Bermuda 1-2

We love hearing from the guys who get out there and do the races that most of probably won't get to do. It's also refreshing when they are told by guys who don't pretend to be rock stars. Frequent SA forum contributor Rail Meat sent us the report on his experiences in the recently held Bermuda 1-2. Enjoy.

The award ceremonies Sunday night marked the end to the 13 edition of what is arguably New England's premier short handed offshore event. Organized by Newport Yacht Club and Goat Island Yacht Club, this event has some great camaraderie and even better sailing. Past competitors have gone on to compete in the OSTAR, Two Star, and the BOC. In this past year, three of ten finishers of the Around Alone were Bermuda 1-2 alumni: Brad Van Liew, Derek Hatfield and Alan Paris.

This race attracts a diverse and eclectic group of sailors, any of whom come back to do this event over and over again. Juan Perez, on his Tartan 33, has been in every edition of this race, despite claims each time that he is not going to be back the next time. It is not uncommon for skippers to have done the race 4 or more times.

This year's race saw 13 first time entrants, and boats that included an Open 60, Open 50, Aerodyne 38's, a couple of Tripp designs, two Hobie 33s, an Olson 30, a Nelson Marek, a pair of Quests, a Pogo, a couple of C+C's and several others. If you were at all interested in the relative merits and speed of different boats for offshore passages, this was the race to get to see them side-by-side.

This year's edition also offered plenty of action, comedy and challenges. We also had a brand new web site, courtesy of Drew Wood, including forum, picture gallery, surveys, entrant data, positions, and really cool race tracker. Check it out at www.Bermuda1-2.org for more information as well as the results.

Leg One
When the boats moved off the dock for leg one on June 7, Ray Renaud on Aggressive could not seem to get his C+C to go into reverse. A quick dive into the 52 degree water revealed the problem, the fact that the 2 blades of his feathering prop decided to drop to the bottom of Newport Harbor. End of Ray's race? Nah. He grabs a hammer, his spare (!) 2 bladed prop, a nut and cotter pin and dives the shaft. Bang of the old hub, slide on the spare prop, spin on the nut and pop in the cotter pin. And while he had to sail out of the harbor to the starting line since his class ten minute warning had started, it did not seem to effect his overall results since he took a bullet in his class for the first leg.

Doug Shearer on Nimros had some trouble getting his main up and had to strip down his primary winch in the starting area, and Rich Ellis on Insufferable could not get his main all the way up until he realized that he run a couple of wraps of rigging tape around the mast.

We started out in light winds from the Southeast that died to nothing as soon as we cleared Newport harbor. After sitting in the fog for Saturday afternoon, the wind filled in 10-15 knots from the north east that evening and the fleet started moving for the first way point. By the time Sunday evening rolled around, we were approaching the top of the Gulf Stream meander and the wind died. Dying south to north, the back of the fleet got a couple of extra hours of progress and the fleet compressed as Monday morning dawned. At this point, we had lost Victor Pinherio on Alegria to autopilot problems and Brian Guck on Curlew to a broken gooseneck.

I have never gone into the Gulfstream with out a frontal system sitting on top of the north wall, and this trip was no exception. Monday morning dawned with no wind and towering clouds sitting 20 miles off to the south like the gates of hell. The wind filled in from the south and south west and started blowing 20-25. It was perfect conditions for the jib top reacher, and I kept it up for the rest of the race. The meander was giving us a 3+ knot boost, and I recorded a short period of 5 knot current. The front that had been moving in front of us had built up 9-12 foot swells and confused sea, and several boats were banged around hard. Mark Morwood on Por Favor woke up to find every item in his cabin tossed around when he got knocked down, and several of the skippers experienced autopilot problems. Ray Marine may have redesigned their control heads but apparently they still are prone to leaking. David Sherman on Palangi ended up hand steering most of the 635 miles. Rich Ellis also spent all but 3 hours of his 5 day trip on deck and Drew Wood, on Banzai, ended up hand steering most of the trip due to battery bank issues.

Once out of the stream we suffered from a 4 hour period of very light winds but there was a nice cold eddy that gave us a 2+ knot current boost. As the Bermuda high started to exert its influence the wind filled in from the southwest at 10-15 knots and the rest of the ride in was under sunny skies and light seas. As always, the 9 miles between the northern reef light and Kitchen Shoals light was the longest 9 miles on the ocean.

The fleet results were fairly compacted in leg one, but one boat stands out. Rick McCally sailed the shit out of his Pierson 33 and just crushed the fleet on corrected time. There was a period three days into the race when Rick and I were wallowing in no winds, about 100 yards apart. You know you are not having a good day when you are 75% of the way through a 635 mile race and a boat that you owe 73 seconds a mile to is sitting next to you. It was enough to put me off my feed. Barrett Holby also had a fantastic leg, just relentlessly putting miles on the fleet.

