Since its inception in 1906, the Bermuda Race has continually evolved, changing with the times and taking a leadership role in shaping the sport of ocean racing. Driving this evolution is a focus on safety, fair racing and fun for the competitor.

The Early Days

The formative days of The Bermuda Race stretch back two years before the first start to the pages of "Rudder" magazine. In 1904, Thomas Fleming Day, the controversial

Editor, was keen on offshore sailing and used "Rudder" as a forum to encourage others to join him. Day began by organizing a ‘longshore’ race from Brooklyn New York to Marblehead, a daring 330-mile chase that attracted six entries—and columns of criticism in the New York and Boston papers.

Unperturbed, Day organized a second ‘longshore’ event a year later from Brooklyn to Hampton Roads, Virginia and blasted back at his critics from the pages of his magazine:  “Newspaper men ought to know better than consult a lot of grey-bearded rum soaked piazza scows. What do these miserable old hulks who spend their days swigging booze on the front stoop of a clubhouse know about the

dangers of the deep? If they make a voyage from Larchmont to Cow Bay in a 10 knot breeze, it is the event of their lives, an experience they never forget and never want to repeat.” 

These comments on the pages of his magazine did wonders for promoting the concept of racing small boats beyond the horizon.

After the Hampton Roads Race, which had attracted nine yachts, owners turned to Day for something more ambitious. They wanted “a real ocean race, one that would take them well offshore and into blue water.” The Rudder editor needed little encouragement to push for a new event.

The Brooklyn Yacht Club organized the start and encouraged participation. English yachting enthusiast Sir Thomas Lipton provided the £100 Cup for the winner. The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, under the leadership of Commodore Ambrose Gosling, organized the finish line and assessed their members £2.00 each for post-race entertainment. And the race to Bermuda was born.

The criticism within the press was vociferous and the public campaign led some to send memorial wreaths and undertaker’s cards to crewmembers that planned to enter the race.

Despite this, three yachts, Lila, Gauntlet and Tamerlane appeared for the start in Gravesend Bay at 3pm on Saturday May 26, 1906.

Soon after, Lila suffered rigging damage and was forced to return, accompanied by Tamerlane whose crew set out again for Bermuda the following Tuesday. This 38ft yawl owned by Commodore Frank Maier of the Eastern Yacht Club also carried editor Day onboard. He reported in the July issue of Rudder, of an uneventful passage that took 5 days, 6 hours and 9 minutes—an average of 5.22 knots.

According to Alfred Loomis, Gauntlet did not see the mishap and went on to be caught in a gale in the Gulf Stream, making a very stormy passage and being blown far to the east of the rhumb line to the islands. Lila gave up on her second attempt in the stream and went home.

Frank Maier's 38' yawl Tamerlane with Thomas Fleming Day in command won the first Bermuda Race in 1906. Photo from "The Rudder."
Malibar VII, one of Alden Yachts long line of Bermuda Race contenders, took first place in the 1926 race sailed from New London. this was the first race co-organized by the CCA and the RBYC. Courtesy Alden Yachts

Pros Allowed

In 1907 restrictions were relaxed and professionals were allowed to sail, but amateurs formed the afterguard. With twelve boats at the start in Gravesend Bay, Dervish won the large class and Lila took the small class. Thomas Day powered to Bermuda in a motorboat.

Marblehead Start

After a successful race in 1907 with twelve yachts on the line, the 1908 race started from Marblehead with five. Dervish won her class again. The 43.5 foot waterline length Verona won her class and beat the larger 56-foot Dervish across the line at St. David’s Bermuda by ten hours on elapsed time. 

Five boats started once again from Gravesend Bay in 1909, Amorita, a 79-foot schooner crossed first in 3D:6H:19M but was beaten on corrected time by the schooner Margaret.

The WWI Years

The years leading up the war and the war years forced so many big yachts to be laid up that only two yachts, Harold S. Vanderbilt’s 62ft Herreshoff schooner Vagrant, and Demarest Lloyds’s 50 footer Shiyessa made it for the start of the 1910 race and the event almost died.

It was a match race to Bermuda where Vagrant caught a wind shift just north of Bermuda and nipped Shiyessa on corrected time by forty-eight minutes. This was the last Bermuda Race until after WWI.

