Newport Bermuda Race | Boats, Speedboat, June, Finish, Race

Newport Bermuda Race

Tuesday, June 24 - Speedboat finished first yesterday at 9:13 am. Rambler came in second 3.5 hours later at 12:45, beating Il Mostro across the line. The rest of the fleet will be finishing during the next two days. Handicapping rules are such that a boat that has yet to finish may yet claim first place.

Monday, June 23 -The lead boats will finish today. Based on positions reported at midnight, Alex Jackson's Speedboat should be crossing the line around 6am as I write this. Fighting for 2nd place are Il Mostro and Rambler - they are likely to cross the line within minutes if not seconds of each other at around 10am. Imagine sailing 635 miles and winning (or losing) 2nd place by just a few feet. The bulk of the fleet have another two days to go. That's the difference a planing hull and an extra 25-40 feet in length in both mast and waterline, can make.

Sunday, June 22 - The bulk of the fleet has completed 1/3 of the course and has 425 nautical miles to go. They're sailing in 3' seas with wind at 9 kts from SSW. Two hundred miles ahead of the pack, Alex Jackson's Speedboat is in the lead just 225 nm from the finish. In 3' seas with just 1 kt of wind Speedboat is making 6 kts*! Wow. The bumpy stuff that was forecast a couple of days ago has failed to materialize. The boats should all have smooth (and unexciting) sailing to the finish. See real time race updates on this cool chart from iboattrack.com
*1 knot = 1.15 mph

Friday June 20 - The 635 nautical mile race from Newport Rhode Island to Bermuda starts this afternoon. More than 200 boats are entered. The slower boats will be sailing into a little bit of weather with seas getting as high as 12' on the starboard bow by Monday afternoon. Along with the seas the wind will be roughly 35 points off the nose. In other words... it's gonna be a bumpy ride. Faster boats will likely finish ahead of the weather. The guys and gals on the big boats will be onshore slugging rum in the sun while their compatriots are struggling to hold down their cookies in the waves. Life just isn't fair.

Tuesday, June 17 - 220 boats have entered in this year's race from Newport, RI to Bermuda. The racers sail across 635 nautical miles of open ocean from the cold waters of the North Atlantic into the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. It can get rough out there. At the moment the FNMOC chart shows nothing brewing in the way of Atlantic storms for the next six days. One of the boats to watch in this year's race is a 98 footer named Speedboat skippered by Alex Jackson, a co-founder of the Polygon hedge fund. Speedboat has been sailed at speeds in excess of 28 knots. If the weather is favorable Jackson and his Speedboat could beat the record set by Roy Disney on Pywacket (53 hours, 39 minutes and 12 seconds) in 2002.

Official website of Newport-Bermuda Race
See images of Speedboat's hull at Sailkarma

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