Americas Cup - Reflections on Bermuda

Philippa Hutton is now back from Bermuda, where she joined her husband Nick (former resident of Kingswear) who was part of Sir Ben Ainslie’s Land Rover BAR team campaigning to win the 2017 America’s Cup. Part 4 - her reflections on the event

“Utter-meyon,” says Rafa as he looks glumly at the bowl of Cheerios I put in front of him, “Utter-meyon mummy!”

“Darling, we can’t grow watermelon in the garden at home I’m afraid and mummy’s darned if she’s going to break her back lugging one back to the car only to find that Tesco’s version doesn’t come up to your exacting standards.”

Rafa is unsympathetic and flings his little bowl of ‘O’s across the kitchen. These little b******s – the O’s, not the average two year old  – if you don’t mop them up pronto, have a definite Weetabix quality and will cement themselves to the floor pretty quickly, so I spend the next five minutes scrabbling around on all fours trying to salvage the situation. Rafa is delighted and drops his spoon on my head.

This has been our pretty standard breakfast charade since we returned from Bermuda a month ago. I once managed to woo him with a brioche but that little victory was short-lived. Home, it would seem, is not quite the Hamilton Princess Hotel – you just can’t get the service these days and I definitely can’t get the cleaners to rival those at the Fairmont.

So yes, there are certain things that we miss about Bermuda living but it is definitely a bonus to have a husband/father somewhat back in our lives. Nick is enjoying having a bit of downtime after the intensity of life as an America’s Cup sailor and as I write this is currently lying on the sofa drinking a beer and watching the golf – it’s a tough life for the unemployed. 

To give him credit, he hasn’t been that idle since we came home and has been away twice – once to sail in the Round the Island race (where the yacht he was on managed to scrape a wreck a little way off the Needles… I didn’t have a quiet chuckle to myself at all) and more recently, to the the IRC East-Coast Nationals in Newport, Rhode Island (where the team was a bit more successful and managed to win the Regatta on board the TP52 Gladiator). Next week he’s heading back to the Isle of Wight for Cowes Week and I think secretly is rather enjoying sailing on a boat that actually has ropes and sails. Saying that, I did spot him grinding the garden hose in the other day, much to my amusement. 

I was hoping that by the time I wrote this, we might have more of an idea coming out of New Zealand (the victors in the America’s Cup back in June) as to what the next competition might look like. But, besides a provisional date of Winter 2020 being released last week, we still have no idea whether mono-hulls will replace multi-hulls this time around or whether we’ll see any warm up competition like the 2015 World Series. There are a few rumours floating around about new teams securing sponsorship, so that, at least, is exciting and the prospect of maybe escaping a British winter is lingering rather temptingly on the far horizon. 

The final weeks in Bermuda zoomed by and, looking back, I can’t actually remember in logical sequence the whirlwind that was the last fortnight. There was a super yacht regatta happening alongside the junior America’s Cup (which kicked off after the Louis Vuitton series and in which the British team, Landrover BAR were crowned winners, impressively with a female sailor in their midst) and Nick hopped aboard Bequia, a lovely wooden classic that we’ve been fortunate enough to do several regattas on before; yes, even I have crewed for a day and pressed a critical button; although I’m not sure Nick will ever live down the shame of my getting sea-sick in the Caribbean waters that surround St. Barth’s. I tend to leave him to it these days – there are benefits to having a toddler – he makes a great excuse. It was also a treat to see a familiar Dartmouth face out on the island in the form of Mitch Tonks, lending his support to LBAR…although admittedly a little late in the day given the boys had already been knocked out. Next time Mitch!

I think the highlight of the whole shebang however – and I reckon Nick would agree – was the

slightly cloudy Sunday morning when we made our way down to the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club and borrowed an Opi, so that Nick could take Rafa out for his first sail. It lasted all of ten minutes (about the attention span of our son at the moment, brilliant) but much fun was had and who knows, it could be the start of another glorious sailing career. That’s what we’d like to think anyway but the way things are going the apple of my eye is currently more likely to be banged up before he’s eighteen. Either that or he’ll be volunteering on the Dart Steam Railway – loves a train – watch out tourists. 

For me, it’s back to reality and the day job. I caught a 7am train to Bristol on Monday for work this week – my god that was depressing. There was only one redeeming feature of my journey and that was that I wasn’t going to London and so people were actually holding conversations in my carriage. I think I might’ve slit my wrists otherwise. This WAG it would seem, is a WAG no longer – at least for the next couple of years that is – fingers crossed the boy can land himself another America’s Cup gig and I can regain that coveted status and worry about what I’m going to wear to the mid-week beach cocktail night once more. 

#Bringthecuphomenexttimelads #Missingthesunshine #Notmissinglivingintworooms

First published By The Dart magazine August 2017

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