Countless stories will be told, retold and no doubt embellished about this year’s Swiftsure race, sailed last month. It was one for the record books, literally. There were dismastings and DNFs, shortened sail heading out the Strait and serious surfing coming back to Victoria.
The biggest story has to be the Terramoto dismasting, which was not enough to stop her from winning the Cape Flattery course and in the process also setting an elapsed time record. The Paul Bieker designed, Bill Weinstein skippered 35-footer has been wreaking havoc in PNW for more than a decade and appears to not be slowing down one bit.
Curious about the race details, I called Alyosha Strum-Palerm who was onboard. He and a crew largely made up of Tasar sailors had Terramoto dialed in, sailing a strong beat to Cape Flattery and then lighting it up after they made the turn for the finish. Coming out of Neah Bay close to Tachyon and Hamachi, Terramoto planed in a building breeze leaving those 40-footers in her wake. They played it conservatively, dropping the chute before Race Passage, then hoisting the A 2.5 masthead asymmetrical in the flat water east of the Rocks anticipating lighter winds.
Instead of the wind dropping, the wind piped up to 33-38 knots and then one last big gust hit while Tim Scanlon was forward pulling the lazy sheet around for a letter-box drop. The backstay crane peeled off the top of the carbon mast and the mast buckled at about the middle point between the spreaders. After pulling the spinnaker aboard, Herb Cole pointed out they were still going six knots toward the finish line. With the main still half up on the broken mast, and a storm trysail rigged forward, Terramoto crossed the finish line amid some humor about an unreadable sail number,
The biggest challenge was probably getting the main down after the finish, which required breaking the spreaders.
Were they thinking about the record? “No,” Strum-Palerm said, “I wasn’t even aware of it until my mom texted me about it later in the morning.”
Strum-Palerm pointed out another dismasting story that played out behind them involving some “heroics” from Annapurna. The Terramoto crew had heard about Hamachi‘s dismasting west of Race Passage, so when the Canadian Coast Guard came roaring by and assumed it was Terramoto that needed help, they quickly pointed out that there situation was under control but there was another boat that might need help. It turns out that Hamachi broke her rig in heavy seas west of Race Passage, and Annapurna dropped out of the race, managed to get a tow line over to Hamachi, and then towed her through Race Passage. The Canadian Coast Guard took over from there, and Annapurna went on to the finish where she was given redress and finished third.
These stories aren’t really in much need of embellishment….. The question is, will Van Isle or Round the County top them?
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.
Talk about seamanship!!! WOW