Our condolences go out to family, friends and crew mates of Greg Mueller, who died yesterday while racing in Race Week Anacortes. Mueller was wearing a PFD aboard With Grace when he fell overboard. He could not be revived and was pronounced dead at a local emergency room.
Race Director Schelleen Rathkopf emailed this message out to competitors last night:
“Dear competitors, I am sorry to share the news that we lost a teammate today. Greg Mueller on the crew of With Grace fell overboard. His feet were tangled in some lines which exacerbated the situation. Despite the efforts of many, Greg didn’t recover. Please spend some extra time with your crews tomorrow refreshing your MOB protocols. My condolences to the With Grace skipper and crew, and to Greg’s family. – Schelleen Rathkopf”
We will follow up on this sad event to see if there are any lessons to be learned.
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.
Tragedy struck yesterday when Greg Mueller died after falling overboard from With Grace. Our condolences to his family, friends and shipmates. We were unaware of this for the original post. .
Don’t look now, racers, but there’s a week of Northwest Racing again, and it’s a success. After Covid sunk Schelleen Rathkopf’s plan to move Race Week from Oak Harbor to Point Roberts, there were a lot of question marks. She’s found a home for the event in Anacortes, and with a fleet of around 70 boats (including 4 one design classes) Race Week has a glowing present and a bright future.
Rathkopf reports: “By day 2, 6 races each across 11 fleets. Blowing 12-15 every day. Tides combined with new venue keeping racers on their toes. People are super happy and have described Anacortes and the racing area as the perfect place for Race Week.”
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.
If there is anything more Northwest than the R2AK movement, I’d like to see it. In the years since that race’s inception, we’ve seen everything from world class sailors to casual rowers make the trip. And with Covid not yet in our wake, and those very careful Canadians shutting down the border, those inventive and sometimes questionable minds at the Northwest Maritime Center behind this movement came up with an alternate plan. Deceptively devious, it sends sailors, rowers and paddlers from Port Townsend all the way to Olympia Shoal, up to Point Roberts and back to PT. The course:
The starting area, Port Townsend
Start just off the Northwest Maritime Center dock in Port Townsend Bay
ROUND Olympia shoal in Budd Inlet
PASS WITHIN 1 NM of Goat Island in Skagit Bay
ROUND Bellingham outfall buoy Fl Y 10s priv
ROUND Point Roberts Buoy R “4” 4s BELL
Finish by landing on the dock at the Northwest Maritime Center
Karl Kruger and Molly Howe on the (Melges24!) wires.
It all started this morning at 6 am. Today’s predominantly light conditions allowed some of the paddlers and rowers to jump out to leads, followed by some of the multihulls. My Swiftsure Yachts colleague Molly Howe’s Mustang Survival Team Ocean Watch, a Melges 24, has been competing with the Merit 28 Fressure for first among the monohulls and getting pressure from behind from High Seas Drifter, an Olson 30.
Another group we’ll be watching is the Dash 34 Apocalypse Later Never Get off the Boat. Former mates and competitors of mine who are having way too much fun right now.
As I go to sleep, the kayak Bend Racing is way in front just entering Budd Inlet, followed by a pedal-driven catamaran The Boogie Barge in second and the F28R trimaran Ruf Duck (sail!!) in third. Things have a way of changing, and I’ll check in when I wake up.
All the best videos are going to the WA360 Facebook page and their web site. And of course there’s the tracker. But check these links out for a taste of the conditions.
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.
If you’re like me, you’ve lost track of which adventure races are coming up. This, as far as I know, is the list. If you’ve got an event you want sailish readers to hear about, adventurous or not, let me know.
Today: Northwest Maritime’sSeventy48, a human powered non-sailing event from Tacoma to Port Townsend. The start is today at 7pm, giving paddlers a chance to go all night and then some. They have 48 hours to go 70 miles, including SUPs.
Tomorrow: Seattle Yacht Club’s Blake Island Race. NOR here.
