There’s nothing like a little carnage to get the racing blood boiling. The Toliva Shoal Race, third in the South Sound Series, was raced on Saturday. We can talk about race tactics, but it seems like it was mainly an exercise of survival on the course. Details are still coming in, and apologies for anything inaccurate or missing, but here’s what we have so far:
Broken finger onboard Korina Korina.
Broken boom on Equus.
Blown up chute on Cherokee.
Lost rudder and engine issues on Zig Zag, had to be towed from the McNeil Island area.
Torn main on Les Cheveux Blanc.
Lost backstay on Flying Circus.
Rig issues on Bodacious.
By all accounts Bruce had it right on Friday’s Brief, and the gusts that knocked boats silly sure seemed to be in the 40s. The wind came through on bursts, taking a what seemed like a challenging but under control run into a broach crisis. The boats that made it to Toliva Shoal then faced a brutal upwind. Some came in under headsail alone. There were 19 finishers and over 50 entries. Winners included Jam, String Theory, Leucothea, Lightly Salted, Redline, Folie ‘a Deux, Cherokee, White Squall and Jolly Rumbalow. Results.
According to Kenelm Russell, who’s done “nearly all of them,” this one was the windiest. Not too much for his Fast Passage 39, which he sailed as a family affair including sons, daughter and brother. The mainsail had to come down when the reefing line snapped, and two windows were knocked out because of flailing sheets, but none of it was too much for the Fast Passage Rushwind. Rushwind, after all, has been around the Pacific twice and up to Alaska. (Note to self, now that’s a cruiser racer. They still exist!) He notes that Balch Passage was memorable. “It was frothy white – like sailing through foam,” Russell.
In a race like this, it’s best to let the pictures and videos give the explanations, so I’ve included a lot of them.
First off, from Jan Anderson’s album:
Sean Trew caught the action as well:
Here’s a video from Jim Larsen taken at Boston Harbor:
Here’s a video from the Ericson 32 Finally Free:
And here’s another by Mike Gowrylow:
If you want to share more – send them to me or share to the sailish.com Facebook Page! (You do “Like” sailish on Facebook, right?)
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.