Northern Century – Smoky Challenges Right to the Finish

Ed. Note: Thanks to new contributor Justin Wolfe for sending this report and harvesting the Facebook photos by Shannon Buys and Stephanie Schwenk. Justin & Chris Wolfe live on Orcas Island. They are both UW Sailing Team alum and nowadays they enjoy racing and cruising Shearwater, mostly double-handed. Shearwater has taken them across the Atlantic eastbound, across the Gulf of Mexico, and to Hawaii before calling the Salish Sea home. If you would like to tell a story on Salish, report on a regatta or promote something coming up, email me! – KH

The Northern Century race has a reputation, and it is well deserved. Racing 100 miles around the San Juans in the middle of August is a challenge for sure. For extra spice, the race starts at 7:30pm on Friday in Fidalgo Bay east of Anacortes. Not content with this difficulty rating, half the fleet raced double-handed. It can be an emotional roller coaster too. Here are two quotes from this year’s participants: “Love this race! So much beauty…watching the sunset, sailing through the darkness breeze across the decks, starry night skies with meteor showers above, the blood red moon, sunrise out in the middle of the straight, whales, porpoises, and the scenery of the San Juan’s..wow! The race was challenging as always with plenty of highs and lows, good calls and bad, passing boats and being passed. ” – Shannon Buys, Vertigo.

And “If you wanted to get someone to hate sailing, bring them to Northern Century.” – Anon

The double-handed racers were sent off first, at 7:30pm, followed 10 minutes later by the fully crewed challengers. This is actually a setup designed to discourage the double-handers and quickly force them to take stock of the reality of this race before the sun sets and they can’t see the competition, because, you see, the start is really just a race to first wind hole and so, minutes after the gun, Hamachi (J/125), Vertigo (Buys 26), and this writer onboard Shearwater (J/120) lined up across the course, charging north with running kites strapped for the tight reaching. Only halfway up the east side of Guemes, the lead 3 used their limp, backwinded kites as a clear warning sign to the trailing fleet of the first wind hole. Heeding the “don’t follow me” signs, the fully crewed fleet reached up and over the struggling DH fleet, and literally sailed over the horizon before we could get moving again. Freja, the beautiful and rare Aerodyne 43 from South Sound, shifted gears to a Code 0, kicked it up a notch, and led the mono’s north towards the first mark of the course just south of Pt. Roberts. The lone multi, Big Broderna (F31r) sailing double-handed, also made good use of the switch from kite to screecher to reach up to the breeze and move into first overall. Onboard Shearwater, I missed the lesson where we learned there is more breeze closer to the leeward side of an island than further away (except where there isn’t…)

North of Sinclair the fleet enjoyed some rather fine downwind VMG sailing under starry skies all the way to Pt. Roberts, with the majority of the fleet rounding close to sunrise. It was then a short beat in 5-10 knots back south to the halfway point east of Saturna. Onboard Shearwater it was an excellent time to grab some breakfast and rest up before the next kite session. We listened to a few easy going conversations on the VHF between race boats and shipping as we all converged on East Point. Thank you AIS and AIS Transponders for making this easier! Big Broderna (BB) led into Boundary Pass followed by Freja and their little Aerodyne sister, Kahuna. Behind Kahuna the race started getting funky with no clear path west to Turn Point on Stuart Island. Hamachi just put their heads down and suffered to get west until they were met with a pleasant northerly coming out of Plumper Sound. Bat Out of Hell (BOOH, Farr 30) and Shearwater (J/120) were scared off by the glass south of Saturna and kept working south towards Waldron. Lawndart (SC50), working back through the fleet after their no wind timeout north of Sinclair, opted to follow Hamachi along the south shore of Saturna.

There are only two marks of the course in the Northern Century. The Pt. Roberts buoy #4 and Hein Bank west of San Juan Island. The rules indicate you can sail from Pt. Roberts to Hein Bank any way you like. And just like that, the fleet scattered across the San Juan’s various waterways. BB, Freja, Kahuna, Hamachi, and Lawndart persevered passed Turn Point to Haro Strait, where they were greeted with… a parking lot. On Shearwater we kept banging back and forth between going west towards Turn Point and south towards San Juan Channel before giving up the chase west, popping the kite and heading south along the east side of Johns Island, looking for an escape route west to Haro Strait. BOOH took it even further, taking the lonely road east of Waldron and into President’s Channel. While the leaders waited west of Stuart, BOOH poked their noses into Spieden Channel, smelled the northerly coming up from behind and bailed south into San Juan Channel. Shearwater backtracked while drifting with the currents along the east side of Johns and Spieden before finally grabbing the northerly breeze into San Juan Channel. But wait, Blade Runner (SC27) had made a break from Wild Rumpus (SC 27) and Vertigo to run down the west of side of Waldron, carrying a kite proudly into San Juan Channel, closing quickly on BOOH. Wild Rumpus and Vertigo, seeing the wisdom in Blade Runner’s move followed suit heading towards Cattle Pass.

And so it was, after almost 20 hours on the course, 5 boats battled down Haro Strait towards Hein Bank, while 5 trailing boats rapidly closed the gap by sailing through Cattle Pass on the beginnings of an ebb. It was quite a site approaching Hein Bank as you could throw a handkerchief over the first 8 boats with only 20% of the course remaining. BB was first to round, followed by Hamachi, and the biggest mover, BOOH. It was some mighty fine sailing east towards Rosario Strait, with kites up on starboard tack, and the smoke shrouded red sun setting behind us. Kahuna was the first to pull the trigger, gybe, and head north. This proved to be a good catch up move as the rest of the contenders spread out west to east across Rosario Strait.

Northern Century doesn’t stop dishing out the challenges, right up to the finish line. As the leaders approached the finish off Washington Park, west of Anacortes, they were greeted with a devious easterly coming off Allan & Burrows Islands, along with Fidalgo Head. Within site of the finish line BB, after leading 99% of the race, parked it up just off the shoreline in the lee of Fidalgo Head. Lawndart and Hamachi crept passed to the west while Kahuna pulled off the “Buffalo Girls” move to go around the outside of all 3 to take the gun and the Division 1 Fully Crewed win. Only a short time later the little SC 27, Blade Runner, snuck across the line to take a huge overall corrected win, almost 2 hours ahead of Kahuna. On Shearwater, after a timeout in the lee of Burrows Island, we turned around and sailed back south to the breeze, before taking the safe wide-to-the-left option to the finish line to take the double-handed win, only six minutes ahead of Vertigo.