Heartsease Larus Roc takes multihull honours

by Talbot Wilson on 22 Jun 2005 The largest boat in Class M, the Open 60 trimaran Heartsease Larus
Roc, skippered by Lars Svensson, took multihull honours at the finish
line of the Marion to Bermuda race just after 0500 hours on Tuesday June 21.

This is the first multihull division in Marion to Bermuda Cruising Yacht Race
history and is one of the important innovations in the event this year. Svensson is a famous heart surgeon in the USA, who is also in charge of the Heartsease Foundation.

The quick tri looks like its seagull namesake, gliding across the water
and has a wingspan, hull to hull, of about sixteen paces - just like the bird named ‘Roc’ by Marco Polo.

She started 24-hours after the monohulls and passed them one day later in the Gulf Stream. Heartsease Laurus Roc finished off St David’s Lighthouse in Bermuda, an estimated 12-hours
ahead of the next finisher.

Once the race committee calculates the official elapsed time, the winner’s performance will set a new benchmark for multihulls in this 645 nautical mile biennial race. With the light air experienced in the bottom half of this year’s race, the mark should be a good target in the future.

As the full moon set over the headland of Bermuda’s south shore and the
dawn was just arriving, Heartsease Larus Roc ghosted across the finish in a 3-5knt south-westerly breeze.

She was making 6 knots, enabling her to round the shoal marks on the approach to Bermuda, and squeeze up and use her momentum to cross the line without having to tack.

The finish line volunteers in the lighthouse welcomed the winners to Bermuda, advising them to stand by for refreshments from Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club Commodore, Donald Jolliffe. The response from Heartsease Larus Roc was, ‘that would be most appreciated. Do you have any ice?’

As the line boat with Commodore Jolliffe aboard approached, he welcomed them formally to Bermuda. When asked about the trip, navigator Ian Martin said, ‘It was exceptional.’

‘We had a hard-fought three-hour beat out of Buzzards Bay,’ said Svensson. ‘We had hoped to complete the race in about 55 to 60 hours. We made up for the slow start by covering 364 miles in the 24 hours after 5:00pm Saturday.

‘In the eddy below the Gulf Stream, we had 20 knot winds and 12-20 foot seas. After we passed the weather trough below the Gulf Stream, we went in circles, dodged clouds looking for wind and tacked back and forth until we worked our way down to the breeze.

‘We did 10-12 knots until we turned from the breaker marks toward the finish.’

Svensson went on to thank the Marion to Bermuda Race organisers for including multihulls in the event and when asked if he would return in 2007 replied, ‘we would like to go again.’

Five boats out of the original 75 starters have withdrawn. Monohulls: Fiona Rois, and Saoirse and multihulls: Alegra and Falcor.


The iBoat tracking home page presented by Globalstar on the race
website www.marionbermuda.com shows the positions of all boats in both fleets.