Last weekend, unknown to many local sailors, a major championship was occurring at Sail Sand Point in Seattle. The US Sailing Junior Women’s Championship (Leiter Cup) was sailed in picture perfect conditions over four days. Twenty-eight young women from all over the country turned up, but it was area sailor Talia Toland that ended up on top.
All photos by Jan Anderson
Traffic
Rounding
Can’t beat this.
Toland at the weather mark.
Toland earned the victory, having sailed several years in Lasers on the growing and very competitive Northwest Youth Circuit. A quick look at her results over the last few years show a steady progression through the ranks. And while second place went to Kiera O’Reardon of Houston Yacht Club, third went to up-and-coming local Abbie Carlson from the Seattle Yacht Club.
The biggest winners were the Pacific Northwest racing community and Sail Sand Point. “US Sailing was skeptical that we could pull this off,” explained SSP Executive Director Mary Anne Ward. “They wanted four separate rooms for videos and a full kitchen and a few other things that we just don’t have.” But in the end, it went off without a hitch, thanks in large part to virtually perfect winds, northerlies first, followed by southerlies and then ending on northerlies. Ten races were completed.
“US Sailing is already talking to us about hosting more events,” Ward said.
The US sailing recap of the event can be read at the end of this post. More of Jan Anderson’s photos can be found here, and results can be found here.
Our Olympian Helena
Of course many of the young women sailing last weekend dream of going to the Olympics. Well, one of “ours” is there right now. Helena Scutt is crew on the 29erfx, a very high performance skiff class for women.
Helena Scutt
She and skipper Paris Henken are in Rio right now. I hope to have some tidbits from Helena to share with you, and will convey them as soon as I can. In the meantime, here is a video interview of Scutt and Henken when they secured the Olympic spot.
Talia Toland Wins U.S. Junior Women’s Singlehandeds
Published on July 31st, 2016
A fleet of 28 Laser Radials competed at the U.S. Junior Women’s Singlehanded Championship, held July 29-31 on Lake Washington in Seattle, WA. In the end, it was Washington native, Talia Toland (Kirkland, Wash.), who ran away with the title in her home state.
Toland enjoyed a three point lead over Kiera O’Reardon (Houston, Texas) through eight races entering Sunday’s final two races. With the Nancy Leiter Clagett Memorial Trophy on the line and two 50-minute races to go, Toland won her third race of the Championship in Race 9 and gained two more points on O’Reardon, who placed third.
In the 10th and final race, Toland ensured O’Reardon did not catch her in the standings by finishing three places ahead of her (14th to 17th) to win the Leiter Trophy.
“This is my third year sailing at the Leiter Trophy and it’s great to finally put it all together in my home venue,” said Toland. “It was kind of cool that we had different wind direction every day of the regatta. I stayed in the pressure and stayed pointing towards the mark and kept a cool head in the shifty conditions, which helped a lot when you patience. I had a chance to work with all the coaches, which is really great. It’s cool to see how I’ve developed from year to year at this event.”
Toland placed third at this Championship last year and sixth in 2014.
The top six boats qualified for early acceptance to the 2017 U.S. Youth Sailing Championships – a qualifier for the 2017 ISAF Youth World Championships in Israel.
This Championship was preceded by two days of clinics featuring a collection the country’s top coaches. The clinics were led by Richard Feeny, US Sailing Junior National Coach.
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.
Brad Baker, one of the most (if not the most) successful navigators in Vic-Maui history, has a wrapup piece he called Reflections, but which I’m going to call Vic-Maui Bradulations, on this year’s race in the swiftsureyahts.com blog. He’s very generous and genuine with his praise of the fleet. It’s clear he missed being out there and taking advantage of what turned out to be near perfect record breaking conditions.
I thank Brad for allowing me to use his analyses on sailish.com. He thinks the new record can be broken. You get the sense he’s far from done with this race.
