Category: transatlantic

Trans-atlantic 1969

June 1969 was the start of the Trans-Atlantic race to Cork Ireland from Newport Rhode Island at the Brenton reef tower, now just a memory. the finish at Daunt light ship.

Sailing aboard “Carina”. We won our class, in a race that was commemorating the anniversary of the oldest yacht club in the western hemisphere The Royal Cork Yacht Club, founded in 1720. It is hard to summarize a 15 day long race in a few pictures and a few paragraphs.
1969, as many of you may remember was an eventful year. The Newport Bridge was completed. I took the photo of the bridge and the ferry from the stern of “Carina” as we headed out to the start. I returned at the end of the summer, my college roommate picked me up at the airport. The question on everyone’s lips was :”did you go to Woodstock?” To which I replied : “What’s Woodstock?”Perhaps my most memorable moment of the race, was the cold rainy night that the BBC stayed on the air after midnight to carry the landing on the Moon.
After cruising the south and west coasts of Ireland, where the Irish where the greatest of hosts, “Carina’ headed to England for the Admiral’s Cup and the Fastnet race.



TRAVEMUNDE 1968


The finish of the 1968 trans-atlantic race was in Travemunde, West Germany; having started in Bermuda, a week after the finish of the Bermuda Race. It is known as the Monte Carlo of the north.

It is important to put this in historical context. The photograph of what appears to be a field is really a road fenced off and protected by land mines. The Family of our assigned host was still on the “other” side. I would run in the morning on the beach until I arrived at the fence, land mines, and the guard with a dog and a machine gun. It gave reality to the plight Europe had experienced and as a young American; I had only read about in a history book.
The Germans were extraordinary hosts. ( I had occasion to experience this again in 2003 in Hamburg)The easy formality I did not fully appreciate at the time.
Another of the crew, in fact a classmate and myself had the clever idea to cash in our airplane tickets home and buy a car, the plan would be to re-sell the car at the end of the summer and re-purchase tickets home. This decision resulted in many adventures. The engine blew up on the highway in Denmark. As you may have guessed we lost our investment. I can look back today with a smile;at our youthful indiscretion. The stories of foolishness are more often than not, amusing.


ROYAL YACHT SQUADRON

The Royal Yacht Squadron was founded in June 1815; long considered the most prestigious yacht club, perhaps in the world.

Some years ago, I bought at auction two volumes pictured here, “Burnets Own Times” 1838. Opening the front cover I found a do not take label. I contacted the RYS librarian concerning these tombs. The response was one wondering how it could be that I might have possession of these books. A tone I initially interpreted as accusatory . I recovered from this thought and in 2005 at the finish of the Trans-atlantic race co-hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron , I returned the books to the Club.

VIRGIN MONEY aka SPEEDBOAT

Speedboat left today from New York in an attempt to break the monohull powered winch trans-atlantic record. Aboard is an all star crew headed by Mike Sanderson.

I freely confess that I am envious. Six days across the Atlantic is exciting and not so hard. In my opinion the hard part on this boat, will be not breaking it. In other words press as hard as you can without reaching the limits of the boat.;ie. never redlining.Speedboat is much larger than a Volvo 70 used in the Round the World race, however she is more fragile, not built for the punishment the Volvo 70’s are.
I will be following their progress with interest and envy.

SPEEDBOAT

Speedboat aka Virgin Money is an exciting boat,an engineering marvel, elegant, extreme, powerful, fragile. Not particularly useful as its purpose can only really be to set or break distance records. Yet she requires a great deal of attention.

Below she reminds me of Windward Passage the 72 foot 1968 design by Alan Gurney, a practical sensible layout. Both were ahead of their time. Once again, if only today’s materials had been available to Alan; who knows what he might have created. the thought process was similar; go fast.
There is a difference in that Passage was built on the beach, There were limits to what someone would spend for a yacht. From that comparison the owners of Passage got a lot of bang for their buck. She was durable, still sailing, looking better than ever. In today’s world she is heavy and under canvased. I expect she will still be sailing after Speedboat is only a memory.
That said, Speedboat will soon leave to make an attempt on the Trans-atlantic record for a monohull. I would love to be part of that. After all it will only be six days; hardly time to establish a rhythm.



