By Peter Salusbury – Skipper of Longboard
After a three-year pandemic hiatus, it was a therapeutic reunion for those intrepid Pacific NW sailors who participated in the Southern Straits Race hosted by West Vancouver Yacht Club on Easter weekend. Bruce Hedrick’s “good news, bad news, very good news” pre-race weather briefing proved to be largely accurate though the fleet generally finished much earlier than the models predicted the night before the race.
On the long course, we started in a very light NE, steady rain, and scary ebb tide so the fleet started up-current very conservatively with Jim Innes skippering Red Sheila crossing the line first. As we made our way out of English Bay the wind shifted around to the SE and built nicely to 15 knots as we passed Bowen Island before building even further to over 20 knots as the leaders on the long course planed to Sister’s Island. Westerly, Blue, and The Shadow all rounded Sisters fairly close together with Longboard not far behind. At this point in the wind cycle, the wind shifted to the SW allowing a direct starboard upwind tack down the strait to Ballenas Island.
Photos courtesy of Graeme Clendenan and Doug Wardrop.
The wind glassed off for a few hours before rebuilding south of Ballenas to a light Qualicum which allowed us to slide down past the Winchelseas before the wind veered further to the west and increased as we crossed Nanaimo harbor. The wind stayed in the W most of the way from Entrance to Halibut Bank and built to over 10 knots before we headed upwind to Ballenas Island. The nighttime sail was gorgeous – dry, clear, with a big full moon all night – it was a tad chilly but comfortable in our best warm weather gear.
After Ballenas Island the W wind stayed up in the 15 knot range all the way down the Vancouver Island shore allowing a lovely downwind slide before we gybed north of Nanaimo for the long port tack gybe to the finish line. Up front the lead boats of Westerly, Shadow, and Blue were duking it out in the shifty conditions between the westerly and outflow winds off Bowen Island with Westerly skippered by Stuart Dahlgren breaking free to take the elapsed time win at 0612 hrs Saturday morning – a very fast race given the course was a relatively long 145 nm.
The provisional results at the time this report was written on the Long Course featured the Riptide 35-2 Longboard in first, followed closely by the always well-sailed J/111 65 Red Roses skippered by Alex Smyth with tactics by the Race Chairman, Graeme Clendenan. Michael Shoendorf’s very fast Riptide 41 Blue rounded out the podium and showed amazing flashes of speed throughout the race, often going toe-to-toe with the TP52 and SC70.
On the Medium Course, race veteran Colin Nichols skippering Jackrabbit was the line honors winner but another one of those pesky J/111’s Raku took the overall win – kudos to them as Christina and Justin Wolfe were sailing doublehanded – very impressive! Raku also took the Division 2 win with Jim Johannessen’s Intuition taking Division 3 and Vern Lhotzky on Invictus winning Division 4.
The short course line honors, Division 5 and overall win went to Bill Kitchen’s Terna – amazing to see an almost 50 year old C&C 39 still ripping up the race course. Kerry Phillips skippered Incisor to an impressive second place finish across the line and in Division 5 – a perennially strong performer in this race. Another almost 50-year-old C&C 27 Silik skippered by Wade Harrogate took the Division 6 win.
And finally, the Inshore Race Division 7 winner was PCH skippered by Philip Harland with the impressive WVYC teen age sensation, Andre Deseau, skippering a J/22 to the Division 8 win – well done Andre!
A huge shout-out to Race Chairman, Graeme Clendenan, and Race PRO, Jennifer Ross who along with the usually brilliant organizing committee and an army of volunteers and club staff resurrected Straits Race after a 3 year hiatus and made it such a successful event. They cleverly used ‘hybrid’ Tech Talks, Weather Briefing, and Skippers Meetings using a mix of Zoom and in-person facilities to make the event safe and comfortable for the participants.
Lastly, thank to all our American and Vancouver Island friends who made the trek to West Vancouver and back and who really make this race special. Many of you endured difficult deliveries in colder conditions than we usually get in mid-April. Thanks for your commitment to the race – hope to see you back again next year.
Ed. Note: Results here: wvyc.ca/on-the-water/racing/southern-straits. Scroll down and choose which course/class you want to view. Congrats to Peter Salusbury on his Division 1 victory and thanks to him for this report.