Sustainability

The Role of “Environmental Steward” in 2024 Crews

Beyond the challenge and prestige of offshore racing, the “Thrash to the Onion Patch” is a chance for serious offshore racers to use their expertise, inventiveness and influence to advance the protection of the playground we love so much—our oceans.

This year, the SailGate entry portal for the 2024 Newport Bermuda Race invites captains to designate an “environmental steward” onboard. Among time-honored crew positions—watch captain, tactician, medical and safety officer—the “environmental steward” is a crewmember willing to bring ingenuity and effort to “Green Boating” and Clean Regatta practices. The position carries no mandatory requirements, but signals a commitment to help your crew prepare, provision, and execute the race with sustainability in mind.

Bermuda Race skippers are requested to consider adding this position to their crew. Join a growing network of sailors concerned about delivering solutions to our considerable environmental challenges through individual and organizational efforts.

Your environmental steward will automatically be enrolled in the Bermuda Race Green Team and can provide valuable input, improve on best practices, and play a special role in the next chapters of our storied Newport Bermuda history.

Our Clean Regatta race partner, Sailors for the Sea, is one of several excellent resources willing to share best practices, aiding the entire fleet as we work to achieve their Clean Regatta PLATINUM status in 2024.

To this end, we’re charting a course around these objectives:

·     Say goodbye to single-use plastic

·     Rejoice for reuse

·     Provision thoughtfully

·     Recycle right

·     Green your cleaning

The 2024 Bermuda Race Organizing Committee (BROC) and the newly created Bermuda Race Foundation are committed to sustaining our classic, biennial ocean race long into the future. Each running provides an opportunity to improve the environmental footprint. This is expressed in Section 2.7 of the Notice of Race:

Cognizant of the need for environmental stewardship, the OA endeavors to operate the race as a “Clean Regatta” executing to the greatest extent possible any and all best practices as defined by “Sailors for the Sea” in its Clean Regatta program. All competitors should plan to promote and adopt a “leave-no-trace” approach while at sea, and during events while ashore in Newport and Bermuda. The OA seeks the cooperation of all competitors and support personnel including vendors in reducing waste before, during, and at the conclusion of the event. See RRS 47. [NP]