Newport Bermuda Notice of Race
[Written by John Rousmaniere] The Notice of Race for the 2012 Newport Bermuda Race has been posted on www.bermudarace.com. Among the changes are new requirements for crew training, satellite telephones, and life jackets and safety harnesses.
The 48th Newport Bermuda Race will start on June 15, 2012 off Castle Hill, Newport, RI and finish 635 miles and several days later off St. David’s Head, Bermuda.
The online entry process opens on January 16 and ends on May 15. The Bermuda Race Safety at Sea Seminar on March 17-18, at the Newport Hyatt Regency Hotel, will offer classroom, in-water, first aid, and CPR training, as well as a special track for people who have attended two safety seminars in the last ten years. Bermuda Race Ambassadors are available to assist first-time sailors in preparing themselves and their boats for the race.
Known affectionately by sailors as “The Thrash to the Onion Patch,” the race had 183 entries in 2010, the third largest fleet in the race’s 104-year history. The chief trophy, for the winner of the St. David’s Lighthouse Division (one of the race’s five divisions), went to Rives Potts’ 48-foot sloop Carina (Westbrook, CT).
Carina will race again in 2012 after completing a circumnavigation under sail that includes the 2011 Rolex Fastnet Race in England and the 2011 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in Australia.
The Newport Bermuda Race is the longest leg of the Onion Patch Series for teams and individual boats that begins in Newport at the New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta on the weekend before the Bermuda Race start, and ends with races on Bermuda’s Great Sound in the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Anniversary Regatta on June 22.
The Newport Bermuda Race is organized by the Cruising Club of America and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. The race chairman is John Osmond (Osterville, MA). The race’s Newport headquarters is the Robert G. Stone, Jr., Sailing Center at the New York Yacht Club.
