2018 Newport to Bermuda Yacht Race

To find Triple Lindy much the way we left her (a few scratches here and there), we set ourselves into one week to prepare the yacht for sea trials and then after a week and half the amateur crew arrived in Newport from New York, Norfolk - Virginia, Halifax - Nova Scotia, Toronto (both in Canada) and Rome to embark on a seven day training season with legendary North Sails exec Andreas Josenhans (AJ) as the coach (and Tori as coach boat driver/crew house captain/entertain the owner).

The guys got a lot out of AJ’s wisdom, especially sitting in the crew house living room at 1800 every evening watching the day unfold in front of their eyes on the large screen television as AJ and Tori narrated what they witnessed throughout the day. After the debrief each evening, our owner Joe Mele made sure that we were all well fed and ready to hit the sack for the next days training. We learnt about 50% of our knowledge of our new sail, the Norths J0 (non-overlapping headsail flown from end of sprit on furler and cable, still not IRC recognised) during the training sessions. A great week was had by all on board, in all conditions from drifting to 30 knots.

We had a couple of set backs prior to the race with the mast jacks blowing up, mast step adjuster breaking and a fire in the NZ supplied charging system, but thanks to the great “folks” of Newport, RI we managed to have the boat back up and running two days before the race.

What a great race the Newport to Bermuda was this year, slow, but a fantastic experience. We had at least five to six other boats within sight (sometimes at booms length, mainly while drifting) day and night for four days.

With a fleet of 169 yachts starting the race, each division started from 1300 hrs at ten minute intervals, with the “big boat” fleet being in division 15, we started at 1520 hrs on Friday 15^th June in a 6 to 7 knot southerly. Thanks to the guys on Wizard (eventual division winners) for sending my old mate Chris Maxsted up the rig to spot breeze and kick mainsail battens over after tacking, we were shown that the right hand side of the course was favoured and had more breeze by Maxi pointing and yelling to the team below. (Wizard needs bluetooth comms to hide their knowledge!) The boat end of the start line was predominantly biased, so our fleet of 13 boats was pushing hard for the boat end, including Rambler 88 coming through at 10 knots when the rest of the fleet are doing 5 to 6 knots. There was no such thing as overtaking yacht keep clear, so we elected to go bow down and tack just as Rambler started to take our wind.

That decision had us heading right, away from a drifting fleet, through the press box and keep on pushing towards the deep shore where the tide was ebbing with considerable pace, which put us in front of the pack for the next hour until we were all lifted and Rambler, Wizard and Warrior were able to get their sail area and waterline length up and rumbling. So, for 1 hour of the race, Triple Lindy was leading on line and handicap honours. Things changed by the next morning.

We were pacing and beating our 50 footer rivals throughout the night with our J0 and Genoa Staysail combo, but the breeze continued to lift us and the guys with MH0’s ruled the fleet as we headed towards the favoured waypoint on the northern side of the 5 knot running Gulf Stream. Too far west and you had 5 knots of current on the starboard bow (our predicament) and twenty miles further east and the five knot current was on the starboard beam. We ended up having a gybing duel through the late afternoon and evening through the 60 mile wide Gulf Stream with six other boats, whilst the place getters in our class (we finished 6^th out of 13 in division) were all twenty miles further east.

Once we got through the Gulf Stream, things settled down into how the fleet developed. There were a few variations in fleet movements after the Gulf Stream, but not too many, but the few that did alter away from the fleet definitely provided hindsight to think about when all of a sudden, they were the boat that was six miles ahead of you after four to six hours of sailing.

We created the after the Gulf Stream strategy to stay with our fleet, not go on any wild goose chases, although some goose chases did pay off, but potentially mitigate losing our position in our divisional fleet, which, by the time we finished, this decision payed off. Two boats from other divisions that we were with while drifting kept on heading south west, while we played the clouds and shifts towards Bermuda with the boats in division 15. The last we saw of these two boats before we arrived in Bermuda the following afternoon was on the horizon behind us. When our fleet arrive in Bermuda, there they are happily drinking Goslings’ Dark and Stormy’s watching us arrive to the docks.

The finish of the Newport to Bermuda race is off St David’s Lighthouse on the western shore of Bermuda, with the harbour entrance 8 miles from the finish line, there is plenty of time discuss where we went wrong and what could have been done better. In our instance, we are still learning the boat and inventory (a masthead Code 0 would have been nice on the first night), but all in all, we sailed the best race we could under the circumstances of still learning our boat/team and beating other guys who have been at it for many years now was another level of satisfaction on board Triple Lindy.

I cannot report on the level of crew enjoyment in Bermuda, as my time there consisted of 18 hours, debriefing with my sail maker, trimmer and wife (trimmer’s 1^st bucks party), sleeping for a few hours, getting bags out of the container and then getting on a flight to Rome by midday for Giancarlo’s (trimmer/THE PACKAGE) wedding. Tori and I kept all of our body parts intact (the package was delivered to the bride) and we had a fantastic four days in Roma for the wedding of the century and yet again much some needed R&R.

Well, here we are back in Newport RI, wrapping things up, organising the next level of work for Triple Lindy. In a few years’ time, we might work out what deck fittings we need on board and what we can remove, but we are not up to that level yet. As the keel does not cant, it goes up and down, I am not too concerned. My only concerns are that the keel stays put and as I mentioned earlier, we beat some of the teams that have been doing this racing over here for a few years now. Caribbean 600, Transatlantic and Fastnet to come next year.