5 November 2022
Since
1934, some of the best offshore sailors in the world have battled
for the prestigious Miami to Nassau Cup, including Ted Turner,
Dennis Conner, Dick Bertram, and Ted Hood, aboard legendary boats
like Running Tide, Windward Passage, Tenacious, and Boomerang. Half
a generation after World War II forced a short intermission, the
race became part of the fabled Southern Ocean Racing Conference in
the 1970’s and '80's until the series’ dissolution in the late
1980’s.Starting in South Florida, racers leave Great Isaacs Light to starboard and proceed past Great Stirrup Light, finally finishing at Nassau harbor. The current course record was set in the 2012 race by Ron O'Hanley on the yacht Privateer with an elapsed time of 13 hours, 31 minutes and 30 seconds.
Today’s modern boats just need the right conditions to claim this legendary prize, and racers of all types will enjoy the navigational and crew challenge of the race across the Gulf Stream. Building on the race’s welcome rebirth in 2003, the new SORC, a group of race-veteran race managers, announced its management of the Nassau Cup Race in 2010.
This is the first race of the SORC’s 2022-23 Islands in the Stream Series, and 14 monohulls and one multihull completed the 171-mile course from Miami to Nassau yesterday in near-perfect conditions: after the start on Thursday off of Miami Beach northeast winds held at 12-18 knots for a port tack upwind fetch across the Gulf Stream to Great Isaac Light, then a close reach to Stirrup Light, then a broad reach to the finish in Nassau.
Race Chairman Carol Ewing from the Coral Reef YC called this “the best Nassau Race in a decade." With an elapsed time of just under 16 hours, Kate and Jim Murray’s TP 52 CALLISTO from the Storm Trysail Club and the RORC is the overall winner in ORC Class 1 with a corrected time margin of victory of 1 hour 16 minutes over another TP 52, John Evans and Trey Sheehan’s HOOLIGAN RACING from Edgewater YC. The remaining podium position another 21 minutes behind in corrected time was Andrew Berton’s J/111 SUMMER STORM from New York YC.
The margins in corrected time in ORC Class 2 were much closer: Andrew Clark’s J/122 ZIG ZAG from New York YC won the class by only 13 minutes over John Harvey and Rick Titsworth’s J/120 SLEEPING TIGER - SOUTH from Bayview YC after over 22 hours of racing. Only 9 minutes behind in corrected time was third-placed SENARA, Eamonn deLisser and James Bill’s local-based Farr 395 from Coral Reef YC.
The remaining races in the SORC’s Islands in the Stream Series are the Wirth Munroe Ocean Race on December 2nd, the Forth Lauderdale-Key West Race on January 4th 2023, and the Port Canaveral Race on February 9th 2023.
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