Bermuda Race Facts & Trivia

Bermuda Race Facts and Trivia

Basic Facts
The Bermuda Race is the oldest ocean race for amateur sailors in normal boats, the regularly scheduled ocean race, and the first ocean race sailed on time allowance.

Organizers
The race was founded by Thomas Fleming Day and The Rudder magazine in 1906. After a period of inactivity from 1911-22, it was revived in 1923 by Herbert L. Stone and Yachting magazine. Since 1926 it has been run by the Cruising Club of America and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (which has managed the finish since 1906).

Start locations and course length – Brooklyn, N.Y., 668 nautical miles (1906-07, 1908-10); Marblehead, Mass., 675 miles (1908), New London, Conn., 660 miles (1923-30, 1934); Montauk, N.Y, 628 miles (1932); Newport, R.I., 635 miles (1936-2004).

The Bermuda Race is called “the thrash to the Onion Patch” because most Bermuda Races include some closehauled sailing in rough water (what sailors call “a hard thrash”); and until the twentieth century, Bermuda was an agricultural island where large onions thrived (Bermudians sometimes refer to themselves as “Onions”).

• Total races – 45. Total entries – 4,470 boats with approximately 45,000 sailors.
• Total miles sailed (approx.) –  3,000,000
• Largest fleet – 265 (centennial race 2006).  Smallest fleet – two (1910).

• Lives lost: one, in a fire on the schooner Adriana, 1932 (another ten sailors were saved from Adriana by a competitor, Jolie Brise).
• Boats lost: two (Adriana, 1932, and Elda, 1956, when she ran up on Bermuda’s reef).

First Bermuda Race
May 1906, Brooklyn to Bermuda. One division, three starters between 28 and 40 feet in length. Winner (Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy), Tamerlane, 38-foot yawl owned by Franklin Maier and skippered by the race’s founder, Thomas Fleming Day.

Bermuda Race progeny
Fastnet Race (which begat the Sydney-Hobart), Port-Huron-Mackinac Race, and the Off Soundings Club (among others).

• First controversy – (tie) 1906, the race itself and first woman crew
• Most frequent controversies:  rating rules, professional sailors, mandatory equipment

• Most overall victories, skipper – three (tie), John Alden in three Malabars (1923, 1926, 1932), and Carleton Mitchell in Finisterre (1956, 1958, 1960); two (tie), Robert N. Bavier Sr., Memory (1924) and Edlu (1934), and Richard S. and Richard B. Nye in two Carinas (1952, 1970). These are the only multiple winners in the race’s history.
• Most overall victories, boat: three, Finisterre (1956, 1958, 1960); two, Baruna (1938, 1946). These are the only multiple winners in the race’s history.
• Most first to finishes, skipper – four, George Coumantaros in two Boomerangs (1984, 1990, 1992, 1996).
• b – three (tie): Baruna, (1936, 1946, 1948); Bolero (1950, 1954, 1956); Boomerang (1984, 1990, 1992).
• Most wins by a designer – Olin Stephens, 14 (1934-1994)
• Winning skippers who also won America’s Cups – Harold S. Vanderbilt, 1910 (1930, 1934, and 1937 America’s Cups), and Ted Hood, 1968 (1974 America’s Cup)
• Fastest race – Pywacket, 53:39:22 (ave. 11.8 knots), 2002
• Slowest race–Venturer, 121:13:12 (ave. 5.2 knots), 1960
• Largest winner–Margaret, 93 feet, 1909; (modern) Boomerang, 80 feet, 1996
• Smallest winner–Burgoo, 37 feet, 1964

Participation

• Most races by a sailor – 30 Jim Mertz, (every race except two, 1936-2004)
• Most races by a boat – 15, Emily, Edwin Gaynor (1978-2004)
• First woman sailor – Thora Lund Robinson, Gauntlet, 1906
• First woman skipper – Queene Hooper Foster, Sephedra, 1986
• Oldest winning skipper – DeCoursey Fales, Nina, 1962 (74 years old)
• Youngest winning skipper – Kyle Weaver, Constellation, 1992 (22 years old)
• Largest boat – Amorita, 100 feet, 1909
• Smallest boat – Gauntlet, 28 feet, 1906
• First boat built for the race – Zena, 1907
• First entry with Marconi rig – Zena, 1907
• First race winner with Marconi rig – Memory, 1924
• Last race winner with gaff rig – Malabar X, 1934
• First Bermuda entry – (tie) Isolt and Zena, 1907
• First freshwater entry – Priscilla (Rochester, N.Y.), 1907
• First freshwater winner – Scaramouche, Chuck Kirsch (Sturgis, Mich.), 1974
• First West Coast entry – Santana, W. A. W. Stewart, 1938
• First Canadian entry – Gauntlet, A. E. Dingle, 1923
• First South American entry – Fjord, Argentina, 1954
• First Old World entry – Jolie Brise U.K., 1926
• First Australian entry – Apollo, 1970
• First non-U.S. Winner – Noryema, U.K., 1972
• First service academy entry – Vamarie, USNA, 1938
• Best service academy finish – Constellation, USNA, overall winner 1992