Marion to Bermuda Cruising Yacht Race

By BARBARA VENERI, Standard-Times Correspondent

HAMILTON, Bermuda -- While a high flying multihull was the first to cross the finish line at St. David's Head Light in the waters outside Hamilton, Bermuda, there was another duel to the finish among the monohull cruising boats competing in the race.

Expected to make landfall late last night were Hawke, a J-46 shoal draft sloop out of Marion and skippered by local sailor Sam Vineyard, and Mameluke, a Nelson Marek 49-footer crewed by midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy.

"The difference between the two boats is pretty radical," said Talbot Wilson, a spokesman for the Marion Bermuda race committee. Mameluke, a modern high-tech cruising racer, carries a different sail plan and deeper keel than the older shoal draft Hawke. Last evening, Mameluke was traveling three knots faster and on a more westerly course than Hawke, with Mameluke closer to the finish line.

According to Wilson, Hawke should capture the first place trophy in Class A and may win first-to-finish honors on corrected time. Mameluke, racing in the Celestial Navigation Class C, is the so-called "scratch boat" in that class, having to cede handicap points because of her high tech capabilities. Sixty-eight monohulls started the race last Friday, and seven multihulls took off a day later, bound for Bermuda in the 15th biennial running of the Marion Bermuda race.

"It's great to see this battle between the Naval Academy and a local sailor," said Wilson. He and other officials from the sponsoring yacht clubs -- the Beverly Yacht Club, the Bluewater Sailing Club and the RHADYC -- accompanied John Thompson, RHADYC Rear Commodore, to the finish line late last night to await the first monohull boats over the line. As of late yesterday, Mameluke was sailing at 10 knots while Hawke was moving at about 6½ knots, with both boats about 25 to 30 miles from the finish line.

The largest boat in the multihull division, Class M, Heartsease Larus Roc, owned and captained by Lars Svensson, crossed the finish line at about 5 a.m. Tuesday morning. Starting with the rest of Class M on Saturday, a day later than the bulk of the race fleet, Larus Roc passed most of the other boats in the fleet on Sunday, gliding effortlessly across the water in the 645-mile race.

As the full moon was about to set Tuesday morning, Larus Roc ghosted across the line in a 3- to 5-knot southwesterly breeze. Svensson, a heart surgeon, heads up the Heartsease Foundation from which the boat takes its full name. Volunteers at St. David's Light welcomed the crew, who shortly afterwards were officially welcomed to Bermuda by Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club Commodore Donald Jolliffe. Aboard the Larus Roc, navigator Ian Martin said the trip from Marion to Bermuda was "exceptional."

"We had a hard-fought three-hour beat out of Buzzards Bay," noted Svensson. "We had hoped to complete the race in 55 to 60 hours. We made up for the slow start covering 364 miles in the 24 hours after 5 p.m. Saturday."

In the eddy below the Gulf Stream, we had 20-knot winds and 12- to 20-foot seas. After we passed the weather trough below the Gulf Stream, we went in circles, dodged clouds looking for wind and tacked back and forth until we worked our way down to the breeze," Svensson continued.

"We did 10 to 12 knots until we turned from the breaker marks towards the finish," he said, noting Larus Roc did not have to tack to make its way across the finish line in the dark.
Alacrity, a Newick Traveler multihull skippered by Rex Conn, finished in second place in Class M just a little before 4 p.m. yesterday.

Starr Trail, a Farr 70 that was first over the line in 2003, opted to turn on its engines and motor back to its home port in Bermuda, dropping out of the race.

Fifty miles out as of late yesterday was Flying Fish, a Hammerhead 54 skippered by Charlie Pingree and heading for third place in Class M, the multihull class, doing 9.6 knots. Atlantic, a J-169 skippered by Ben Blake and doing 7 knots, was vying for second place in Class A with Visions of Johanna, a Chuck Paine Custom 62 cutter skippered by William Strassberg and doing 7.7 knots.

Also making great time in the last 30 miles of the race was Restive, a one-off Alden-designed yawl skippered by George Denny. However, because Restive was observed within the starting area of the Marion Bermuda last Friday before the Class C start, the boat will be given a one-hour penalty by the race Compliance Committee when they finish the race.

As of late yesterday, the bulk of the fleet was between 75 and 100 miles away from the island of Bermuda. Five boats dropped out of the race: Starr Trail in Class A; Fiona Rois and Saoirse, both in Class E; and Alegra and Falcor in Class M.

This story appeared on Page C1 of The Standard-Times on June 22, 2005.