Newport Bermuda Race

Puma Racing skipper Ken Read and his Volvo 70 Il Mostro, a rocketship that sails with almost any breeze, were leading the Bermuda Race. Even the fastest boats in the world need some wind to keep moving at a rational pace. Read reported the course to Bermuda as 175 magnetic, and the wind direction as 175 when it registered. This is a deadly combination when the windspeed is in single digits, and shrinking. Alex Jackson's Speedboat was faring little better, and the two fastest boats in the fleet went from looking extraordinary to looking like just another couple of sailboats struggling hard to get from point A to point B. At 1600 EDT on Sunday, Speedboat was making 10 knots, with 143 miles to go. Il Mostro lurked only 34 miles behind, and had a 25 mile lead over Rambler. The new 69-foot Bella Mente was only four miles astern of the 90-foot Rambler, and she seems to excel in the light going. Just behind, Numbers, Blue Yankee, Rosebud, and Moneypenny were all less than 30 miles behind Rambler, which seems a little underpowered in the light stuff with her relatively small headsails. All these big boats average eight to nine knots over the last two-hour reporting period. For boats further back in the fleet - and that means almost everybody - Bermuda seems little more than a distant dream. When you see more than 350 miles to go - and all of them dead upwind - that first dark n' stormy is a long, long time in the future.