June 7: WA360. The Northwest Maritime’s world renowned R2AK is another Covid victim for this year, but here’s a good alternative. One difference between this event and the R2AK is that engines are allowed onboard, though if they’re used the boat will not be scored. I imagine that’s a concession to safety in the heavily trafficked Puget Sound. Start and finish in Port Townsend
June 10: Pacific NW Offshore Race: You’ll be forgiven if you think of this as the Oregon Offshore. Because of Covid restrictions, there is no Canada, but there is a start at Ilwaco and a finish in Port Angeles, so the course remains largely the same. Bruce Hedrick will be providing a weather outlook for the racers, which we’ll print here on sailish.com
June 19: Salish 200. Back for the second annual tour of the Sound. Actually, there are three races, the Puget Sound 100, San Juan 100 and Salish 200. Here’s the page with more details.
There will be trackers and/or AIS to follow on each of these, for those of us stuck mowing lawns or sitting in offices. We have embedded sailors on each of these events, even if they don’t know they are, so we hope to have some first-hand reports. Thanks to all the clubs and organizations that are making this happen despite the Covid limitations. If racers or organizers have anything to add, please send thoughts and pictures to me.
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.
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.
The second and third races of CYC-Seattle’s Center Sound Series were both Puget Sound Specials, with quirky conditions Northwest Sailors (usually) take in stride. What was a little unusual was that the race committee adjusted the courses in both races so that instead of going all the way to Scatchet Head and Three Tree Point, racers sailed around the Sound never too far from Shilshole Bay.
The Scatchet Head Race was most notable for a parking lot that formed near Edmunds at one of the turning marks. We don’t have any photos, but here’s a video from Doug Frazer aboard the J/105 Corvo and an image of the melee at the north mark courtesy of Kwindoo.
When all was said and done, while there were several Did Not Competes, it appears everyone who started finished.
Three Tree Point
The race committee opted for not sending the fleet all the way to Three Tree Point, no doubt urged by Bruce Hedrick’s pre-race weather brief and suggestion. Bruce himself raced aboard Tahlequah, and here’s his report:
There was a lefty at about 1:30 before the start so the pin became favored so we took it. With that shift the boats astern were all into our dirt and one by one were forced to tack. Once everyone had tacked we dug a little deeper into breakwater and then tacked. We held that and it looked good until the breeze went back to the SW. Those who had tacked early also got into more wind so when they came back about 5 boats crossed us. We tacked into the beach just north of West Point and then tacked when we could just scrape over the sandbar at WP. What was weird was the tide was ebbing at WP instead of flooding as predicted. So the folks who were on port outside the buoy got slowed while we just decided to stay inside the buoy and stay on port. Most of the group that crossed us got past the Point and then tacked back to starboard to sail under Magnolia towards Four Mile Rock. One J-105 found the mud and parked up for a while. We held port and got a nice shift to the SW so we tacked and for a while we were aimed at Alki. Using the HB compass it became apparent that the boats on the beach were in more anti-water and maybe less wind as we lifted out on them. The J-109’s went further out than we did and that didn’t seem to hurt them as they stayed ahead of us. Once we got headed down to Duwamish Head, we tacked and were laying the top mark.
Don Leighton aboard Tahlequah
Just another rainy day on Puget Sound
“For some reason, Glory had speed on us.”
We rounded in third behind the two J-109’s, did a starboard set and just started sailing our numbers and watching as the breeze continued to oscillate. In that breeze especially in the lighter spots we can sail deeper than the J-109’s at about the same speed. We did three gybes going across Elliott Bay holding the port gybe to sail inside the buoy at WP. We did one gybe just north of WP to stay away from Lodos who would have been a problem on starboard. With a sprit they have to sail hotter angles but with our shadow they couldn’t get past us so they finally slowed down and went astern of us. I think they also wanted to get back to the east to stay in touch with the other J-109 Eclipse who had gone well to the east but it looked to us like that hurt them and the other J-35. We waited until the breeze went back to the SSW and gybed for the mark.
We had a nice opening to get around the mark and just held port to force the bigger boats that were coming up on us to tack and leave us with a lane of clear air. This was good because both Lodos and Eclipse got caught up in traffic and this allowed us to extend. We tacked to starboard and held that until we were about ½ way to the finish. Both Lodos and Eclipse went back out to the west so we decided to be conservative and just keep us between them and the finish. We had about a 100 yd lead so we waited until we could tack back to starboard and then tacked directly in front of Lodos who waited a while and then did two tacks to clear their air. We gradually worked up underneath them again and put just a little more distance on them. We held starboard until we could lay the finish on port. When we crossed it was becoming apparent that the breeze was going away and as I drove home you could see that Elliot Bay had glassed off and when I got back to West Seattle, it was calm from Alki to the north end of Vashon. So again, a great call by the Race Committee.
