Article sur la course des Bermudes

By John Rousmaniere

As of 1800 Sunday, six boats had finished the 2012 Newport Bermuda Race, each of them breaking an elapsed time course record. In addition, more has been learned about two boats that withdrew from the race.

The six boats that crossed the finish line by 1800 Sunday are Rambler, Bella Mente, Shockwave, and Team Tiburon (all in Class 10), followed by Med Spirit (Class 16) and Kodiak (Class 8). Class 10 is in the races Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division for professionally-crewed boats, Class 8 is in the St. Davids Lighthouse Division for boats with amateur crews, and Class 16 is for boats with canting keels or water ballast. Shockwave and Kodiak are the provisional corrected time leaders in the Gibbs Hill Division and St. Davids Division, respectively, and Med Spirit is the provisional corrected time leader in the Open Division.

First to finish Rambler is a 90-foot Reichel/Pugh sloop owned by George David (Hartford, Conn.). She averaged 16.06 knots down the 635-mile course in a time of 39 hours, 39 minutes, 18 seconds, and broke two close records. She clipped 9 hours off the course record set in 2004 for Open Division boats by Morning Glory (which averaged 13.06 knots), and 14 hours off the record for Lighthouse Division boats set by Roy Disneys Pyewacket in 2003 (averaging 11.8 knots).

Sailors who came ashore after their boats docked at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club on Sunday morning had vivid descriptions of high-speed, rough, wet conditions on the long, fast reach in the fresh northeast wind that prevailed from start to finish. Scott King, who sailed in Team Tiburon, reported that after starting under spinnaker, once the boat cleared the Narragansett Bay entrance buoys the crew set a double-headsail rig forward of the mast, with a topsail over a jib. They then took in and shook out reefs in the mainsail as the conditions warranted, with one or two sailors always with their hands on the mainsheet. They covered 385 miles in the first 24 hours in the race, averaging almost 17 knots. She felt slow when the speed dropped to 11, King said. Ive been in boats where 11 knots was not even part of the plan. Team Tiburon sailed Wizard a 74-foot sloop designed by Reichel/Pugh that was chartered by Mark E. Watson III, of Bermuda and sailed by a crew of 20 that included many U.S. Merchant Marine midshipmen.