Will Passano campaigned a J/37 named Carina for nearly a decade and enjoyed considerable success. However, the Gibson Island resident realized he and the crew had “outgrown” the 37-footer and decided to find a bigger, faster sailboat and purchased a Sydney 47 sight unseen from an Australian owner. The Sydney 47, which he renamed Polaris, proved a real rocket ship in giving the Cruising Club of America member his first victory in the iconic Newport-to-Bermuda Race.
Polaris placed first in Class 7 of the St. David’s Lighthouse Division with a corrected time of 2 days, 18 hours, 48 minutes and 30 seconds. That was a half hour better than runner-up Cougar, a J/160 owned by Leonard Sitar.
Cougar captured line honors for Class 7 by 39 minutes over Polaris, but was overtaken when handicaps were calculated. It marked the first victory for Passano in five attempts as a skipper in the Newport-to-Bermuda. In 2016, he placed second in Class 5 aboard Carina.
“It was a real pleasant experience to finally win the class in this race,” said Passano, who has also skippered a Rhodes 41 named Pegasus in Newport-Bermuda. “We really pushed the boat the whole way — sailed it more like a dinghy from start to finish.” Passano has personally completed the 636-nautical mile race 11 times now and had several sailors aboard just as experienced.
Polaris ranked sixth in the entire fleet of 99 boats in terms of total number of Newport-Bermuda races done by the crew. Peter Dudley and Murray L.