REFLECTIONS
Brad Baker Vic-Maui Analysis #5 – July 26, 2016
With the Vic-Maui nearly a done deal, I thought I’d reflect a bit on the 2016 race. I don’t know about you other armchair sailors, but I have had a tremendous amount of fun watching this year’s race. It’s had a little bit of everything. It’s had some drama with Crossfire’s early retirement from the race. I sincerely hope that after licking their wounds, and taking a few lessons from the experience, that they will be back in 2018. I suppose I was a harbinger of doom when in my third installment I said there would likely be boats with steering issues. I think it was the day after writing that the J-109, Mountain, retired with rudder bearing issues. Later, Forty had their steering quadrant fail. There were lots of reports of broken halyards and blown up spinnakers. Most recently the specter of tropical storm Darby made things interesting. What is foremost in my mind, though, was the weather pattern itself. It turned out to be a near perfect scenario for an elapsed time record breaking pace. And there were four boats in the race capable of breaking the record — a perfect storm.
Looking back to the few days prior to the first start, the forecast didn’t look all that promising for a quick race. The GFS weather model showed a broad ridge of weak high pressure extending nearly to the US west coast. Had this transpired the fleet would have had to make the choice between hugging the coast, sailing extra distance south, and faced with a nearly dead down sail the rest of the way to Hawaii, verses going shorter distance and trying to bust through the light air ridge of higher pressure. Either way would have made for a long race. The good news, if you can call it that, is weather models become much less reliable at more than four days out. Thankfully this was the case, because by the time the sleds started the forecast had flipped to a very different pattern. The new forecast was for building high pressure to move west, well offshore, and a bit north of where you would normally expect. This was ideal, as it would produce a broad wind field with average winds averaging just over 20 knots for thousands of miles! And from there, it would all be down wind for the fleet. The forecast confidence was high as nearly all the weather models from various agencies were showing basically the same thing. This forecast is what eventually came to pass. The beauty in this pattern was that with the high pressure located so far to the NW competitors could cut the corner early and sail a shorter distance and with the exceptional 1040mb high, there would be plenty of pressure gradient, i.e. wind, to spare. The stage was set for a record breaking race. Navigators still needed to get it right, but just as much of a premium was now on raw boatspeed, and holding it together for the long haul. With the above normal winds there was also a premium on managing breakages and wear.
Here is the early forecasts. This screen shot is taken from the GFS model that came out on July 7th. It is Valid for 0500 PDT on July 18. It shows a ridge of weak high pressure extending all the way to the US west coast, with a broad swath of light wind blocking the Vic-Maui fleet. Luckily this forecast was to change.
Here is the forecast from from the day the sleds started on July 12th. It to is valid for the same time and day 0500 July 18th. This shows a much more robust more symmetric high pressure system with plenty of wind across the course.
Here is the actual conditions on July 18th 0500. Very close to the forecast issued on the 12th.
The well prepared boats shined. A huge and hearty congratulations goes out to Gavin, Jason and the crew on Valkyrie. Well done! You own that record! I’m sure they had a few trials and tribulations along the way, but it was hard to see where they occurred from watching the tracker. From a navigators point of view, Valkyrie sailed a very clean/smart course and were obviously very well prepared. I’m envious of their accomplishment and hope to one day be aboard a Vic-Maui record setting boat.
Next is Kinetic, again hearty congratulations are in order. I’ve known David Sutcliffe for a number of years and he is obviously no stranger to this race. Some might say he practically is this race! Kinetic too sailed a smart, never gave up and showed they had the pace. Congratulations on the first overall corrected time victory! It’s well deserved.
There are a few others I’d like to call out. Longboard, holy crap! This is a 35-foot boat, you know it had to get hairy for those guys at times being that small and going that fast. You could tell they pushed hard. Well done.
String Theory, nice job John and crew. Watching Class 2’s String Theory on the tracker you could just see that they had their s**t together! Obviously she was well prepared and kept down time to a minimum. I remember as their competitors, Equus, managed to get farther to the right, with better leverage and a hotter angle, String Theory showed that not only did they have the pace, but they had the preparation to hold on to the first place slot. Well done.
Raindrop showed us all how it’s done, completely dominating class three. Had they not had the worst starting conditions, with light air for two days, we might be congratulating them now on a first overall.
I know of two ocean race first time newbies that put in good performances. Equus, in Class 2, a brand new out of the box Jeanneau 50, looked impressive and I’m sure gave String Theory a reasonable scare. I bet Equus has learned from the experience and if Dean and crew come back next time, look out Class 2!
My weathered Swiftsure cap also goes off to Joe and crew aboard Canard in Class 3. Nice job pulling out a 2nd place and pushing hard at the finish.
