, maintained double-digit speeds the rest of the way and left the next-placed boats several hours behind. The winds weren’t strong during the race, but the seas were relatively smooth.

“This race is typically a mid-sized boat race,” said David, “and rarely a big-boat race. But this time it was. It was almost like the ocean reached out and grabbed the smaller boats, one by one.

“It was a pretty benign race,” said tactician Brad Butterworth, while he and the rest of the crew enjoyed a traditional Goslings Rum Dark ‘N’ Stormy after landing at the Royal Bermuda YC dock. “There was no water on the deck — at least not back where we were,” he added. “Stan Honey gave us the right direction to head,” he added, “and we pushed it hard.”

About five hours after Rambler, two Volvo Ocean Race 70s, Warrior and Wizard, crossed second and third, 17 minutes apart. The former, owned by Steve Murray, Jr., and Stephen Murray, Sr., finished in front, but the latter, owned by Peter and David Askew, easily finished ahead after time corrections were applied based on the boats’ different ratings. George Sakellaris’ Maxi 72 Proteus finished fourth, an hour and a half later. When all times were corrected, the leaders were Wizard and Proteus, less than an hour apart, followed by Rambler 88 and Warrior.

Just before dawn, Jason Carroll’s Elvis, finished first in the Multihull Division, a first in more ways than one as the 2018 race was the first Newport Bermuda Race to include multihulls.

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Collin Alexander, the 18-year-old watch captain aboard the Tripp 41 High Noon, is on the helm. On deck beside him is Will McKeige, same in age and role, who is trimming the main and code zero. They’re in the midst of a tussle with Farr 72 Maximizer, vying for line honors in the 2016 Newport Bermuda Race.

The Junior Big Boat Sailing Team, from American YC (Rye, New York), had passed the Farr 72, now ahead of them, hours before. Then the wind shifted, and Maximizer was able to power-reach ahead. “They led us by a few miles for most of the night,” says McKeige. “And then the wind died and came around at 5 knots at a perfect angle for our code zero. Collin and I knew we had to get the sail up and go.”

Their confidence in the sail change stemmed from years of preparing for the Newport Bermuda Race, mentored by American YC members Peter Becker and Robert Alexander, who took on leadership of the Junior Big Boat Team in 2012. Between regional and distance regattas, team members assisted in return deliveries from Bermuda and Hawaii to log offshore hours. Their opportunity arose this year when the Tripp 41 became available for charter from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.

The Bermuda Race crew of Richard O’Leary, Carina Becker, Hector McKemey, Madelyn Ploch, Collin Alexander, Brooks Daley and Will McKeige was coached by the elder Becker and Alexander, as well as by pro sailor Guillermo Altadill, who came aboard, pro bono, to assist with coaching, tactics and navigation. “Guillermo pushed the kids a little harder than they had been before, but with a smile,” says Becker. “They really took to his guidance, and throughout the race, we were all on the same page because of Guillermo’s strategies.”

Altadill boosted the confidence of the young crew when, in the 48 hours before the race, a weather forecast threatened the start date and the participation of many teams. “We all agreed that we were ready for this with the group we had on board,” says Mc­Keige. “We were trying to convince other teams to stay in. We wanted a good race.”

“Every day we did things that we had never done before,” says McKeige of the coaching from Altadill, Alexander and Becker. “We had blocks blow up on us, and we had to figure out how to fix everything. Every day we had to deal with something new, and the adults guided us through it. I know how to take care of a boat now, thanks to them.”

In that final night of the race, however, Alexander and McKeige made the call on their own. Up went the code zero, and they blasted past Maximizer one last time. “We watched their mast light drop off the horizon, and that was when we knew that we had them,” says McKeige. “It was in the final sprint to the finish, and so we pushed the boat as hard as we could straight to Bermuda.”

Alexander and McKeige stayed on the helm and sheets from 0200 to 0700, and were two hours from the finish when they relinquished their stations. Maximizer was nowhere to be found.

“It was utterly wild for us,” says ­McKeige, recalling how High Noon crossed the finish line at St. David’s Light, second only to the 100-footer Comanche. “The Royal Bermuda YC commodore [Leatrice Oatley] arrived on a RIB with a bottle of champagne for us, which was just so awesome.” At home, this underage team would have had to pass on the drink. With Becker, Alexander and Altadill, the junior team washed down their win with some well-earned bubbly.

