Ask Newport Bermuda Race Chairman Bjorn Johnson how many times he’s raced across the Gulf Stream to Bermuda and he starts counting his fingers, muttering, “1990, ’92, ’94. . .” Eventually he gets to 2008. “Ten races,” he says with a smile.A 54-year-old property manager who for years sailed out of Red Bank, NJ, and now lives in Charleston, SC, Johnson has long experience in all sorts of boats, including intercollegiate dinghies at Tufts College, family cruisers, cruiser-racers with full crews, and doublehanders. He’d be doing his eleventh Bermuda Race when it starts on June 18 if he didn’t have to stay ashore as race manager. Once the last starting gun for the 150 or more boats in the race’s five divisions is fired, he’ll head to the airport to fly down to Bermuda, where he’ll take over race headquarters in the Royal Bermuda’s Yacht Club’s clubhouse in Hamilton, and wait for the first boat to complete the course to the island affectionately known as The Onion Patch. Depending on the boat’s size and the weather, it usually takes three to six days to cover the 635-mile rhumb line course, almost all of which is out of sight of land.
Johnson’s affection for and loyalty to the Newport Bermuda Race is not unusual. That much is clear in a survey of Bermuda Race sailors that was conducted in September 2009 by a market research outfit, Research.bm, for the race’s cosponsors, the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club and the Cruising Club of America. Twenty-two percent of the 502 respondents said they’d done five to ten races and 9 percent said they’d done 11 or more. The participation record, 30 races, was set by the late Jim Mertz, of American YC, Rye, NY, who sailed every race but two between 1936 and 2004. Some old-timers have done so many races they’ve lost count. “I don’t know how many I’ve done,” says Bermudian Kirk Cooper. “All I know is that 18 months after I finish the last one, it’s time to start planning for the next one.”
Just why the race has attracted so much loyalty – including my own, with nine races behind me – may not seem obvious to people who have only heard about its regular strong winds and big seas and its tricky navigation around Gulf Stream eddies. It’s called the “Thrash to the Onion Patch” to honor the frequent headwinds as well as Bermuda’s agricultural history. Race Chairman Johnson ticks off several reasons why the race is so appealing. “First, it’s one of the world’s only international races, with the start in one country and the finish in another. Second, it’s historic. This is the world’s oldest ocean race, founded back in 1906. Third, you end up at Bermuda, which as far as I’m concerned is the top of the food chain of Caribbean islands.”
But the appeal that means the most to Johnson is this: “It’s a great challenge and I like challenges.” He’s not the only sailor who feels that way. When the 2009 survey asked sailors to say why they entered the race, the reply garnering the most support was “The adventure of participating.” That adventure is so satisfying that 88 percent of survey respondents say they’re likely to sail the race again and 97 percent say they’d recommend the race to a friend or fellow sailor. In addition, 92 percent declared that their pre-race expectations were met or exceeded in recent races.
Interestingly, a high finish in the standings garnered the support of only a handful of the respondents. The top-ranked reason for satisfaction was “Overall race experience, including challenge, competition, and crew camaraderie.” Most sailors care less about silverware than they do about the experience. An indication of the importance of camaraderie is that the race offers a prize for family crews. The William L. Glenn Family Participation Prize is presented for best corrected time by boats with at least four family members in their crews. The emphasis on personal rewards was repeated by a firsttime Bermuda racer in 2008, Dr. Richard Donn, owner-skipper of the Beneteau First 42 Poeske. “In the end we crossed the line tired, elated, and filled with a sense of pride and accomplishment. We didn’t win but we placed well and exceeded our personal and collective goals. For me it was the fulfillment of a dream, an opportunity to test myself and put my life in perspective.”
The typical turnout reflects the Newport Bermuda Race’s stature and sailors’ loyalty. Since 1968, in good economic times and bad, the average fleet has been 160 boats. The biggest fleets were in the most recent races—the 265 boats in the 2006 Centennial Race, and 198 in 2008. According to the survey, approximately 2,760 men and women sail the race or help sail boats home, and another 3,450 friends or family members meet boats in Bermuda after the finish. The total financial impact on both places has been estimated at over $10 million.
