Your First Bermuda Race
Photo: Nic Douglass/ 2018
Join us in the blue water.
NEXT RACE:
June 19, 2026
The race is a super experience: you compete among the best, enjoy the camaraderie of your crew, and arrive at a welcoming, beautiful destination. Typically 20-25% of the boats are captained by “first-time” skippers who report a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction having prepared their boat and crew to compete and successfully complete the race.
To help you with the planning and preparation the organizing committee established the Ambassador Program. First-time participants can request assignment of an Ambassador to guide them through the entry process. Ambassadors are CCA/RBYC members who have prepared their boats for this race, understand what it takes to compete, and are enthusiastic to share their insights.
Watch our Race Prep Webinar Series!
These webinars offered a Q&A with experienced racers serving as panelists. We have cover a range of topics relevant to first-timers to veterans.
Credit: Gary Jobson
Newport Bermuda Race Start
Credit: PPL Media
Why We Race
When land is no longer in sight, a sense of calm replaces the pre-race excitement as the crew settles into its watch system. Then after facing the Gulf Stream as you make your way closer to Bermuda, there comes that moment when you look ahead and Gibbs Hill Lighthouse rises above the blue-green sea. As the sweet smell of oleander wafts across the deck you can almost taste the rum punch, and you sail a little harder to reach the finish line at St. Davids Lighthouse.
For the average sailor, there aren’t many tests of blue-water seamanship as accessible as the biennial 636-mile ocean race from Newport to the Onion Patch. By far the largest number of sailors have been and continue to be amateurs – friends and family – in range of cruiser-racers vying for the coveted St. Davids Lighthouse Trophy. Recent prize-winners have included such well-known cruiser-racers as the classic Carina (St. David’s Lighthouse winner in 1970, 2010, 2012, and 2024) and the Cal 40s (Sinn Fein winner in 2006 and 2008 and Illusion in 2022). In 2006, the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse division was first raced, attracting a new generation of high-performance boats. In 2012 Rambler broke the elapsed time record by 16 hours.
The race has a strong culture of safety and emphasizes that concern during the 636-mile ocean voyage which crosses the Gulf Stream. In 1906 race founder Thomas Fleming Day insisted, “A noble art makes noble men, and there is no nobler art than seamanship.” The organizers take this seriously and insist that entrants take it seriously, too, by preparing themselves in safety seminars and their boats for inspections. Once the inspection and safety seminars are behind you, the race can be full of surprises. In 2012 the 165 boats started on a roaring reach that carried them all the way to the Gulf Stream. But typically, after the start you beat away from Newport in a southwesterly into a chilly first night at sea. Comes day 2, white cumulus clouds appear on the horizon ahead, and the air and water warm rapidly. The water roughens, black rain squalls sweep in, and you batten down for a long slog under the command of your new lord and master, the Gulf Stream. If the boat is almost comfortable, you’re in a head current. Either way, the Stream usually is rough, with water flying.
And then tall Gibbs Hill’s light appears on the horizon ahead. You skirt the reef guarding the island and reach St. Davids light and cross the finish line. The race behind you, you run under power up to Hamilton, smelling the oleander and anticipating the loud, lush delights of the long post-race party and the magnificent prize-giving. In a day or two a new crew – which should be as capable and prepared as the one that raced down – arrives to take the boat back home.
2006 Start
Photo Credit: Wilson
Photo: Dan Nerney / 2018
Complete the fields below and the Ambassador Coordinator will be in touch.
Race Ambassador Request
SUPPORTERS
