The Six-mile Three Tree

The Center Sound Series was due a drifter, and the Three Tree Point race delivered. After a long delay, enough zephyrs came from the south to start the fleet of Saturday’s racers on a 6.something mile course.

A slow motion race ensued as the fleet did the usual tuck under the West Point beach and made its painful way around West Point, then off to Duwamish Head. It certainly wasn’t the rousing conditions most were hoping for to wrap up the series. Results here,.

Sonic Boom Hang

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Most notable perhaps was Sonic‘s relatively slow motion grounding at West Point. After positively nailing the start and leading the IRC class to the beach, skipper Marek Omilian and the team took the port tack lift while clearing the lighthouse, taking Glory up with them in the process. “We got lulled into complacency by seeing all the boats around us safely clearing the bar. However, none of those boats draw 10.5’,” skipper Omelian reports. Glory headed down, taking Sonic‘s transom, just in time as Sonic hit bottom. Sonic was stuck as the fleet made its south way ever so slowly. Despite efforts including the crew perched on the end of the boom and trying to hoist a spinnaker, Sonic was stuck.

Stuck, that is, until photographer Jan Anderson and her “boat boy” Skip helped pull them off. This is yet another reminder of how Janpix helps out the racing scene around here (and how important it is to support her photography). Three Tree pix here. Apparently we need them out there for more than photographs.

Mark Omelian’s Sonic is not just a racer, it’s a charity fundraiser. Note the banner they displayed pre-start. Ormelian explains:

We are using Sonic TP52 as the platform to raise money for various programs in the Pacific Northwest through The Ocean Foundation (TOF). When you text OCEAN or SONIC to 91999 you get a text back with the invitation to contribute directly to TOF. Individual donations, along with corporate funds we are in the process of raising will benefit specific programs we are in the process of identifying. Fred Felleman (Port of Seattle Commissioner) and Peter Schrappen (NMTA) are advising us on the program selection. We are very passionate about the following three areas:

Marine Education – we identified Youth Maritime Collaborative as the beneficiary program. I am attending their event at Seattle Maritime Center today to learn more about their needs. Besides money donation, we plan to create an internship position.

Marine Safety – TBD

Marine Environment – TBD

We are always looking for input, so if you and your readers have any suggestions please let us know.

When the zephyrs cleared, Charlie Macaulay’s Absolutely won the race overall and class 8, which incidentally had seven of the first eight boats overall. More Jubilee won the three-boat tiebreaker among the J/105s, Sachem hung in well enough to win class 7 overall and Glory easily won the ORC class overall. Dos finished her class off with another bullet. In class 6, Don Leighton’s Tahlequah won the race and the series as class leader Elusive dropped to fifth for the race. Onboard was our intrepid weather guru Bruce Hedrick, who provided the following no-blow by no-blow race dissection:

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Tahlequah’s Tale

By Bruce Hedrick from onboard Tahlequah

Well, it was a beautiful day on the water even though with just a .5MB pressure difference between Bellingham and Portland, we didn’t think there would even be a race. So we drifted around for a while and about 1110 we started to see a dark line extending to the west from West Point. The Race Committee also saw it and set a line and then hoisted the “S” flag with what we thought was a pretty optimistic course. Considering the time, tidal situation, and the forecast for less than existing wind it was going to be a stretch to even get back to F the first time.

I thought we had a pretty good start considering that we got tangled up with a J-120 who thought they were starting with us. After several of us yelled at him, he finally sailed off at about 30 seconds to go, leaving us one boat down from the heavily favored committee boat end. Darkside, the Shock 35, has been steadily improving this series and won the start however it wasn’t long until by going higher and faster we got into the lead. The series leader, the C&C 115 Elusive, went conservative at the start and was well to leeward of us and unable to point high, sagged off and was first into the outfall from the Ship Canal which set them back and slowed them down. We got into the shallows south of the Ship Canal and rather than tacking on anyone decided the best tactic was to sail our own race and find a clear lane to get up to the West Point Buoy.

