Update: Isobel Runs the Bermuda Race
It started before the dock lines even came off. A hard breeze had Isobel pinned against the pier, and a neighboring yacht’s tender had to tow her clear before anyone could get underway. Meh, could have happened to any of us, right? Later, on the way to the start in 17 to 20 knots, a brand-new jib let go at the head, stitching pulled straight out of the cloth with roughly 45 minutes to the start. Quick thinking and a dip into the lee of Jamestown Island allowed a crewmember aloft to chase down the halyard while the rest of the team bent on a lighter backup sail. Two in a row?!? But all was not lost. In Todd’s amiable style, he and the team brought some quick thinking, combined with a bit of luck, and the team was able to make the section start with a head full of steam and a helpful single reef tucked into the main.
Lalumiere still laughs about it. By his account it was a comedy of errors from the moment the lines went slack, and yet Isobel crossed the line in spectacular fashion, working the shoreline, tacking back through the fleet, and passed a well-regarded French entry along the way. Check out the start footage here and see Isobel in action for yourself. 46:05
The first night got serious, briefly. The breeze built past 30 knots, the crew reefed down twice, doused the jib for a stretch, and hand-steered through big following seas that kept slapping the hull sideways. Nobody aboard seemed to mind much. By morning the wind had eased into the low twenties on a broad enough angle to set the A3, and Isobel came alive, holding 14 to 18 knots down the swells with bursts past 20. One GPS reading topped 23.5 knots with one of Lalumiere’s sons at the wheel, a number his father still brings up, mostly so he can complain about being outrun by his own kid by several knots, just as it should be.
The fun kept pace with the racing. Through the flat, windless middle of the course, the crew fired up the grill on the afterdeck for a Father’s Day cookout of hot dogs and burgers. The feast was capped off by pressurized hot showers for the crew while boats nearby made do with paper plates and freeze-dried rations. Isobel’s owner clearly enjoyed the contrast. Everyone aboard still carried beacons and kept jacklines clipped around the clock, because a good time offshore is still built on real seamanship, but the mood on deck stayed closer to a floating cookout than a grim delivery.
The division’s rating rule allows only one large overlapping headsail, forcing a choice between a reaching-oriented “tweener” and a true light air wind-seeker. Isobel carried the tweener, which certainly earned its keep reaching and running, but struggled to point inside 60 to 65 degrees. The choice cost the boat some range in Monday morning’s lighter breezes. It’s the sort of decision that only gets realized, real once you’re four hundred miles from a sail loft, and Lalumiere’s crew happily made peace with the decision over drinks at the bar.
The crew itself is a big part of why Lalumiere does this at all. Charlie sailed at Dartmouth and earned honorable-mention All-American honors; his brother Matt carries a run of college championship finishes of his own as well as serious Etchells chops at the nationwide level. Even a 19-year-old crew out of Annapolis less than two weeks before the start turned out to be exactly the right last-minute addition, strong, easygoing, and completely unbothered by bunking down with sailors three and four times his age.
The only house rule, by Lalumiere’s own account, was that nobody was allowed to be a bitch about anything, and by all reports it was smiles all around. Whales surfaced off the bow more than once, tuna jumped nearby, and at one point the fleet converged just enough that Isobel came within hailing distance of a Swan on the same course, close enough for both crews to wave before the wind sorted out who held the better angle.
Isobel is entered in next year’s Marblehead-to-Halifax race, a colder, tidal, altogether different kind of test off Nova Scotia, and Lalumiere didn’t need much convincing to sign back up for the next Newport-Bermuda, in 2028. Asked what he’d remember most about this one, he skipped right past the finishing position and went straight to the 19-year-old they’d almost left behind, the barbecue smoke drifting off the stern in the middle of the Atlantic, and a boat built for six that easily and happily held ten.
The pictures speak for themselves.
Photo credits: Todd Lalumiere, Stephen R Cloutier – BRF, Joseph Morel – JoePics.com