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2016 Newport Bermuda Yacht Race finish. HIGH NOON, a Tripp 41 skippered by Peter Becker and crewed by 7 young sailors aged between 15 and 18. sneaks over the St David’s Lighthouse finish line to take elapsed time honours within the traditional fleet.

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.

Four years ago his teenage children were getting interested in ocean racing, and he came up with a new approach: a unique training program at his club that came to be called the Young American Junior Big Boat Sailing Team.

Every junior on the boat is there because they’re competitive and they want to win the race.” He put youngsters in a J/105 racing in local regattas under the tutelage of himself and other big-boat sailors. It worked so well that the US Merchant Marine Academy Sailing Foundation loaned High Noon to his program to sail in the 2016 Newport Bermuda Race.

“This Bermuda Race will be the culmination of at least three years of work by these juniors,” he said last winter. “First they did overnight distance races, then weekend races, and then they looked for opportunities to sail offshore.” The young sailors underwent hands-on safety training, and some helped deliver boats home after ocean races. They are committed to the project, and so are their mentors.

But it’s not all about winning, said Becker. “The kids are resonating with this. They love big boats. It’s challenging, it’s social, and it’s really inspiring. You get out there and you see the stars overhead and you think, ‘the land is really far away.’”

High Noon‘s 2016 campaign was so ambitious that Becker and his colleague Rob Alexander, recruited a third adult to sail with them to assist with training, Guillermo Altadill, a Spanish sailor who has done ten ’round the world races. When he told the kids they had to change jibs three times in five minutes, they asked him why. Recalled Alexander, “He told them, ‘Because we have to do it, that’s why.'”

Two of those kids were the watch officer’s children, Colin Alexander and Carina Becker. Split-second sail handling was crucial in the race’s constantly fluctuating weather, with frequent changes of headsails and spinnakers. When it was light they went with the Code Zero when sailing close-hauled. When the wind came up, they favored a double-headsail rig for power reaching, sometimes tying in a reef.

They were prepared for heavy weather—each of the young sailors wore a scopolamine seasick patch—but got little of it in the race when, Becker said, the predicted storm “didn’t have much in it.” He credited their strategy of tacking downwind at aggressive angles for the big gains they made in this largely off-wind race, especially as they neared Bermuda.

Preparing for anything, the crew organized in three watches: three or four sailors (young and older) standing watch, another group standing by on deck, and the third resting below. They practiced everything; when the rudder snagged some Gulf weed, the crew knew what to do, most of them heeling the boat to one side while a shipmate leaned over the windward side and poked the weed away with a batten.

Like any boat that’s pushed hard in the ocean for several days, High Noon suffered some damage, but it was minor—a broken block here, some torn sails there—and with no injuries.

One goal was to do well, which they did in a way that became instantly famous. Another was to make the youngsters responsible leaders. “Our job,” Becker said of himself and Rob Alexander, the two parents, “is to help with tactics navigation, and sail selection.” He added, “I’m trying to give these kids the same passion and experience I was exposed to when I was young and sailing with older sailors.”

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Skipper Ken Read said that there were four main factors that led to Comanche’s record run to Bermuda which ended early today with the 100ft racer chopping almost 5 hours off the previous best time. He pointed to the total commitment of the owners Jim and Kristy Hinze Clark, to a boat that was built especially for breaking records, to a crew of seasoned professionals, and to Stan Honey, who Read called the world’s best navigator.

Comanche had just set a Newport/Bermuda Race line honors record with Read, Honey and a group of sailors who make up a good portion of Who’s Who in offshore sailing.

Read called the tactics on Jim and Kristy Hinze Clark’s 100-foot screamer which crossed the line off St. David’s Lighthouse June 19th at 4:22:53 EDT. Her elapsed time is a provisional 34hrs 42min 53sec, almost five hours ahead of the previous 39:39:18 set by George David’s Rambler in 2012. It was Honey who found a crack in the high pressure ridge stretching across the rhumbline on the opening night that trapped the rest of the fleet north of the fresher breeze above the Gulf Stream.

“Stan and I have a great working relationship,” Read said. “I love the tactical side of the navigation and he does the weather side. Breaking records is important to us as much as it is to Jim Clark, who followed the race every second of the way and called us on the boat two minutes after we finished!”