The 1920’s

The idea of racing small boats to Bermuda was not revived until 1920 when the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club began attempts to restart the series.  Although a race was announced for the spring of 1920, Bermuda’s Royal Gazette says that the race would be postponed until at least June of 1921. 

The next mention in the Gazette in April 1922 is of the possibility of a race between New York and Bermuda that summer. Eldon Trimmingham, then Vice Commodore of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, went to meet with the

New York Yacht Club as the representative of the club’s Board of Governors to promote the race, but could not obtain sufficient entries.

For 1923, the RBYC Sailing Committee found support from Yachting magazine and some prominent yachtsmen like John Alden. A group of the new Cruising Club of America sailors led by Herbert L Stone, editor of Yachting, took up the challenge and the race was reborn.

Start in New London

Out of the thirty-two entries that had been received in 1923, twenty-three yachts came to the line off New London, Connecticut. Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, the New Haven Yacht Club and Yachting Magazine donated cups for the three classes. Paul Hammond, vice-commodore of the Seawanahaka Corinthian Yacht Club gave one for the first yacht finishing with an all-amateur crew. 

Alfred Loomis writes in Ocean Racing, “In all this [the 1923 race] the Cruising Club of America took no official part, although when the day [for the start] came its membership migrated to Bermuda almost en masse…all but one of its six members embarked in five different racing boats.” The one who stayed behind started the race. 

The Royal Gazette says that Herbert Stone mentioned that the boats were manned almost entirely by amateurs, making this Bermuda Race the first ocean race of any kind not dominated by professionals—a concept that continues to this day.

The 1923 fleet was caught by a storm, which simply added to the fascination and folklore that has built up around this race over the years. All of them made it in one piece, led by Robert N. Bavier’s yawl Memory. Judge Coffin, the skipper of Seafarer, summed up the conditions best in his oft quoted statement, “The next time I come to Bermuda it will be in a submarine. Then I can be under water all the time instead of half under all the time.”

The 1924 race began off of Sarah’s Ledge at New London with fourteen entries. It attracted the important challenge from the English aboard Northern Light and Jolie Brise. Their skippers, Weston Martyr and George Martin, so enjoyed the event that they returned home later that summer determined to set up an Ocean Racing Club in London (now known as the Royal Ocean Racing Club) and to host an ocean race on the other side of the Atlantic—the 605 mile Fastnet, which was run for the first time in 1925.

With the decline to fourteen entries in the last race, due probably to time constraints and cost, the series became biennial. Sixteen entries came to the line in 1926; and with a gain of only two from the previous race, the year was critical for the future of ocean racing to Bermuda.

Although its members were active in the races, The Cruising Club of America did not formally participate in running the 1923 or 1924 races because it was founded in a protest against racing. The club agreed to co-host the 1926 Bermuda Race despite being roundly admonished by some of its membership who believed the Club should be doing what its title suggests, and not promoting racing.

CCA IN

The progressives won that argument and the Cruising Club continues to this day to coordinate the race in partnership with the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. Loomis points out in Ocean Racing that bad weather in this year would have been a “solar plexus blow” to the race. “But,” Loomis continues, “the weather god was kind; the Cruising Club assimilated its critics, and the crisis passed. The Bermuda Race has rightly been regarded in the years since as a fixture which only a war can disrupt.”

The Bermuda Race continued to prosper under the partnership between the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club and the Cruising Club of America as the race sought a permanent starting port.  In 1928 the start was from New London with twenty-four yachts, in 1930 it saw 42 yachts start from New London again.

In 1932 the depression diminished the fleet to 27 entries starting from a new line off Montauk Point. The start in 1934 was moved back to Sarah’s Ledge since the Point was far from last minute supplies. The fleet increased to twenty-nine.

Start Moves to Newport

In 1936 the Cruising Club and Royal Bermuda agreed to move the start to Newport, Rhode Island to avoid the unpredictable winds and the strong tides of Long Island sound. Despite the Depression, a record breaking fleet of forty-four yachts including nine international entries came to the line. Unfortunately, ten boats, also a record number, failed to finish as a storm hit the fleet in the stream with 40-50 knot winds.