RUNNING TIDE
The 2006 Newport to Bermuda Race was going to be that savoury moment for Beau Van Metre where he would proudly follow in his father’s footsteps. To do so would mean chartering the hottest race boats in the world and start trouncing the competition in ocean races.
Al Van Metre, Beau’s father, a real estate giant from northern Virginia, had been an ocean-racing pacesetter in the intoxicatingly raucous and competitive days of the International Offshore Rule. It was in 1971 that Al bought the 60ft (18m), already-successful Sparkman and Stephens-designed Running Tide after a bidding war with media magnate Ted Turner that ‘Tide’ began a march to becoming one of America’s most decorated and recognisable yachts in ocean-racing history.
Years later, after dark-hulled Running Tide was sold in the late-1980s into irrelevance, Beau thought the natural progression was to do as his father had done. With Beau at his side, the pair had ridden the waves of success with their best friends and family. In 2006, Beau chartered the hot Farr 60 Carrera, a boat full of professionals, the best in the biz, to start his own legacy.
It was a flop. Not only was that year one of the slowest Bermuda races on record,