1971 trans-atlantic

In 1971 we cruised “Carina” to England for the Admiral’s Cup and Fastnet Race. we sailed from Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich, Ct. to Harwichport, on Cape Cod; where David Steere the owner of “Yankee Girl” had a summer house, compound might be a better description. A big party the night of our arrival and we left across the ocean along with “Yankee Girl”, “American Eagle” owned by Ted Turner, and “Carina” belonging to Dick Nye.

We sailed the more northerly route, closer to the great circle, crossing in fourteen days , which would have likely won a race had we been competing .
A few days into the crossing, still on the Grand Banks, but not having had a sun sight in a few days, we only had a dead reckoning position. we calculated that we were perhaps 20 miles south of Sable Island, more or less. That night, I was off watch, we hit a whale that had been sleeping on the surface. I ran on deck, in a panic, thinking we had hit the island, just in time to see the whale pop to the surface behind us.

Guinevereous Liraki



The British Museum of Natural History gave each yacht entered in the 1968 trans-atlantic race a log book asking each crew to record sightings of mammals including where,when, and under what conditions the sightings occurred. There were many sightings, I had forgotten until now, I described the porpoise in the photo, Geroge Moffett, the owner of the boat turned the log in at the end of the race. About a year later he wrote to me that the porpoise had been identified as a unique species within the family of Phocoenidae and that the Museum had attributed it the name “Guinevereous Liraki”

I have no substantiation of the story as I have long ago lost the letter.

First Trans-Atlantic race

In 1968 I sailed the Bermuda race and then the trans-atlantic race from Bermuda to Travemunde, West Germany aboard George Moffett’s 48 foot sloop”Guinevere”. A wonderful boat designed by Alan Gurney, probably most famous for “Windward Passage”

When I start to write one of these entries it is more about what to exclude, as there is for me, simply too many threads,each significant in it’s own way.
It would be no surprise to anyone that the personalities play an important role in any of these tales. the boats are usually a reflection of their owners. The events selected certainly play a role.
Geroge Moffett was no exception, an exceptional sailor, one of the most natural helmsman I have ever seen. An ever curious mind.
I had sailed the 1966 Bermuda race on “Guinevere” unable to sail the trans-atlantic race that year as I had a job waiting at home.
we placed in the top of our class each time in the Bermuda Race. In the Trans-atlantic race we won our class and finished second overall. Our German hosts gave out fabulous prizes.
This was a long race,taking just over 22 days. The track took us north of Scotland across the North Sea through the Skagerrak down the Baltic, through the Danish Archipelago, finishing at Fehmarn lightship making sure we did not wander into East German water.
the photo of a rock is Rockall a few hundred miles west of Scotland.
We had a contest during the course of the race as to who was the fastest helmsman, I won, as I did in 2005

CARINA






No story about yachting is complete without “Carina” belonging to the Nyes. There is probably no boat in yachting history that won more races. There were several yachts bearing the name, all belonging to the Nye family. The success was a father,son story, complementing each other perfectly.

I started sailing on the last “Carina”a 48 foot sloop built in 1969, designed by McCurdy&Rhodes. They had been tasked to design a boat that would rate well under any rule and sail fast naturally.(The rating rule was in transition and no one knew exactly what it would be, the existing CCA rule in America was being melded with the RORC rule in the rest of the world.)the boat is still winning races today.
In 1969 of 32 starts I believe there were 29 firsts, the rest were 2nd or 3rd. We won our class in the Trans-atlantic race from Newport to Cork, Ireland. From there we went on to Admiral’s Cup and were part of the winning United States team.
1970 we won the Bermuda Race. and probably the Northern Ocean Racing Trophy, give for a cumulative score based on several races, block Island race, Stamford Vineyard race, Marblehead-Halifax race.
For me the Bermuda race was pier head jump flying in from the intercollegiate national championships.
1971 we sailed the boat across the atlantic again to participate once more in the Admiral’s Cup and Fastnet race.
I only sailed those three seasons on the boat, but it’s indelible mark was with me forever.

2003 trans-atlantic race

the 2003 trans-atlantic race from Newport, RI to Hamburg, Germany, sailing aboard “Snow Lion” a 50 foot Nelson/Marek. The race took not quite 20 days. we had 12 days of over 200 miles a day. Our best being 275 miles in 24 hours; unfortunately for us that same 24 hour period one of our competition sailed 475 miles.

once again the fellowship that only the sea can forge was created with this fine group. It is had to cross the Atlantic with out one storm, ours was only 50 knots, as you can see we sailed with the #4 and a double reef in the mainsail, we hit our fastest recorded speed in this combination, at 26 knots.