Antigua to Bermuda for the Cup
With the sailing world turning its focus to the America’s Cup in Bermuda, racing yachts have begun their annual pilgrimage to the remote Atlantic island. Just wrapping up its inaugural edition as of this writing, the 935-mile Antigua Bermuda Race attracted a diverse and impressive fleet of 21 competing yachts. Ranging from a pair of 40-ft Pogo 12.5s to a 162-ft classic replica schooner with a smattering of high-performance offshore racers and high-end cruising yachts in between, Antigua to Bermuda is slated to be an annual affair aimed at boats heading north from the Caribbean to the Eastern Seaboard of the US and to Europe.
Sponsored by the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, the race started on Friday, May 12, out of English Harbour, Antigua. On May 16, the Volvo 70 Warrior, skippered by Stephen Murray Jr., took line honors. Finishing in 3 days, 20 hours, 32 minutes, the yacht, which competed in the Volvo Ocean Race as Camper, has established the new monohull and overall reference point for the race. "I have no doubt that the record will be beaten in the future," commented Warrior’s navigator, Will Oxley, adding, "A fast time for this race could be as little as 50 hours, given the right conditions." The Volvo 70, which is operated by the US Merchant Marine Academy for the purpose of benefiting wounded veterans through sailing, claimed not only line honors but overall IRC honors — the wind shut off behind them after they finished.
One of the most exciting battles on the race course was the one between two more Volvo Race boats from Canada, Chris Stanmore-Major’s Whitbread 60 Challenger and Gilles Barbot’s Volvo 60 Esprit de Corps IV, the latter of which finished with a few extra stowaways. For the last day and a half of the race, the French Canadian Volvo 60 had six extra passengers: Les Crane and the crew of Monterey, who had to abandon their sinking Farr 56 in the early hours of Wednesday, May 17, 200 miles from the finish in Bermuda.
"We got into the liferaft and Esprit de Corps came up really quickly and took us all on board. I then watched Monterey sink! We have had the boat for 14 years and we’ve sailed 40,000 miles in her, but there was nothing I could do," explained skipper Les Crane. "Gilles and the crew of Esprit de Corps from Montreal are a fabulous bunch of guys. They made us feel so welcome on board and got us all involved in racing the boat. In fact, I was watch leader last night for four hours! I can’t thank them enough for what they have done," Crane added.
With a common-sense route that is on many sailors’ schedule, a spectacular finish destination, and prevailing conditions that make Bermuda easier to reach than when coming from the East Coast, the inaugural Antigua Bermuda Race should quickly become a fixture of the offshore racing world. See complete results at Yachtscoring.