Rambler's race to Bermuda

Navigator Wouter Verbraak recounts the meteo and Gulf Stream games the leaders had to play

On the Rambler we have a strong passion for ocean races, especially when they come in the likes of this years Newport-Bermuda race. The usual ingredients with a spectacular start of castle Hill in Newport and the dark-and-stormy’s finish in Bermuda were of course there, but it was 21 strong crew, great competition and the meandering Gulf Stream with its changeable winds that made this race unforgettable.

With our 90 footer we were a bit short in horsepower to go head-to-head with the new Speedboat and too big to race the same weather pattern as the strong 65-70 fleet. Fortunately our owner George David made a bet with Ken Read on the Puma VO70 who could finish first, which was plenty of motivation to give it all. Pre-race routing using the (Russian) VO70 vpp polars showed the Puma beating us by two hours, so
it was all on.

Aside from playing the Gulf Stream, the big strategic question for the race was whether you would go for speed towards the shift from SW to SE around the high bubble just northeast of Bermuda or stay up in more pressure to the West.

Early model runs showed a small low developing around Bermuda, which could increase the winds in the southeast corner of the course. However these lows are always a concern in model world, as they often turn out to be phantoms that you chase and eventually turn out to be nothing…

Immediately after the start it was clear that the fleet had quite different interpretations on the race strategy with Speedboat, Moneypenny and Puma going for speed towards the southeast corner in the southwest breeze. We followed a more conservative route in the middle of the fleet together with Bella Mente. Numbers and Rosebud were in the
western bunch.

By the time sunset came, the Bermuda race threw it’s first curveball, with winds shifting left instead of right! This was certainly not in the books and forced us further east than we liked.

With the forecast looking lighter and lighter (as the low was not developing as strongly) we wanted to be in the middle to right side of the fleet to stay in pressure, we spend the most part of the second day doing this while crossing the Gulf Stream.

Unlike previous years the Gulf Stream had very only minor strategic features within reach - no big meanders or big rings really to play with. However the Gulf Stream always develops its own little micro-climate and has a huge influence on the apparent wind. Our crossing was in a 8-10 knot southwest gradient which turned into a northwest 4-6 knot gradient due to the current….not very fast really, fortunately we found a good angle with the Code Zero.

In the second part of the race the leading pack of Speedboat, Puma and
ourselves all touched the high bubble. Speedboat and Puma going deeper
in the bubble for the shift. We were quite happy trading in some shift to go for more pressure, but Puma and Speedboat got out well too.

After this a new drag race on port started in the southeast winds with Puma showing some nice boat speed and Speedboat finally stretching her legs. Stability is a nice thing!

We opted again for more pressure out on the starboard layline, even overstanding slightly to make sure we had good pressure. It sure looked like the wrong choice with Puma sailing through us to leeward and gaining bearing steadily after we all tacked to starboard.

With 15nm to go to the finish line the four hour delay on the position reports imposed by the race committee had us scanning the horizon to find Puma. Where were they? The wind did shift ten left at the end which would have them cross us on the last bearing we had of them, so we were fearing the worst even though we had 13-14kn of wind on the layline through the night and the morning. In the end it was not until after we finished that we spotted the red sail behind us on the horizon.

Great to dock next to each other in the harbour shortly afterwards and share some dark and stormies in the bar. A lot of the Puma crew has sailed with us on the Rambler last year and their campaign looks in a great shape. Awesome to be racing each other!