Boudicca to compete in the 2025 Marblehead to Halifax race
by Vicki Staveacre 2 Mar 18:46 UTC
July 6, 2025
Boudicca © Vicki Staveacre
A competitive newcomer to this year's Marblehead to Halifax race is the current Marion to Bermuda record holder Boudicca, owned by veteran sailor Rich Moody.
A King Marine Reichel-Pugh 66 it was built in 2006, and was previously known as Blue Yankee and Aurora. Rich had been sailing with Aurora's owner, Gus Carlson, for many years and bought it just after the 2022 Newport to Bermuda race.
"We took the boat apart and rebuilt it" Rich said, "luckily we had a great core crew who had been together for years. We just split them into teams and assigned each team a job". Following the rebuild the boat was rebranded Boudicca and entered in the 2023 Marion to Bermuda race. The name Boudicca is translated from the Celtic and translates as Queen of Victory or Victorious Woman, which Rich considered to be quite appropriate for the boat and which she seems to be living up to.
The 2023 race started on June 16 and as they departed Buzzards Bay Rich and his crew of 14 quickly altered their race plan. With a big, lighter wind patch rolling up the coast off of Long Island, they ditched the first plan to sail out of the bay and into Rhode Island Sound toward Block Island. "Instead, as soon as we could clear the tower, we tacked and went south to see if we could get around the light air" Rich said, "And it seemed to pay off."
And payoff it did. In two days, 17 hours and 27 seconds the Boudicca crossed the finish line off St David's Lighthouse and set a new record for the 705 nautical mile race. The previous record was set in 2011 by the 76-foot Briand Sloop Lilla, owned by Simon and Nancy DiPietro. which was two days, 20 hours, 58 minutes, 45 seconds.
One of the reasons Rich bought the boat was to keep the amateur crew together. "About eight of us have been sailing together for almost 20 years," he said. Many of them sailed on the 12 meter Courageous in 2006 when Gary Jobson was the tactician and Robbie Doyle was the main trimmer. They won several North America and World 12 championships including the North American Cup in 2013. The final results were a testament to some veteran contenders Courageous (built in 1974), Defender (built in 1983), Columbia (built in 1958), Intrepid (built in 1967), and Onawa (built in 1928).
In last year's Newport to Bermuda race Boudicca won its division with a corrected time of two days, 17 minutes and one second. The class of eight boats was part of the St. David's Lighthouse Division, which departed from Narragansett Bay with 99 yachts. Boudicca finished sixth overall in that division.
Moody, who grew up in the United Kingdom and emigrated to the U.S., has been a sailor for most of his life delivering and racing boats for people. He participated in a lot of big races around the world, and then got the opportunity to work for Land Rover, which he still does. Based in Jamestown, he tends to do one big race a year and then four or five round the island races and the Ida Lewis distance race. Rich is a member of the Jamestown Yacht Club and the Royal Dartmouth Yacht Club in the UK, where his father was the Commodore.