'fhrashing to Bermuda on the Oldest Ocean Race by John Ro usmaniere • • • •. . here are n't many rests of blue-water seamanship rhar are as historic, accessible, and respected as the race that's called "rhe Thrash to rhe O nion Parch" because it fea tures a lot of upwind sailing and fini shes at the hom e of the Berm uda onion . The Newpo rt Bermuda Race has been sail ed 46 times and is the oldest regularly scheduled ocean race. Even a typical fleet is a history lesso n. While recent prize-winners have included superb state-of-the-art racers, som etimes the ove rall winner is a stock cruiser-racer. M y own nine rides, since 1966, have been in big woodies (o ne bui lt in the 1930s, the other in the '50s), a Swan , a Tartan , a New Yo rk 40, a Mo rris, an Ohlson 38, and a McCurdy & Rhodes 38-foot custom boat. No wonder, then, that rhe 1994 race winner in a Swan 38, Kaighn Smith , sees the purpose of the race as "to allow cruising boars to race to Bermuda as racing boats." A normal boat operated by normal sailors has been the typical entry ever since Thomas Fleming D ay founded the race in 1906. The editor of The Rudder m agazine, he assaulted the old notion th at seafaring was suited only for p rofessio nal mariners, exclaiming, "The danger of the sea fo r generations has been preached by the ignorant." To prove his point, he organized a race from New York C ity to Bermuda. Asked why he wo uld do such a crazy thing, D ay-a romantic-replied, "Sailors wan ted to get a smell of the sea and fo rget fo r the time being that there is such a thing as God's green earth in the universe." Three boats between 28 and 40 feet LO .A., with a total of 15 sailors between them, started the 1906 race. To indicate how radical this was, co nsider that a year earlier a transAtlantic race was wo n by an 184-foot three-mas ted schooner with a mostly professional crew of 48 . H aving been to sea in small boats, D ay knew to anticipate rou gh weather, so he made sure the entries were seawo rthy and inspected them personally. Two boats fini shed: the winner Tamerlanewi th D ay as sailing mas ter and the 28-footer, Gauntlet, with 20-year-old Tho ra Lund Robinso n (the first and hardly the las t female Thrasher) at the helm . As it gained a fo llowing, with fleets consistently larger than 130 by 1960 and reaching 265 in 2006, rhe race played a leading role in the developing spo rt of offshore racing. Bermuda Race veterans went on ro found the Fasm et, Port Huro n-Mackinac, and other notable races, and the event's ru les shaped generations of offshore cruising and racing yachts and their crews. Th e race's safety reco rd is nor perfect, bur it is exemplary (touch wood). Two boats have been lost, one on the sharp teeth of Bermuda's reef in 1956, ano ther in a fire in 1932 that led to rhe death of a sailor (ten Thomas Flemi;,,g Day o thers were saved by an heroic competitor, Jolie Brise) . Black squalls and rhe occasio nal microburst can be demanding. And then there are the waves. "By 6 a.m. we were clear of the G ulf Stream , which pl ace, I am under the impress io n, might be improved upo n," reported a sailor in th e 1906 race. "I really enjoyed it, only I thought it wo uld be kind of ni ce to be dry again for a change." A quarter century later, Rod Stephens invented a special venti lator to keep the G ulf Stream from coming below in his fami ly's yawl, D orade. The wo rst storm was the tail of a hurrican e in 1972, when a boar's log entry read, "The watchwo rd fo r today is survival." Yet no t a boat was lost as many crews, with no GPS to count on, prudently hove-to off rhe island, waiting fo r clear visibili ty. In the fo ggy early goin g in 2000, th e captain of a trawler crossing the race course saw his radar monitor light up like a C hristmas tree and quickl y got on C hannel 16 to ask what was going o n. W hen the Coast G uard told him he was in no em ergency and should clear the ch annel, he replied that it certainly is an emergency wh en yo u're surrounded by 60 boats co ming o ut of nowhere. One of rhe sailors listening in on this desperate conversatio n interrupted : "No tsixty boars. One hundred and sixty." The trawler turn ed on all her lights and inch ed across the fleer to safety. The idea ofthe Bermuda race was controversial in yacht racing circles because it was designed to allow amateur sailors in n ormal-size boats to compete in a bluewater ocean race- a practice unhear:d of at the time. The first race provided even farther controversy when the 28-fi. sloop Gauntlet crossed the line with a woman at the helm, 2 0-year-old ' 7hora Lund Robinson (left).
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SEA HISTORY 13 1, SUMMER2010