Finally, I want to congratulate the fleet as a whole. Finishing the Vic-Maui Race is quite an accomplishment. As Bill Huseby, sailing on Raindrop, told me in an email, “This is not brochure sailing”. The conditions were very challenging. The storms in the tropical eastern pacific pushed competing waive trains across the course. The seas were reported as very confused. Joe Gaffney, skipper of Canard, at one point called it a “Rolly polly s**t show”. This was no picnic, especially for the first timers. Well done everyone.
Then there was tropical storm Darby! Watching the weather early on I, and anyone else who paying attention, could see the series of tropical depressions spinning up every 4 or 5 days just off Mexican waters. Storm after storm seemed to be aimed right at the Hawaiian Islands. I wrote (and I guess in the end it was true) that these storms wouldn’t likely be a safety concern. Darby nearly made a liar out of me, and easily could have been a safety issue if an earlier predicted track had come to pass. For a couple of days there my focus had shifted from what is the best route to get there fastest, to what is the safest route. Thankfully, in the end, Darby clipped the big island, which took out quite a bit of steam, then passed south of Maui a much less powerful storm for having interacted with the big island. Likely the biggest casualty from the effects of Darby was Expresso, who in the light air wake of the storm spent five hours sitting in the Pailolo channel within sight of the finish and likely cost them 2nd place.
This was the forecast track of tropical storm Darby. This track would have mowed through the fleet with 50 knot winds. Luckily the forecast track changed
Here is the Darby forecast track issued on Saturday the 23rd. This is very close to what the actual track ended up being. It takes Darby over the big island and south of Maui. Much less of a threat to the fleet.
I’ll conclude with this. It may stand for some time, but the elapsed time record is still certainly beatable. I’m not trying to diminish what Valkyrie, Kinetic and Westerlyhave achieved. They sailed very well and I think it would be extremely hard for another TP 52 to break this record. The conditions were very good this time around. The fact remains the record is now held by a 52-foot boat. It’s likely going to take a big turbo sled, maybe something with a canting keel (or perhaps Crossfire?). But the fact remains, the record is still very beatable. Bring it on!
Brad Baker has been navigator on seven of his nine Vic-Maui races, with two first to finish finishes, two first overall finishes and 4 more first in class finishes.
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 post-Darby vic-Maui fleet is streaming into Lahaina now, with Starblazer and Ion finished, and Salient and Miles following shortly. That will leave Canard, Turnagain, Amiskwi, Red Sheilla and Forty on the race course, and all are making good time toward the finish. We’ll check in with our friend Joe on Canard to see how things are going there, like if they’re ready for a sleep in a real, motionless bed etc.
The Vic Maui web site has an interesting article on the prevalence of French-built boats in the race in general and the 3-boat Beneteau 40.7 race-within-a-race. Here’s the link. It is an interesting side note to this race. Any insights from you readers?
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 is looking good for the Vic-Maui fleet with regards to Darby. Rain Drop got in well before the Darby, followed by Kraken. The Dufour 45 Alegria is nearly in, as can be seen in the tracker screen shot.
The other boats have all taken the advice of the RC and weather experts and work east and south to avoid Darby. They’re all going to sail in on the heals of the storm.
The boats already in have all made provisions by either hunkering down at Lahaina, moving to Ali Wai Basin in Honolulu, or just being ready to hoist anchor and find safe refuge if the storm hits hard.
In the meantime Darby is now into its assault on the Big Island.
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.
As the crew of Equus and String Theory crews breath sighs of relief at having finished, and with the mighty Atalanta safely finished, all eyes are turning to Tropical Storm Darby.
I gave a shout to Brad Baker to see what he thinks might happen. Here’s what he says: The center of the storm should be over the directly over Lahaina at about 4am on Sunday morning. It’s looking like the storm will hit the big Island dead on. Then continue over Maui. If this happens the big island will likely take a lot of steam out of the storm if you know what I mean. Raindrop should be well ahead of the action.
Equus.
So, let’s hope that the Drop doesn’t spontaneously develop the ability to plane like a TP 52 and put herself in harm’s way.
According to the tracker, while Equus finished ahead of String Theory, it’s String Theory that corrected out ahead. Congratulations to all on what must have been an epic ride.
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.
