The Publisher
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Jul 6, 2009, 1:01 PM
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Re: [The Publisher] Newport-Bermuda and Marion-Bermuda races
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From John Rousmaniere
Scuttlebutt 2880 - Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Since my name has come up in recent discussions that include criticism of the Newport Bermuda Race, as that race’s historian and a volunteer writer for its web site, I’d like to add some context. Except for a brief period (1907 to 1910), the ocean race now called the Newport Bermuda Race has followed the lead established in 1906 by its visionary founder, Thomas Fleming Day. In the words of a former chairman of the Bermuda Race Organizing Committee, John Winder, the race has an historic “core constituency” of amateur sailors in dual-purpose boats.
In recent years there have been three divisions for those sailors and boats: racer-cruisers, cruising boats, and doublehanders. The number of semi-pro and pro sailors (ISAF Groups 2 and 3) was tightly capped, and both groups were barred from steering. The race’s overall winner is the top boat in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division for amateur racer-cruisers—the largest division with 162 of the 263 starters in 2006 and 122 of last year’s 197 starters. The winner of the past two races had a totally amateur Group 1 crew.
There also are two hotly contested, smaller divisions for professional sailors (and the amateurs who wish to sail against them)—the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division and the Open Division for cant-keelers. Of the 460 total entries in the 2006 and 2008 Newport Bermuda Races, these pro divisions had 43 boats. The other 417 sailed in the amateur divisions.
Concerning cruising boats, the Newport Bermuda Race and the Marion to Bermuda Cruising Yacht Race (http://www.marionbermuda.com) enjoy a complementary relationship that allows and encourages cruisers to head far offshore year after year. The Newport race is the major East Coast ocean race in even-numbered years. In odd-numbered years, there are three big long-distance races on the East Coast, but only the Marion race is sailed across the Gulf Stream to Bermuda.
The two races jointly award the Bermuda Ocean Cruising Yacht Trophy (presented by SAIL magazine) to the cruising boat that has the best combined performance in consecutive Marion and Newport races. The Newport race promotes this prize and the Marion race in e-mails to its large list and on its web site (http://www.bermudarace.com). Fifteen skippers who competed in the 2007 Marion race (which had 72 boats) went on to sail the 2008 Newport race. A year later, 11 veterans of the 2008 Newport race entered the 2009 Marion race (whose fleet of 48 reflected the recession). Six skippers took their boats in all three races.
Thanks to these two races, a goodly number of cruising sailors have been able to go to sea every year, each time accomplishing some 1,500 miles of blue water passage-making as they race down to the Onion Patch and then cruise home. I’d say that’s a pretty good thing.
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