Same destination, Different races

The 2025 Marion Bermuda Race starts June 20 from Marion, MA, with the 645 nm course finishing at, you guessed it, Bermuda. Dr. Tom Vander Salm, who competed in the Shorthanded Celestial Class for the 2023 biennial edition, recalls the experience:

I had done seven Newport Bermuda races before entering the Marion Bermuda race in 2023. My reason for this new (to me) race was that I wanted to learn celestial navigation and sail the race using only those tools. I did so and found the process both far more time consuming than I anticipated but also delightfully rewarding.

I used the nautical almanac, sight reduction tables, dead reckoning, and paper and pencil – computer and cell phone apps make the calculations easy and quick, but I wanted to use only the resources that Joshua Slocum had. The race organizers made the entire registration process seem less like a formal obligation and more like a connecting with a long-lost friend.

What surprised me was the friendliness, congeniality, and overall sense of fun of the race. The Marion Bermuda race, in part because it is smaller than its older sister, the Newport Bermuda race, creates a more relaxed vibe, and a corollary feeling of greater comradery.

And the whipping cream on top: on arrival at the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club, the race finish host, we were immediately given a Dark’n’Stormy for each crew member.

The only downside of the 2023 race was that almost the entire fleet was becalmed for a day and a half. But the upside for us was that in our division, we won the third place trophy and immediately thereafter received the Cook’s Trophy for last place!