A fleet of 64 sailboats traveled to the Oak Harbor Marina July 11-15 for the 34th running of Whidbey Island Race Week (WIRW) hosted by the Oak Harbor Yacht Club. The nation’s only true race “week,” WIRW gives sailors from the United States, Canada and Europe the opportunity to test their racing skills on both short and long courses in Penn Cove and Saratoga Passage. The event, which includes nightly awards and live bands, kicked off Sunday night as sailors sized up competition and rekindle friendships at the traditional Sunday meet-and-greet.
Mike Goldfarb’s War Canoe had a stellar 2016 week.
Focused trimming on 65 Red Roses
No explanation necessary. Race Week. 2016
Great action when the wind was up in 2016.
The J/105s had a big fleet and close racing. – 2016
Slick and Here and Now rekindled their rivalry. -2016
Kids in the Camp enjoyed some Opti sailing. 2016
Other kids crewed. 2016
The camp kids had a great time. 2016
Every kid had a string to pull aboard Suma.
Race Week had great entertainment. 2016
Dictated by the tides, this year’s event was held mid-July in cooler than normal temperatures and lighter than average winds. Nonetheless, Race PRO Charley Rathkopf and his committee from Corinthian Yacht Club Seattle finished eight to nine races during the five-day regatta. Nine classes, including three one-design classes, vied for daily honors, class overalls, and the Tesla boat-of-the-week title. Not your usual pickle dishes, daily awards sponsored by Ullman Sails were useful beverage glasses. Class overalls were hand-blown glass trophies commissioned by Seattle artist, Veronica Margarito Lopez.
Short courses on Monday and Tuesday established front runners in all but the 13-boat J/105 class, which saw flip-flopping finishes and the week’s sole DSQ. Wednesday’s Z-course ping-ponged racers around Penn Cove like a pinball-machine, while treating spectators on the Coupeville dock to a colorful spinnaker parade across Penn Cove.
Unconventional courses continued Thursday with a marathon distance race sending most of the fleet off Saratoga’s southern horizon near the island town of Greenbank. The race scored doubled with only half of the day’s total qualifying for a throw-out, either damning some who found themselves on the wrong side of he 180 degree shift or cementing a win for those who landed on the right side of the roulette wheel when it stopped spinning. Dodging holes, boats created a confusing spectacle as they raced side by side, heading in the same direction, with some flying spinnakers while others held jibs. The larger the class, like the 13-boat J/105 class, the bigger the discrepancy of the day’s tally, with the week’s win for the one-design 105s going to David Cohen’s Inconceivable. Just two points separated the next three boats, with Delirium placing second and James Geros’ Last Tango winning the tie-breaker for third over More Jubilee. On Friday, the RC finally called uncle on an overly persistent easterly and set a windward-leeward, only to have it fade, abandoning the week’s final race for five of the nine classes.
Stalwart front runners managed to escape Thursday’s race wrath and held on to class overalls, including John Hoag and his 1D/35, Shrek, in PHRF Class 1, which, after a string of bullets, had to swallow one of their freak double-fifth-place points; Mike Goldfarb, with longtime crew Mark Brink, on War Canoe, in the one-design Farr 30 class; Kevin Welch’s one-design Melges 24, Mikey, helmed by Olympic medalist Jeff Madrigali; and Chris White and crew aboard his Martin 242 , Crazy I’s, which stayed atop PHRF Class 8 with just 7 points and took boat-of-the-week honors thanks to straight bullets.
Tight PHRC racing gave the Left Coast Dart, Ogopogo, a one point lead in Class 3 over Brad Butler’s Sierra 26x, Uno, who landed unusually near the back of the pack on Thursday, forcing them to keep one of the double 4s on their scorecard. Though they horizoned Class 4 during Wednesday’s racing, Stuart Burnell’s J/109, Tantivy, faced some fierce handicaps and fell by just two points for the week to the J/90, Eye Eye. Also missing the week’s overall by just two points, Pat Denney’s J/29, Here & Now, in Class 7 fell to sister-ship, Slick, who was able to throw-out one of the two 4-pointers from Thursday. Keeping with the two-point theme, the Wylie 25, Exodus, won the week in Class 9 with 11 points over the 13 points earned by Ron Ernst’s Martin 29, Ignitor.
Racers took advantage of the light air which tended to arrive later in the day by rafting up to the dock at Coupeville’s Red Barn and stroll the old-timey boardwalks of Whidbey Island’s historic and picturesque Penn Cove town. Racers ducked into establishments such as the newly remodeled Front Street Grill for lunch, or waited willingly in line for ice cream from Kapaw’s Iskreme Worldwide Headquarters, a few step away from the original Stewart brother’s Wet Whiskers ice cream shop which sparked America’s obsession for espresso in 1969.
