Bermuda Parent Bermuda Parent Spring 2015 | Page 52

BY DUNCAN HALL
What Can We Expect from the
AMERICA’S CUP?
S
Glenn Astwood knows what it feels like to fly across the
Great Sound on a state-of-the-art catamaran.
o, he will be a keen observer when the foil-
ing, wing-sailed 45-foot catamarans sail in
the Great Sound in October at the Ameri-
ca’s Cup World Series event – and when the
world’s best sailors race 62-footers at the
2017 America’s Cup.
Some three decades ago, skipper Astwood and
crew Eddie Bardgett were racing across the Great
Sound in the Tornado 470 catamaran class. They
were competing against other world-class
Bermuda teams – Reid and Jay Kempe,
and Alan Burland and Chris Nash.
The 20-foot Tornados were used
for the Olympic catamaran discipline
from 1976-2008. Astwood and Bardgett
represented Bermuda at the 1988
Olympic Games, finishing 15th in heavy
conditions off Pusan, South Korea, while
the Kempes represented Bermuda at
the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona,
Spain, and Burland and Nash finished
fifth at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
“We were flying – the Tornado was
the fastest production boat in that era,”
Astwood says. “We would do 12-14 knots,
maybe 16-18 knots downwind and 22
knots on a good reach. But these Ameri-
ca’s Cup guys will be going at least twice
that speed – technology has come a long
way since then.”
Astwood, a veteran of 20 Gold Cup
regattas in Bermuda, is also a former
50
Bermuda match racing champion and multiple Ber-
muda Tornado champion. He and Bardgett also had a
second-place finish at the CORK Regatta in Kingston,
Ontario. He says competitors racing in the Great Sound
can expect “anything and everything”.
“We don’t have prevailing winds in Bermuda,” he
says. “We have weather systems – some from the east
coast, some from Africa – and the wind goes right
around the clock. But the guys we are talking about are
professionals. That’s why they are coming here early to
study the conditions. They will know more about the
Great Sound after six months than I could know in a
lifetime. They will gather their information, and they
have plenty of time to do it.
“With these guys going 40 to 50 knots, it won’t
matter too much if there are wind shifts. The boats
are so fast that they will create their own apparent
wind. A small wind shift won’t affect them on a
small course like Bermuda.”
Tim Patton has won Bermudian and
Canadian national championships in the
Etchells class. He has competed in 25
world championships in Etchells, his
best finish a fourth at the 1988 event
in Australia. A past president of
the Bermuda Sailing Association,
he is the father of top teenage
sailor Campbell Patton, who
finished 18th in the 544-boat
Palamos Optimist Trophy
Nations Cup in Spain in
February.