All class winners and overall winner were first-time entrants

By James Boyd and Sean McNeill

NEWPORT, R.I. — Following in the wake of three rebellious New Yorkers who inaugurated the Transatlantic Race in December 1866, a fleet of 13 intrepid crews conquered a restive North Atlantic Ocean from late June to early July in the 31st running of the classic yacht race.

Although this year’s race will go down as one of the slowest and lightest on record—the winning elapsed time was more than three days off record pace—there was plenty of competition throughout the fleet: battles for podium positions that were decided in the final 200 nautical miles of the 2,960-nuatical mile race. And battles with that old sage Mother Nature, whose ocean was at times frothy and wet and at others frustratingly windless and serene.

“We had a great race. It was really successful from our point of view in terms of enjoyment, fun and safety,” said Ian Budgen, tactician on Clarke Murphy’s 82-footer Aegir, which placed fourth in IRC 2. “In our class it turned out to be a small boat race. Realistically, when you go handicap racing offshore, you’re at the mercy of the weather systems. For us the race was calm with winds mostly in the single digits or teens. Our max windspeed was 27 or 28 knots, but for a very short period of time.”

Yachts crossing the North Atlantic typically have to deal with repeated fronts that pass them as a stream of depressions moves towards Europe. For the first few days of the race this was the case. After the start on June 25 off Newport’s Castle Hill Light in a 10-knot southerly, the fleet was beating in 15 to 20 knots with torrential rain and lightning that evening as they headed for the first mandatory waypoints south of Nantucket Shoals and the Right Whale Critical Habitat Area.

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