The race has five divisions. The largest is the St. David’s Lighthouse Division for amateur crews sailing cruiser-racer boats, many of them stock fiberglass boats in the 38- to 50-foot range. Former Race Chairman John Winder calls this group the race’s “core constituency.” The winner of this division is awarded the historic Lighthouse Trophy as the race’s overall winner. The next largest division, the Cruiser Division, is for amateur crews sailing at a more leisurely pace. Grand prix boats sailed by professionals sail in the Gibbs Hill Division and the Open Division for boats with cant keels. And there is the Double Handed Division for boats with two sailors. This is where Race Chairman Bjorn Johnson competed six times, finishing third in the 2008 race, his last one before his sabbatical ashore to run the organizing committee.
While many boats and crews come back repeatedly, on average, 20 percent of the skippers, like Richard Donn in Poeske, have never commanded a boat racing to Bermuda. Race Participation Chairman Fred Deichmann assigns Race Ambassadors, experienced Bermuda racers, to first-time skippers to guide them through the rules and procedures for entering.
The Bermuda Race Organizing Committee’s 42 members – all volunteers – represent the race’s two sponsoring yacht clubs, the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club and the Cruising Club of America, which have teamed up to run the race since 1926. The BROC qualifies entries (which are accepted through March 31), writes and enforces the rules, and supervises the start at Newport, where the New York Yacht Club serves as race headquarters and provides the starting line race committee. Down in Bermuda, the committee records finish times at St. David’s Lighthouse and processes the standings, among many other duties.
The BROC devotes a very large amount of time and energy to safety. In the 46 Bermuda Races since 1906, with a total of 4,677 boats, only two boats have been lost – one in a fire in 1932 and the other on Bermuda’s reef in 1956. The committee writes rules and advisories, arranges satellite tracking for each boat, sends out an escort vessel, and holds a safety-at-sea seminar at Newport (this year it’s on March 13-14). Safety-at-sea seminars are mandatory for a portion of the crew, as are drills with storm sails and crew overboard rescues for the entire crew. Entry applications are scrutinized to ensure that the afterguard is competent, and every boat is inspected before the start no matter how many races she’s done.
“We think we’re providing a service that has created a track record of fewer retirements,” says Winder. The qualification process offers superb preparation. As 1994 race winner Kaighn Smith says, “I think inspection is a grand thing. It really forces you to prepare to go to sea.” The process is anything but punitive, says Johnson, who was chief inspector for several races. “I tell the other inspectors, ‘Be a mentor. Make sure the first face they see is a friendly face from the Cruising Club of America.’ Inspection’s the best preparation for sailing offshore, whether you’re racing or cruising.”
Asked if he’d encourage a cruising sailor to consider racing to Bermuda, Johnson gave an unequivocal “Absolutely! At the very least, the race’s emphasis on safety will leave them with a better boat and a better crew.” A skipper whose boat hit an object in the water and sank while sailing to the 2008 start has said that the reason his crew handled the crisis so well, with no panic or injuries, was that they’d gone through boat inspection and attended the race’s mandatory safety-at-sea seminar.
The work of the Bermuda Race Organizing Committee ends on the Saturday after all the boats have finished with the race’s only ceremony – a spectacular one at that. The trophies are handed out in the glamorous setting by Bermuda’s Governor, the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, the head of state of this British overseas territory. The Lighthouse Trophy goes to the winner and other elegant prizes are awarded to other top boats. Many prizes honor great Bermuda Race sailors of the past. For instance, the winner of the Cruiser Division is awarded the Carleton Mitchell Finisterre Trophy, in memory of the only boat and skipper that have won three straight races. (That record may be broken this year by Peter Rebovich’s Sinn Fein.) In addition, there are joint trophies for top combined performance in the Newport Bermuda Race and two races held in alternating years, the Marion to Bermuda Cruising Yacht Race and the Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race.
There are prizes for some not-so-top boats, too. When the Galley Slave Trophy is presented to the cook on the last boat to finish, the cheer has to be heard to be believed. Once that hurrah fades, Bjorn Johnson will finally be able to hand the Bermuda Race’s reins over to someone else, and start planning his 11th Thrash to the Onion Patch in 2012. ✦
John Rousmaniere’s books include a history of the Newport Bermuda Race, A Berth to Bermuda. He has sailed in nine Bermuda Races since 1966. He considers himself extremely lucky to have been on board two second- place finishers, Elixir (1980) owned and sailed by David Noyes, and Selkie (2008), commanded by current Cruising Club of America Commodore Sheila McCurdy. Both boats hail from John’s home port of Cold Spring Harbor, New York.
For more about the Newport Bermuda Race, including entry forms and rules, go to BermudaRace.com.
