After finishing the 100th running of the Newport-Bermuda Race on Tuesday last week, there was a contentious three day back and forth with the International Jury before Gesture was confirmed as the winner of her division and the team collected her trophy at the governor’s mansion on Saturday night.
Gesture is a 1941 Sparkman and Stephens 57’ sloop, that won the prestigious St Davids Lighthouse Trophy in 1946. Restored in 2023, the current team, including Owen Clarke designer Merfyn Owen began racing together two years ago specifically to enter this race, eighty years after her post WW2 win.
The race began with unusually strong winds of up to thirty knots, well into Day 2, almost entirely aft of the beam, with running conditions down to 145 true wind angle. The sea state precluded Gesture carrying a spinnaker and more than half the race saw her sailing outside conditions favourable to her rating.
Nevertheless after a strong sixteen hours reaching under her new jib top, Gesture, sailing minimum distance along a rhumb line course was holding that coveted position; first in St Davids Lighthouse, overall. The fleet then piled into a ridge of high pressure that blocked the path to Bermuda. She emerged lower down the overall rankings, but finished winning St David’s Lighthouse, Division 3.
