How the Newport Bermuda Race was won

George Sakellaris and the team aboard the 72-foot Reichel/Pugh mini-maxi Shockwave crossed the finish line off Bermuda’s St. David’s Lighthouse Monday morning (June 23) at 5:34 race time EDT (63:04:11), taking both line honors and overall honors in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division for professional crews on modern competitive boats.

The close contest between Shockwave and her rival Bella Mente, Hap Fauth’s 72 foot Judel/Vrolijk mini-maxi, was a near repeat of the 2012 race, where both boats smashed the course record and finished with Bella Mente a mere 3 minutes ahead. This year, Shockwave led by seven minutes, after the two had battled head to head within sight of each almost continuously for over 635 miles.

Although the boat for boat racing was close, Shockwave beat her rival Bella Mente by 1 hr and 44 minutes in ORR and similar margin in IRC. As with the 2012 Race, the brain trust was comprised of navigator Andrea Visintini, tactician Stu Bannatyne, skipper George Sakellari, and Robbie Doyle sailed as the “stratitician.”

“There was a constant analysis and dialog onboard as the position of the Stream was fluid, and the weather pattern was also shifting,” explained Doyle. “We had to hunt to find the (Gulf) Stream… we never found the 4 knot real road to Bermuda. It had broken up before we got there. Forecasters had predicted it might, but they suggested we might get there before it would start to dismember. The Stream was really breaking up pretty quick.”

Adjustments to Shockwave for the race proved pivotal. “We tried some new ideas and ways to optimize the boat for the ORR rule” explained Doyle. “Bella Mente is a more powerful reaching boat than Shockwave so in order to defend our 2012 victory we felt we needed to improve our rating as we did not feel we could beat her in a reaching drag race which the Bermuda Race can often be. After a detailed weather analysis of the past 10 races over a 20 year period we made the decision to switch to a fractional spinnaker hoist. We designed and built a new full size Fractional Code 0 (labeled Super-FRO by the crew) to complement our existing smaller FRO. We only carried one free-flying spinnaker and then two Fractional Code 0′s.”

Both FROs were set on top down-furlers for easy sail handling and crossovers. The combination proved successful, as the powerful ‘Super FRO’ carried the boat through some crucial transitions.

”Surprisingly its best moment came when VMG running in 8 knots TWS into head seas with Bella Mente right on our tail,” observed Doyle. “Even though she was carrying a full size mast head spinnaker we were able to open up on her with the more stable Super FRO.”

But with the new sail came another hurdle to overcome. “We had one day of practice with the Super FRO, during which we saw what a powerful weapon it could be, but also how much it really loaded up the sprit,” Doyle noted. “We worked with Reichel/Pugh’s office to re-engineer the sprit to handle the sail, and the guys were reinforcing the sprit until 3am the morning of the start! A total team effort to pull off this incredible result again.”

Report by Doyle Sails. Click here for complete race debrief.