Speedboat Leads Newport to Bermuda
As expected because of her 100-feet length overall, Speedboat continues to lead the 183-boat fleet in the Newport Bermuda Race. On Sunday morning [June 20] she was about 200 nautical miles from Bermuda sailing at 11 knots. She is pictured below at the start of the 2010 Newport Bermuda Race:
At that rate, she would finish around 4:00AM on Monday morning. But a lot can happen in ‘Happy Valley’ the wonderland between the Gulf Stream and Bermuda. The ‘Open” Division record is 48hrs 28min 31sec set by Morning Glory in 2004 should hold for another race.
With all five of the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division boats- Beau Geste, Bella Mente, Rambler, Ran and Titan XV within 250 miles of the finish, the traditional elapses time mark for the race set in 2002 by Pyewacket of 53hrs 39min 22sec should not be broken. The five boats were within 15 miles of each other on Sunday morning.
The battle for both division line honors is very keen even if a record won’t be broken.
Elapse time leaders in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division are the big boats in Class 8. Vanquish leads at 255 nm distant and her closest rival is Aurora at 281 nm out. The Class 1 boats which took top honors on handicap in both 2008 and 2006 are still some 430 nautical miles from Bermuda.
Editors Note: You can track the boats on iboattrack here, and the full crew list follows below, click ‘full screen’ for greater clarity:
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