Classic breeze for start - HSH Nordbank blue race

by Event media on 17 Jun 2007 In the classic southwesterly sea breeze that has fueled the starts of yacht races ranging from transatlantic ocean contests to the America’s Cup, 21 boats representing six nations (Antigua, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Switzerland and the United States)answered the gun today to begin the 3,600-nautical mile HSH Nordbank blue race. Their destination: a finish line near the River Elbe in Hamburg, Germany.

After a week of frigid nor’east winds, principal race office Alan Green could not have asked for a more ideal afternoon to administrate a yacht race. Calm morning breezes gave way to an ideal 10-15 knot sou’wester, and it would have been a clean start off Fort Adams in Narragansett Bay had not the Cookson 50, Chieftain, jumped the gun and crossed the line early. But Chieftain quickly exonerated herself, and joined the fleet as they rounded a pair of marks near the bay’s entrance before sailing out into the open Atlantic.

Former New York YC commodore Larry Huntington’s Snow Lion missed the pre-race Parade of Sail in Newport Harbor while a last-minute replacement to a balky transmission was installed, but the 50-footer was right in the fray when the starting gun sounded. Moments after, the Swan 62RS Albatros suffered the fleet’s first gear failure, reporting to the race committee that their main halyard had parted.

One week from today, the second start of the HSH Nordbank blue race will begin off Fort Adams. The three-boat class for the fleet’s largest yachts will consist of the 90-foot Rambler, skippered by Ken Read; the 80-foot Reichel/Pugh-designed BonBon; and the event’s largest entry, the Perini Navi 177-footer, Parsifal III.

For Read – a former America’s Cup skipper and 6-time world champion in the ultra-competitive J/24 class who grew up sailing on the local waters of Narragansett Bay – the HSH Nordbank blue race will be a pressure-packed event. Read was recently named skipper for the Puma Racing Team in the 2008 round-the-world race, and the HSH Nordbank blue race aboard RAMBLER will be his first transoceanic competition in his new role. Read plans on using the HSH Nordbank blue race to test and evaluate crewmembers.

'This is a major race, my third transatlantic in the last four years,' said Read. 'Going north up to the North Sea can be a nasty place to sail any time of the year. Luckily, the boat we’re sailing on was sort of made for this sort of thing. It’s a strong boat and we have a really good crew.'

Larry Huntington’s SNOW LION perhaps doesn’t boast as many sailing luminaries, but Huntington knows his way across the North Atlantic, having finished second in the last transatlantic race to Germany in 2003. 'I had planned 18 days of food and we finished in 18 and a half,' he said. 'When we went across the finish line at the entrance to the River Elba, a little German inflatable came alongside and handed up a bag, which I just assumed would be full of beer. But it was sandwiches! They were very welcome indeed.' Let’s see who is going to welcome Huntington this year.

http://www.hsh-nordbank-blue-race.com

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