Note: FBYC Members Marie Crump, and Strother and Evie Scott and twins Strother, Jr. and Lina sailed with FBYC Members Rives, Walker and Allen Potts in the Anniversary Regatta. Rives is holding the trophy, Allen is kneeling and Walker is furthest to the right. Marie, Lina and Strother are the three backs on the starboard side in the picture under Read More. Strother, Jr. and Marie also sailed with the three Potts on Carina in the 2008 Newport - Bermuda Race where there finished 3rd in Class.

Carina, a McCurdy & Rhodes 48 with a winning history going  back to 1969, was the overall winner of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Anniversary Regatta sailed Friday in Bermuda.  As the top prize, Rives Potts’ and his crew won the New York Yacht Club Trophy with two bullets in Class 1, and a 1,3 in fleet for the day.  

Thirty-three boats competed in the 2008 Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Anniversary Regatta which also forms the third event of the Onion Patch Series. Forty-four had entered the regatta, but eleven did not start following the long Newport Bermuda Race that brought them to the Island.   

With brisk winds and sunny skies, the sailors  tried their hand at course racing in Great Sound, Port Royal Bay, and the Grannaway Deep on the western end of Bermuda.  Looking upwind, the sailors could see the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse.  Their first race was a windward-leeward course while the second took the fleet on a tour of navigable waters from Great Sound into Port Royal Bay, then into Grannaway Deep, back to the Sound,  through Two Rock Passage and back to a finish line in Hamilton Harbour off the docks of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club.  

“The tour through the islands was especially exciting.  It was hard to concentrate because the sites are so beautiful,” said Rives Potts, the winning skipper.  Carina and crew added a beautiful silver keeper trophy, two decanters and two bottles of Gosling’s Rum to the St. David’s Lighthouse Trophies that Carina won in 1970 and 1982.  They were third in Class 3 within the Newport Bermuda Race this year.

Second place went to Jim Swartz in Monneypenny, a Reichel/Pugh STP65, and Hap Fauth in Bella Mente, a Reichel Pugh 69, came third. Andrew Weiss in the J122 Christopher Dragon was fourth.

His Excellency, the Governor of Bermuda, Sir Richard Gozney raced on Zaraffa, the Reichel Pugh 66 sailed by the U.S. Naval Academy. Jahn Tihansky, the Naval Academy’s offshore sailing coach said, “The Governor was very knowledgeable and gave us some tactical advice at prescient times.  We were happy to have him aboard.”

The end of the trophy presentation kicked off the weekend and the infamous Gosling’s Welcoming Party.

A video of the event is being shown on http://www.t2p.tv/guide/rbycar08.php 'sailing on demand'

Click here to download a PDF of class and fleet results.

Final results of the Onion Patch Series will be announced Saturday and available on www.onionpatchseries.com

For further information, contact Talbot Wilson  at talbot@talbotwilson.com