Leg Two
In Bermuda, the fleet was hosted in fine style by the St. Georges Dinghy and Sports Club. Families and crew for the return leg flew down to join the skippers. We enjoyed several parties at the Club, countless Dark and Stormies, a couple of days of gunk holing and also were able to watch as Alan Paris returned to Bermuda to a big reception and party.

The return leg kicked off on Friday June 21 with a front system moving off the east coast and heading South East down towards Bermuda. A separate low had passed over Bermuda in the previous couple of days. Winds were 15 off the line, and the broad reach tricked a number of skippers into flying their kites. But within an hour of the start, winds picked up to 23-25 and we found ourselves overpowered. I provided some good laughs for the fleet as Indigo executed perhaps the sloppiest takedown ever attempted. At one point I was pretty certain my next broach would either take out either Mike Millard on Wild Eyes or the light on Kitchen Shoal.

The big news of the first day was Everest Horizontal's capsize. As word started to trickle through the fleet on Saturday morning every one was bummed for Tim. Tim had entered the Bermuda 1-2 as a way to stretch his legs after finishing the Around Alone and it also gave him a chance to get his Shore Captain for the Around Alone, Rick McKenna, out on the water and in a race with the big Open boat. To have something like this happen was terrible.

The big decision was to head east or west of the rhumb line. East was much shorter, but the weather forecasts were threatening to leave us completely becalmed for the latter third of the race as the front moved through and the high filled in behind it. West added more than 100 miles to the trip, since you had to go really far west to avoid the meander. But it offered the possibility that what little winds you would have at the end of the trip would fill in from the west first.

Almost everybody chose to go east, and we all regretted it but not because of the weather. A giant warm eddy that was to the east and north of the meander ended up merging back into the stream and effectively making the meander much larger. Instead of making a short 40 mile crossing of the stream, we ended up crossing the stream and diving straight into the meander. We had 24 hours of 3+ knot currents facing us on the nose and no kind words were said for the router that most of us had used. The few boats that chose to go west, like Dave Sherman on Palangi, were able to counteract the additional distance with some great speed. And really put a hurt on the rest of fleet.

Winds blew 25-35 for the first 48 hours out of Bermuda, and we had a very large running sea. As we got up toward the Stream, the waves boxed up and it got much more rough. A line of squalls marched across the boats on Saturday, bringing rains so heavy that you could not tell where the air ended and the sea began. The top end wind speed in those squalls that I clocked on Indigo was 54.2 knots.

The bigger boats had an easier time of it, using their displacement to plow through the heavy stuff. Despite the conditions John Drodzal and Darren Wolter, on Ariana, were able to take showers and cook themselves some fine meals on the way home while they destroyed their class. 30,000 plus pounds of displacement comes in handy every now and then. Meanwhile, on the other end of the displacement spectrum Rich Ellis and Jan Brandt suffered on Insufferable with Power Bars, and their head consisted of the "bucket and chuck it" method. The rough seas and high winds caused a fair amount of damage in the fleet, including severely compromising the lower rudder bearing on Mike DeLorenzo's J boat, Coltrane. Unfortunately for the rest of Class II, his rudder problems did not seem to slow him up too much. Rich and Jan blew out their main sail, which was then patched up with duct tape and thread. Then they blew up their #2 head sail. On Indigo, we ripped the mount box for our hydraulic ram out of the side of the boat, blew up our vang, blew up the turning block for our main halyard, put a rip in our Asym, and put a rip in our Jib Top. Also, our Harken furler shook all of its set screws into the inky deep, leaving us with no furling capabilities. Ted Robinson, on Topaz, was handicapped by the fact that he was solo on the way home, and Ned Caswell on Lolligag had to turn back to Bermuda with an injured ankle.

The bigger and faster boats used their speed to their advantage, breaking free of the stream while there was still wind left up north. Every one else was fucked, coming out of the stream with 10-15 knot winds that then dropped down to 5 knot winds on day 4. The only good news was that the seas were flat, which meant the apparent wind was not moving around on us. The #4 head sails got stuffed below and the kites came out for the next 24 + hours. Occasionally, the wind would clock towards the bow and we would swap the Jib Top for the kite, but the asym got a lot of work for the last half of the trip. We finished up early Thursday morning, right after which the wind dropped to zero and stranded the remaining boats in a sweaty hell of glassy seas and roasting sun. Unlike the first leg, where the fleet was fairly compact, in the return leg there was a huge spread between the front of the fleet and the back of the fleet.

In the end, Tim Troy on Margaret Anna and Barret Holby on Wazimo ended up walking home with a ton of plate. Both sailed great races for both legs and kicked some serious ass. The competitors are a great group of people and there was some fun and challenging sailing going on. Good times.

If you want to see full results, check out the www.Bermuda1-2.org site. Newport Yacht Club hosts skipper meetings every 6 months or so for this race, and it is a great way to meet some of the people involved and figure out if you want to do the race in 2005. I highly recommend going to one if you can get to the Newport area. The next meeting is in November