By Talbot Wilson

 

The silver was polished and sparkling at Government House in Bermuda on Saturday evening. Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Commodore Peter Shrubb, Cruising Club of America Commodore Sheila McCurdy and their fellow flag officers greeted hundreds of Newport Bermuda racers, guests and event volunteers to the spectacular reception and prizegiving on the grounds famous for the stunning view of the North Shore beaches and Dockyard to the West. This is truly the most spectacular prizegiving in yacht racing.

 

At the end of what locals call a ‘Bermudaful’ day, His Excellency the Governor of Bermuda Sir Richard Gozney and guest presenters for special prizes handed out 113 trophies and prizes for contestants and a special award for race Chairman Bjorn Johnson.

A complete list of race results and prizewinners is posted on www.bermudarace.com

 

Rives Potts’ Carina, a McCurdy & Rhodes 48 built in 1969, won Class 3 and the 103-boat St. David’s Lighthouse ORR Division. Carina took home 11 awards capped off by the coveted St. Davis’s Lighthouse Trophy, a spectacular 16-inch tall silver keeper, and won a host of other perpetual trophies and his first-in-class medallion. This lighthouse trophy, first awarded in 1954 to Dan Strohmeier and Malay, is a silver scale model replica of the light that warns mariners of the reefs along Bermuda’s South shore. The trophy actually has a working light.

 

Carina’s navigator Patricia Young was the first woman to win the George Mixter Trophy as the navigator of a lighthouse winner. In the navigator’s forum held on Thursday she said that she was surprised to see how smooth her course looked on iBoattrack. Carina had stayed East of her competition, picked up 7 squalls in the Gulf Stream, all with favorable winds and leapt out to a 60-mile lead over the next boat in their class.

 

Potts also took first in Class 3 under IRC and won the North Rock Beacon Trophy, a silver replica of the old North Rock Tower, for first place in the 100-boat IRC group of sailors who chose to be dual scored.

 

After accepting the Lighthouse Trophy, Potts pointed out that Carina had won the race twice before (1970 and 1982) under original owner Dick Nye. He invited the many Carina alumni still sailing Newport to Bermuda to the stage to join his family-filled crew to celebrate this victory. Included in the group was CCA commodore Sheila McCurdy whose father had designed Carina.

 

Sir Geoffrey Mulcahy’s Noonmark VI won Class 9 and the 13-boat Gibbs Hill Lighthouse ORR Division. His keeper is a silver scale model of Bermuda’s tallest lighthouse on Gibbs Hill. The Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Trophy was the first lighthouse trophy awarded once in 1946 to Howard Fuller and Gesture and then re-introduced in 2006 as the prize for professional sailors division.

 

Neal Finnegan’s Clover III, won Class 13 and the 38-boat Cruiser Division.  Finnagan won the Carleton Mitchell Finisterre Trophy and his keeper is a half model of Mitchell’s yacht that holds the record three-in-a-row winning streak.

 

Mark Watson’s Genuine Risk won first in Class 16 and the Open Division’s Royal Mail Trophy while Jason Richter and Robert Fischer won Class 14 and the Weld and Moxie prizes for first place in the 26-boat Double Handed Division in the J35 Paladin.

 

 

In his welcoming remarks, Commodore Peter Shrubb said, “Look at  some of the facts of the race… you can sail it with two people, you can sail it with 26 of your closest friends, you can sail it in a cozy 33-footer or a cavernous 100-footer, you can sail a 41 year old boat like Carina and win or you can sail a shiny new boat.”

 

“You can sail this race 23 times like Jim Bishop or for the first time like Richard Stevenson,” he continued, “You sail to Bermuda with your dad at the age of 12 like Billy Jenkins or at the age of 94 like Arent van Heyningen.”