“Looking at the weather three days before the start, it looked like we would have a pretty good run at the record. One thing that concerned us was the late start and the wind shift that would go with it. There was a high pressure cell building across the course. With an earlier start we could have beaten the high, started on port tack and stayed on it all the way to Bermuda. Even if it was a sea breeze day, the wind would have been fading. That late start cost us four or five hours. We could have beaten that little high out on the easterly breeze but because of the delay, we had to take a left turn and go out and around it.’

Read said that instead of going all the way around the high, Stan found a space that separated the high into two cells which allowed Comanche to cut the corner and get just ahead of the ridge. “When we escaped, all of a sudden the hard part was over. The boat did it’s job.”

“The boat is just as good as it looks,” Read added. “She’s a big, wide, beamy boat that eats up miles on a reach. We were averaging 28 to 29 and our highest speed was 32 knots. If it is blowing 28 knots we’re doing 28. At wind speeds in the 14knott range, we outsail the wind by four knots or more. But you can’t sail a boat like this without a great crew. Kasey Smith is the boat captain and Ihave been around the world with him twice. I wouldn’t leave the dock without Kasey.”

When Stan Honey was asked to comment on his plan, he explained, “Because our start was so late, the northeaster wasn’t going to fill in all the way to the shore in the evening. There was a high-pressure ridge building south of Newport, walling off the course. We carefully went through all the weather files and compared them to the models and weather buoys and our own observations. We found one that worked well for us.”

“There was a portion where two little highs had separated with a bit of a hole in between. We sailed around the edge of the western high, gybing around it and never got below 8kts of wind. We gybed twice, actually.” Honey said.

Read added, “We expected to be drifting which would have killed our record hopes. But all of a sudden we pop out of the other side and it’s like— There is a God… let’s get out of here!”

Read and Honey were concerned that if this had been a conventional race with the boats knotted together in the early going, their late start would have left them sailing through the slower boats in pitch dark. Luckily the fleet was spread out by the early wind shifts. “It’s one thing in the Fastnet Race, but that is a daytime start and you can make hand signals to tell other boats that you are going to dip them, but that doesn’t work at night.”

The largest waves Comanche saw in the Gulf Stream were just 3 meters and the highest winds in the mid 30’s. After sliding out of the grip of the high-pressure ridge, which still holds many of the competitors away from the new wind in the Gulf Stream, the race was just a comfortable reach to Bermuda. Ironically, the highest winds, 49 knots, came during a squall while Comanche was navigating through the north shore channel heading from the finish line to the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in Hamilton.

Owners Jim and Kristy Hinze Clark plan to attend the prizegiving at the Bermuda Governor’s house on Saturday 25th June, and Read has already gone back to his day job as President of North Sails to build a mainsail with a 300 foot luff for a new sloop. For Comanche, it’s back to Newport to prepare for a trans-Atlantic monohull record attempt later this summer, maybe another Sydney Hobart, and the Transpac in 2017.

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This year’s Newport Bermuda Race is the 50th running of the biennial offshore race, and the entry list is one of the largest the race has seen in its history. Included on the roster are internationally recognized syndicates, local favorites, historic offshore programs, neophytes, and imports from around the globe.

Perhaps the most recognizable name on the entry list is Jim and Kristy Clark’s supermaxi Comanche. The team has its sights set on taking down the elapsed time race record of 39 hours and 39 minutes, set by Rambler 88 in 2012. With an average speed of 16 knots for the 635-mile race course from the start at the mouth of Narragansett Bay to the finish off St. David’s Head, Bermuda Rambler has set the bar high.

The 2016 edition is also the first year a Chinese flagged team will sail in the race, aboard a J/44 chartered from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Team Noahs is the first racing team with all Chinese members, from skipper to crew to sponsors, and they own the only TP52 in China. Team Noahs also has plans to sail Sydney Hobart this year.

Actaea, Michael Cone’s Hinckley Bermuda 40, among the smaller boats in the fleet, will be back to defend her title as the 2014 winner of the St. David’s Lighthouse Trophy for best overall corrected time. *

Owner George Sakellaris led his Maxi 72 Shockwave to line honors in 2014. This year he will put his new Maxi 72 Proteus to the test against two other Maxi 72’s, Hap Fauth’s Bella Mente and Dieter Schoen’s Momo.

The start of the race will be live streamed on Friday, June 17th, 2 pm EDT. In addition, throughout the race there will be four daily commentary videos featuring Andy Green. Check the Sailing World Facebook page and the Newport Bermuda Race Facebook page for updates and links to these videos as they happen.

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