Amelia III and Killua withdraw from Bermuda Race

by Barry Pickthall on 22 Jun 2004 The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Duty Office received a call from KILLUA owned by James Binch of New Cannan CT indicating that they have withdrawn from the race and are proceeding to Bermuda under power. She is in the AMERICAP Double Hand Class.

AMELIA III a Fontaine 64 owned by Jefferson Hughes of New York has had a failure with respect to sails and is also motoring to Bermuda. During the 0800 roll call on Monday the vessel was some 252 miles from the island. This report came from the race communication vessel GERONIMO.

GERONIMO returned to the Newport Bermuda race for the third time as the communications and emergency coordination centre for yachts during the 2004 Newport Bermuda Race.

Bermuda Race Organizing Committee members are on board to conduct a daily roll call, or check-in, on the race course and are available 24 hours a day to facilitate and coordinate emergency communications and management.

She is not equipped to be, nor is she intended, to function as a rescue vessel. To perform communications functions, GERONIMO has VHF, single sideband radio and satellite telephone capability and is the sailing vessel of St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island, Charles A. Hamblett, Headmaster.

St. George's is a coeducational college preparatory boarding school (website: http://www.stgeorges.edu) founded in 1896 and, according to its mission statement, committed to providing students personal development, personal motivation, college preparation, and the basis for a life of constructive service to the world and to God.

A Ted Hood-designed 69-foot cutter-rigged sloop, GERONIMO was built for St. George's School in 1998 by New England Boatworks under the guidance of retired skipper and CCA member, Steve Connett. Her present captain is Deborah Hayes and her first mate, Chris McNally, who was aboard for the Newport Bermuda Race in 2000, will be her captain during the summer in 2002.

Students who participate in the GERONIMO program are instructed in systematics, physiology, behavior, the human impact on the populations and ecology of sharks and turtles, fisheries management and the relationships between resource utilization, management, and conservation in the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the United States.

During the school year GERONIMO makes three six-week cruises with seven students. In the summer she makes two three-week cruises with eight students aboard.