I was hoping some pictures my bubble up from last weekend’s CYC-Seattle Small boats regatta, but alas none have (So I’ve resorted to using last year’s). But there was some good racing across several classes this year. The Hobie 18s had a nice 5-boat fleet, with Ethan Salkind showing his winning touch extends to the 2-hulled vessels he sells, with straight bullets. There were two Hobie 16s as well. It’s great to see the multihulls in the CYC events, and hopefully those classes grow at major events.
505s, Stars and J/24s all featured small fleets but a dominant performance in each. Results. Jay Winberg was the lone Laser out there as others in the fleet were off traveling.
The biggest and most competitive fleet was the RS Aero fleet, which now boasts Jonathan McKee as one of their own. We have a report from one of the original fleet members, Jacques Garrigues:
PSSR was a challenging first regatta. The Seattle Aero fleet has some of the very best sailors and now Jonathan McKee has joined us to add to class acts like Dalton Bergan, Carl Buchan and Dan Falk.
Top Tasar sailor Michael Karas was sailing our loaner Aero and is a terrific talent.
Saturday was raining, the breeze was 5-7 kts early and built to 9-14 kts from the south running against a strong flood tide. On Sunday thank goodness the rain was gone and the breeze had switched to a northerly, 8-10 its early, building to 15-24 kts late. We had three very experienced new additions in Jonathan McKee, Jim Barrett, and Michael Karas all of whom were fast from the first horn.
The regatta though was dominated by Dalton Bergan who has phenomenal speed upwind, downwind, 9 rig, 7 rig, you name it he is showing the other Seattle Aero sailors how it is done. Congratulations to him. As usual, other consistent performers were Todd Willsie (second) and Eric Becker (third) despite some “kissing” by them at the leeward mark followed by a swim to cool off!! The swimmer will remain nameless.
We were on the water for about four hours each day with full on hiking and gathered at the end for well earned drinks and food.
All in all a really good start to the season in the Pacific Northwest for our very competitive and growing Seattle RS Aero fleet.
Thanks, Jacques!
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.