Charleston Bermuda: Latest Progress Report
Day two in the biennial Charleston Bermuda race dawned yesterday [May 22] with light, fluky southeast winds and nearly flat seas for the 11 boats competing in this 777-mile contest.
Most of the crews spent the early morning hours adjusting their boats’ sail trim as they laboured to keep the vessels moving at all if not toward Bermuda.
As of mid-afternoon, the offshore winds had increased, with some boats experiencing double-digit wind speeds, enabling most of the entries to make steady but not stellar progress down the course.
As of noon today, the lead boats had completed roughly 100 miles, with majority of the fleet positioned north of the rhumbline (the direct line to Bermuda).
Only Rob Turkewitz and his crew on board “First Light” — his Cherubini 44 — remained south of the rhumbline. Mr. Turkewitz and company, who are using their participation in the race as a means of raising funds for the American College of the Building Arts, have been beset by some of the lightest winds on the course.
A mid-afternoon ship-to-shore phone call with Bernie Schapiro — owner and skipper of the Beneteau 411 “Pied-a-Mer” — confirmed that the winds north of the rhumbline near the rear of the fleet were slightly stronger than those that the leaders were experiencing some 30 miles ahead at the time.
Mr. Schapiro said “We’re having a lovely day out here now. It’s very calm, and we’ve finally got fairly good breeze, about 11 or 12 knots. We’ve also got enough food on board to get the boat to Mars and back, so everyone is enjoying the ride. I have to say, this is champagne sailing right now.”
He related that he and his crew made very little progress from midnight until roughly 9:00 a.m. on Sunday morning due to light winds, but then the conditions began to improve gradually. “The wind has picked up now, and we’re going well. Hopefully, we’ll break out of this band of light wind this evening and start getting across the Gulf Stream.”
Yachts attack the starting line at as the Charleston Bermuda race gets underway 
At the head of the fleet, Hank Hofford and Susan Ford and their extended family on board one of the five OnDeck charter boats racing in this event – “Tucana”, a Shipman 63 – lost the lead to Stephen Colbert’s team on board the Farr 65 “Spirit of Juno” [pictured at top].
Since mid-morning on Sunday, both boats have been sailing a northeasterly course in anticipation of improved wind and a more expeditious route through the Gulf Stream.
The real story of the race so far has been the superb performance of Noel Sterrett and Matt Henderson on board Sterrett’s 43-foot J/130 “Solarus”. For much of this early part of the race, this duo has kept pace with boats 20 feet longer, including Vladimir Zinchenko’s Shipman 63, “Yanosha”.
Mr. Sterrett and Mr. Henderson maximized their boatspeed by frequent attention to sail trim, and occasionally making sail changes to fly the boat’s enormous asymmetrical spinnaker when possible.
According to race director Bjorn Johnson, that’s what it takes to succeed in offshore racing. “It’s all about keeping the boat going through every kind of condition, and often that means hand steering rather than utilizing the autopilot.
“Once you’ve determined your routing strategy, the most important factor is being responsive to the sail trim in order to ensure that you’re optimising your performance a high percentage of the time.”
Though the race leaders had evidently slowed down as of the 3:00 p.m. Yellowbrick Tracking update on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Johnson expected them to enter the Gulf Stream some time last night.
He said the updated forecast from Weather Routing, Inc. called for the wind to strengthen in the northern quadrant of the course and continue to blow out of the east-southeast. That’s good news for nearly every boat in the fleet.
