Newport to Bermuda 2004
By Bob Connell
This year I had the pleasure of sailing aboard Alliance in the Newport to Bermuda race. Alliance is a Swan 45 owned by Dominic and Missy Porco of New York.
After the weather briefing on Thursday, Bud Darr our navigator, said we need to go east of the Rhumbline. On Friday the crew arrived and last minute supplies were loaded and sails selected. Bud checked the existing and developing weather systems, and still insisted that we head east. We headed out for the starting line.
We started with our spinnaker, on a port jibe, with five other Swan 45's. We sailed for about six hours before the wind lightened and clocked forward. The wind died and we sailed into a large fog bank. Later, when the wind picked up, we got moving again. After morning check-in, we found out that Better Than, another Swan 45, had jumped out to an eight mile lead. Saturday night brought a new front. We were sailing at 10-12 knots under spinnaker.
The Sunday morning check-in revealed that Better Than was still eight miles in front. We were trucking along at 14-17 knots under an A-4 chute in 25-30 knots of breeze. With a five knot push from the stream we were moving 22 knots over the bottom. We racked up some big mileage in a short time with only one wipe out. With adrenaline pumping, Dominic and Tim did a superb job at driving.
By Monday morning check-in we had pulled even with Better Than. Both of us were 110 NM from the island. We were east of them and still under chute. The wind was clocking forward and lessening. We could see some of larger boats about six miles in front of us. Bud came back up on deck and said, "Guys, we may have a good shot at winning our class." All the other competitors in our class were 30-70 miles astern. We kept pushing the boat as hard as we could to maximize speed. We hoped that Better Than was hard on the breeze while we were still close reaching.
When we got 5 miles from the finish line, we could see other lights from big boats. The lights turned out to be from Ptarmigan and Snow Lion from the larger class. We knew that we were in good company. We crossed the finish line and didn't hear from Better Than for another three hours. We knew we had won our class.
After the 3 hour motor trip to Hamilton Harbor, we arrived at a deserted Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. The place was empty except for the Maxi's and 60 footers. It looked like we had a shot of winning our division. Topping off our joyous arrival was Tim's wife. She came running down the dock with the mixings for Dark and Stormy's.
It was 5:30 am., but what the heck. After crew photos and several drinks, we headed for the bar.
We had several local area sailors on board. Our crew included Billy Liberty as tactician and cook. Some of our superb meals included pork tenderloin and lasagna. Jamie Gurnell, Bruce Lawrence, Pete Sobren and myself rounded out the crew. The final icing on the race was winning the Saint David's Lighthouse Trophy during the awards presentation at the Governor's Mansion. A good time was had by all.
Editors Note: See November's Sailing World's Article about this Swan 45.
