With 13 weeks still to go before registration closes on July 1 there are already 80 boats signed up to compete in this year’s Marblehead-to-Halifax Ocean race. Of these, 61 are from the US but only five from Marblehead.
One of the newcomers to this year’s race is also the oldest boat signed up so far, the 1936 Rhodes designed cutter Kirawan which is now owned by Dan Levangie of Boston. Kirawan was designed for and indeed won the 1936 Newport to Bermuda race for her then owner Robert Baruch. Her amateur crew of nine included designer Phil Rhodes and builder Irving Jacobson.
In 2017 Dan Levangie, who owned and sailed the 60’ Ted Hood designed sloop Windwalker, had been looking for a classic boat to restore for three or four years when he came across a listing for Kirawan. The Phil Rhodes designed boat was sitting in a boatshed in Wickford, Rhode Island, where she had been for the last 16 years after her then owner had filed for bankruptcy.
Well aware of the work of Joe Loughborough and having seen the launch of Santana, Dan was determined to do the same for Kirawan. “We bought the boat and took her up to Loughborough Marine in Portsmouth for extensive restoration” he said. “A good partner of mine told me that projects like this take twice as long and cost twice as much as you expect, and he was right”!
They were all prepared to participate in the 2020 Newport to Bermuda race but then everything came to a halt because of the pandemic and instead Kirwan’s first major race outing was the 2022 Newport to Bermuda. “We were really thrilled by the way she handled”, Dan said. “Especially in the really heavy weather on the Sunday when there were big seas and winds gusting to 35 knots, you just knew you were in a classic ocean racing boat”.
The slight downside of a classic ocean racer, Dan admitted is the lack of space below and the fact that the galley is forward and not where you want to be in heavy seas, so a good supply of protein bars and other convenience food is essential.
Interestingly Dan recently received an email from a guy in Texas who had been the navigator on Kirawan when she participated in the 1964 Los Angeles to Tahiti race, a 3,200 mile odyssey which took them 20 days to complete.
Kirwan’s full time captain is Craig Bliss, who will serve as navigator in the MHOR and there will be six other crew members. “We will have two watches, four on and four off, that’s just about all we can fit”. Dan said.