In terms of who was where at this point, Darkside had gone a little further into the beach and closed up with us. The J-35 Solution and the other C&C 115 Fortuna had stayed out but gotten into the ebb coming around West Point and that set them back but since there was about two more knots of wind on the outside they didn’t lose much. Elusive had fallen well back and was starting to get tacked on by other boats which certainly didn’t help them. Rather than tacking back into the beach north of West Point, we stayed about three boat lengths off to keep our air clear and just try to get out to the West Point Buoy. It quickly became apparent that a major restart was developing at the WP Buoy and when boats tacked at the mark they pretty well parked up in the ebb. This was creating a picket fence effect so we just kept going out on port tack and kept our air clear as a nice port tack lift came through. The boats that did tack to starboard and could get back towards Magnolia did OK for a while but the stronger ebb along that shore slowed them down and then as the breeze backed from the SSE to ESE it lightened up in there as well.

We stayed out and watched as the big boats led by Glory came around behind us and then held port tack, going generally our direction. We also had sailed to leeward of Madrona and that put us in some good company in clear air. The other interesting feature at West Point that really helped the big boats was the fact that there was about 3 more knots of wind about 15-20 meters off the water. The big boats with square-top mains just kept moving. Crossfire was behind coming around the buoy but when they changed to the drifter and got a nice puff, they powered nicely into a lead they would never relinquish.

At this point, we were still on port tack just off of Four Mile Rock with the wind at about 100°M making about 1.3 knots over the bottom thinking that it was going to be a long day just to get to Duwamish Head. The wind continued to hold at about 3-4 knots but then began to clock around. The boats that had gone in under Magnolia, like Dos, parked up and gradually dropped astern. Darkside had rounded the buoy well too leeward and astern of us but, as Schock 35s generally do in 1-4 knots of wind, gradually went to leeward of us and got into the lead. Well behind was Solution, Fortuna, and Elusive generally sailing lower and slower. However, as we have painfully learned over the last couple of years you can’t put the C&C 115’s far enough behind on the upwind legs to hold them off when they put up the kites and get rolling downwind. Amazing what a carbon boat with more waterline, a lot more sail area can do going downwind. Especially so in this series as we had watched Elusive come from well astern, sail through our lee and then through Sachem’s lee to take the lead in the previous race.  

As the breeze continued to clock around to the SW it was just a question of when to tack towards Duwamish. There was more breeze to the west and if you tacked too early you would get back into the light stuff. So we waited until we could tack and be about 20 degrees low of Duwamish. We had also seen the RC boat come around West Point and head towards Elliott Bay Marina. We were thinking, those dogs are going to get lunch at Maggie’s Bluff and then go back to finish us off Shilshole but no, they continued on up to Duwamish Head. Now it was a one tack drag race to the finish.

Darkside had held on to port longer than we had, so as the breeze continued to clock we had a slightly better angle to the finish. After we tacked we also immediately set up a barber hauler to move the jib lead out and forward and once we went to that, we were able to slowly sail away from Darkside and get back into the lead.  We also started to get the crew ready for a spinnaker set as the newer boats around us went to their Code 0’s and really started to move nicely in conditions perfect for those specialty sails. Darkside was still to weather of us by about three boat lengths and just couldn’t stand to see us continue to boat speed away from them so they set a standard kite. We were ready to counter however the wind was still too far forward for our .6 to work so we just focused on constantly trimming for speed and moving the crew around below decks for the perfect angle of heel. Darkside had a little problem getting their kite to fill which slowed them down and forced them to sail lower. We used that as an opportunity to come up underneath them and put them directly astern of us by about three boat lengths. They then had to fall off even more which allowed us to boatspeed away from them and into another battle for clear air with two faster boats, an FT-10 and a Farr 395, coming in from astern. All the while, Dos had set a chute and went flying through our lee to get well ahead of us, again.

We managed to hold off the faster boats and finish just astern of Dos. Now it was a matter of seeing where the rest of our fleet finished after Darkside took a well-deserved second place. Solution had moved into third place with Fortuna next who was looking great flying a Code 0 and steadily moving away from series leader Elusive.

In the series, we had two seconds and a first for a series total of five points, with Elusive taking the silver with two firsts and a fifth for a total of seven, and taking the bronze was Darkside with a point total of nine.

Kudos to the Race Committee for getting it done in very difficult conditions.