That’s a wrap for Center Sound. Three good races, and it’s all starting to feel a little post-Covid normal. A windy Blakely Rock and challenging Scatchet Head and Three Tree Point races. Aaaaaah. Somehow, complaining that the conditions weren’t perfect doesn’t feel appropriate at this time. Many kudos to the race committee that had to overcome a faulty YCV transmission and two bad weather outlooks by thinking on their feet. Results are here. The usual suspects are atop the leader board with Sabrosa (Alex Simanis), Dark Star (Jonathan McKee) and Terramoto (Bill Weinstein) in the top three PHRF fleet spots. The ORC class, all TP 52s, was won by John Buchan’s Glory.
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.
Corinthian Yacht Club’s Blakely Rock Race, the first race in the Center Sound Series, is certainly not the first race of the year. However, it always seems to force racers, and race committees, to officially shake out the cobwebs for the coming year. Saturday’s race was no exception.
The day started out breezier than expected, in the high teens and low 20s. It was certainly a wakeup call, and left a few skippers more comfortable knowing they’d gone over the rig prior to leaving the dock. A fleet of nearly 70 boats had signed up, and most were on hand at the designated start time of 10 am. Alas, the race committee was not. The venerable, much loved and sometimes repaired, red YC 5 had serious steering issues.
Here’s what I gleaned from CYC Fleet Race Captain Matt Wood’s comments on a Facebook thread:
“The hydraulic steering connector on YC5 sheered in half as the boat was leaving its temporary slip on K dock. We had our Whalers tow us to the dinghy dock to affect repairs. Many thanks to the team that came to our aid. After pulling the engine framing apart we recognized that we could not safely conduct a race on YC5. We continuously communicated on VHF 69 the status of the RC, flew AP and sounds as per RRS, and advised the fleet on VHF our intentions. Plan B was developed and implemented by using the Bullfrog, and our Whaler, to set up a start line using Meadow Point Buoy and a start pin. Starts were combined to facilitate speedy starts.
“First start was at 11.20 AM, 1 hour and 20 minutes after scheduled start time. Race course was amended, as per SI and RRS, to Blakely Rock and return, using S line as F Iine, as per SI and RRS.
“We have a plan to affect repairs with the intent to have YC5 in service for next Saturday. Failing that, there are alternative RC boat plans already in place.”
The following photos are just a sample of some great shots by Jan Anderson. See the rest here.
Cherokee waiting for the start
One Life crossing astern of Straight, no chaser
Where’s the rail meat? Draining out the side.
Hooligan heading for shore
Rounding the Rock
Different Drummer
Daffodils for Kelly. Lest we never forget.
Glory on her way to another win
The amended course was shortened to Blakely Rock and return, which was just about enough distance for the TP 52s to stretch their legs in the big breeze. Planing boats ruled on the return from the Rock, The J/105s clearly enjoyed the big breeze, taking six of the top eight places with Creative winning fleet honors. Hooligan, a new J/111, was second overall and the J/125 Hamichi strutted her well-known downwind stuff to third overall. There is also a shorthanded class – though the boats are scored against their regular class and also against the other shorthanded boats. Jonathan McKee’s Dark Star won the shorthanded class while also placing third in Class 8. Results here.
Screenshot from the Kwindoo app.
Fittingly in the Age of Apps, Kwindoo is being used, and it gives an interesting and instructive replay of the race of those who’ve implemented it on their smart phone. On this day, like so many others app or no app, it paid to play West Point, take that port tack all the way across to the Bainbridge side and work your way to the Rocks. To access this replay, go to kwindoo.com, register and search for Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle.
With the Center Sound Series well and truly under way, the cobwebs cleared out, it seems already like this will be a season to remember.
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.
