Green, But Not Blue
The Rhodes 41 yawl Hotspur was the very last boat to finish the Marion to Bermuda Race. She took more than a week to cover the 645 miles and arrived so long after the rest that the officials had gone home and she had to take her own finishing time at St. David’s Lighthouse. How nice.
It was owner Ron Wisner’s first ocean race and he quipped “It was one hell of a first time. It wasn’t the reaching race as advertised. We had a beat most of the way and that is our worst point of sail on this old design. We even had to tack to cross the finish line.” Of the original forty eight entries, three did not start and eighteen – mostly much bigger boats with experienced ocean racers on board – retired in the face of confused seas and big winds early in the race.
With winds reaching from thirty knots into the mid forties, Hotspur faced the worst 24 hours with just a storm jib up and a storm trysail and storm jib for 12 more hours and, for its efforts, was awarded a Cook’s Trophy, which in this event is given to the last arrival in each class. In this case, it was an appropriate award for Hotspur’s cook, another first timer Rick Higgins, served up fried eggs and hot sweet rolls every morning and dinners included such delicacies as smoked salmon. Well done lads, it’s the sort of gutsy story we like to hear about. Pic of Hotspur by David Skinner and more here.
