J’erin sets pace in Newport-Bermuda

by Talbot Wilson on 26 Jun 2004 In 2002 James Flaherty of Moscow PA sailed his Esprit 37 J’ERIN to second in Newport Bermuda’s AMERICAP NS Division and set a goal to win it this year.

He reached his goal when J’ERIN finished this 635-mile classic off St David’s Lighthouse Wednesday with an elapse time of 123hrs 06min 46sec.

Flaherty’s name will go on the Royal Mail Trophy for first in Fleet on corrected time in this competitive yet Corinthian division. He will take home the new keeper prize for the division, a fully rigged model of the RBYC fitted dinghy
‘Contest’ donated by Dennis and Commodore, Jane Correia.

Flaherty said that he and the crew started preparing for the race last winter by doing extensive fairing and sanding of the bottom.

He put a new harder bottom paint to get J’ERIN into more of a racing mode. He praised his crew saying, ‘it was a challenge to keep our morale up in the light air and at night, but the crew stuck with it and we came out all right.’

‘We had a great trip through the Gulf Stream, he continued. ‘We had North by Northwest winds up to 25 knots.’ This was Flaherty’s fourth Bermuda Race from Newport and he has also done one from Marion.

J’ERIN’s navigator Thomas Mydlack briefed the standing room only crowd at the Navigator’s Forum saying, ‘the skipper reset the knot metre to read faster then we were actually sailing. When the helmsmen saw the speed they were getting out of the little double-ender, they tried even harder to keep it up above anything the boat had done before.’

‘After the skipper went off watch at night, we brought the computer on deck and watched some DVDs. We had to keep the boat moving in the light air. If the sails flogged we couldn’t hear the movie, so the movies helped us keep the boat moving.’

Maydlack praised his skipper saying that he put the emphasis in three areas: safety, performance and good DVD's.

J’ERIN finished first in Class 12 and first overall in the twenty-seven boat AMERICAP II non-spinnaker division. DAME OF SARK, a classic Concordia yawl owned by Stephen Donovan of Cincinnati OH, finished right behind on corrected time to finish second in Class 12 and second in the fleet.

First in AMERICAP™II Class 11 was STARLIGHT a Swan 46 owned by John Marshall of Newton MA. Second in Class 11 was CYGNET a Swan 44 owned by Richard Sylvanovich of St. Louis MO.

One hundred and fifty six yachts from 37 to 94 feet long with crews from 2 to 23 and from 13yrs old to 92 started this 635-mile biennial ‘Thrash to the Onion Patch’.

Racing was in five divisions. Traditional IMS Cruiser/Racers with 102 entries was once again the backbone of the fleet.

These boats were competitively sailed by amateur captains and mostly amateur sailors from all walks of life.

The second largest division with 26 entries was AMERICAP Non-Spinnaker, also amateur, but somewhat less intense than the IMS C/R. AMERICAP Double-Handed and IMS Racing had 12 entries each and the new Big boat Demonstration Division had three super-fast 86 footers.

All results and race information is posted at www.bermudarace.com.

All in all, around 80 trophies will awarded at the prize giving scheduled for June 26 at Government House in Hamilton, Bermuda