It seems sailors are really ready to shake off the Covid blues and go racing. Port Madison YC’s Jim Depue Memorial race, which took the fleet across Puget Sound twice last Saturday, was a chance for Central Sound sailors to shake out the cobwebs that may have collected over winter. We are lucky enough to have a recap from winner Alex Simanis of Ballard sails (and his winning track), who sailed the Henderson 30 Sabrosa. And be sure to scroll down for Jan Anderson’s photos. Results here. And don’t forget to support Jan’s photography with the purchase of some of her shots! Here’s the link to her Jim Depue gallery. –KH
Alex’s Race
The Jim Depue race was a good one for sure!
The startline was set in a pretty big hole behind Pt Monroe, RC did a great job of AP and moving the line out to the breeze. A nice SE breeze filled in and maxed out about 15 knots true. For us on the Henderson 30 Sabrosa, we started near the committee boat and favored the Bainbridge side of the course for the 1st beat. There was a big 8 or 9-foot ebb that was running hard, and it really paid to try to stay out of it on the beat up to Eagle Harbor. Starboard tack had a very headed slant, and combined with the keel across the current, it made us eager to be on Port as much as possible. Two-thirds of the way up the beat we found 15 knots of true wind, and had to change down in jibs, at this point we were leading the fleet boat for boat. When we got the #2 Jib T-ed up to tack change, the soft shackle flogged off in the tack and we flailed around for a bit trying to deal with the big genoa halfway down, and the new genoa up but flogging. We lost some time here, and by then Peter Shorett, who was sailing his beautiful Farr 395 Ace got by us. Peter was sailing single handed with flying sails. He sailed a killer race.
Once getting around the red nun at Eagle Harbor, it was a pretty straightforward drag race down to the Magnolia shore to the magic carpet ride down the beach in the Duwamish flush. The next leg down to Indianola, saw the breeze go fairly hard east. Some boats got caught too far towards Shilshole, and it was a painful port gybe in the east breeze coming back towards Indianola. We were lucky to be west when the shift happened, so we pretty much got headed to the mark, once around the PMYC mark just east of Indianola pier, we had a jib fetch to the finish with slightly cracked sheets to Point Monroe in the end of the easterly.
Unfortunately, many boats saw wind from multiple directions after we finished, and it really spread out the corrected times. Overall, it was a beautiful dry day on the water, and as usual PMYC put on another fun and interesting event!
Note: Sabrosa is owned by Pete Sauer out in Montana. Since we sold Poke and Destroy and our new boat is in Port Townsend getting a bunch of work done, Pete has been gracious enough to lend us the boat to sail until it sells!
Photos by Jan Anderson
The fleet.
Sabrosa
Time Warp. Again.
The Boss
Elixir
Dakota on tactics so Ben can concentrate on steering.
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.
Once again, Bruce Hedrick called it well in advance. The break in the rain was nice, but unfortunately it was a break in the wind as well for the racers that braved the Duwamish Head race on Saturday.
I don’t have any from-the-water reports, but Bruce was watching from his house in West Seattle and gave regular updates of the fleet’s slow progress. There are a few things of note. Three TP 52s came out to play. Alex Simanis has picked up with the Henderson 30 Sabrosa where he left off with Poke and Destroy, and Iain Christenson’s GREEN Farr 36 Annapurna can be clearly seen from all over Puget Sound. It’s also worth noting that John Bailey sailed Sir Isaac in the single/doublehanded class. That’s a lot of sails for two people. (Ed. note, I’d mistakenly called Sabrosa by the name Selah earlier. Oops, sorry. Selah is the J/100 with the red chute owned by Tad Fairbank, and it won the single/doublehanded class.)
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.
Winter Racing is on. We didn’t get any reports on Winter Vashon back in December, but we did get pix courtesy of Jan Anderson. Some of them are below and the rest are here. You can see the results here plus registration info for the remaining races.
These days any racing is great racing and the results seem to have lost their importance while we navigate Covid. That said, it was wonderful to see Smoke and Terremoto back on the race course. As Bruce Hedrick predicted, the race ended on a shortened course.
Tomorrow is the second race of the South Sound Series, the Duwamish head race. About 50 boats are signed up, and there are always some good stories coming from that race. Bruce will put his prognosticator’s hat on and put out a weather outlook later today. Hopefully there’s not quite as much wind as we’ve seen a few days ago (50-60 knots in places!)
I’d love to relay some of the stories that come from the Duwamish Head race. Just email me.
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.