Though the local breeze was less ample than desired, one indigenous delicacy was in abundant supply—Dungeness crab. Boats setting traps on the run out to the day’s course were rewarded after the day’s racings with overflowing traps stuffed with one of the Pacific Northwest’s favorite bounties. For the second year in a row, the Crab Cake Cook-Off, judged by Oak Harbor Yacht Club Vice Commodore, Avis Berney, Oak Harbor Mayor Bob Severns, among others, was won by the culinary crew of Rex Dupuis’s J/30, Gadzooks.
Shoreside, the bands Kickin’ Dust, Rabbit Wilde, Jones & Fischer, Gertrude’s Hearse, Maggy’s Fury and Original Jim rounded out this year’s live-music line-up. Princess Bride was the feature for movie night, and the Oak Harbor Yacht Club’s offered famous Penn Cove mussels Monday and Wednesday evening. For those not into the fresh bivalves, the OHYC grill fed hungry sailors all week with mouth-watering burgers and corn on the cob.
While mom and dad raced beyond the breakwater, children spent the week making memories at the Brenda Van Fossen, MD Kids Camp. Morning activities at Kids Camp headquarters on the yacht club lawn included learning knot-tying, how to craft a make-shift safety line, building model boats, and creating marine-themed jigsaw puzzles before heading out for the daily field trip which included exploring the Fidalgo tidepools, climbing the Fort Casey lighthouse, hiking down world-famous Deception Pass, painting pottery and making glass art. After a hearty lunch campers spent the afternoons racing Oak Harbor Youth Sailing’s fleet of Optimists at the entry to the harbor’s marina. A highlight of their summer, every camper from the inaugural year returned for 2016, plus some, and even more have committed to next year’s Kids Camp 2017.
New for 2016 was the presentation of a Sportsmanship Award honoring Phil Wise, WIRW board member and long-time racer in the Puget Sound sailing community who passed away in August 2015. The first recipient of the perpetual award was the alternate RC vessel, Gopher Baroque, who suffered some cosmetic damage while helping to pull Steve Johnson’s White Cloud off Oak Harbor’s mucky sea floor. Rather than accepting compensation for the repair, Gopher Baroque requested the amount instead be donated to Oak Harbor’s youth sailing program. Narrowly missing the callout for exemplary sportsmanship were the young men on Ryan Conner and Hendrick Reidel’s Melges 24 up from Tahoe, Blue Dream, who worked long and tirelessly to put together a junior sailing campaign based on elbow grease and hard work.
Mark your calendars for the 35th anniversary of Whidbey Island Race Week, scheduled for July 10-14, 2017.
Ed. Note: This looked like a great deal of fun. Thanks Liza for the report and Schelleen and Charley for all you do to make this regatta happen. They have really made it appealing for families as well as racers. Schelleen is putting a call out for fleets “who want to use the infrastructure of Race Week to conduct fleet local, regional or national championships.” I can think of several fleets that might use this event as a springboard to light a fire their fleets’ keels.
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.
Ed. Note: From the race organizers who are looking out for competitors. I’ll track this from my comfy seat at home.
Boats have been sent the latest information from the National Hurricane Centre about Darby, and Race Committee has allowed competitors to seek outside help with routing around the storm. The routing forecasters (Eric Holden, Brad Baker and Commander’s Weather) have been kind enough to share information on storm routing with Race Committee and this has been passed to the whole fleet. Boats appear to be employing 3 strategies to deal with the tropical storm.
The leading boats which include String Theory, Equus, Rain Drop, Expresso, Kraken and Alegria X all appear to be pushing hard to get into Maui prior to the arrival of Darby sometime this weekend.
A middle group of boats that includes Turnagain, Miles, Salient, Ion and Canard have adjusted course to the south and are working to pass behind Darby.
The third group of boats that includes Amiskwi, Red Sheilla, Starblazer and Forty are counting on being far enough back for the storm to pass in front without having to adjust course.
– See more at: http://www.vicmaui.org/index.php?articleid=671#sthash.0VRK9eDt.dpuf
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.
Photo borrowed from Longboard’s Facebook page, NOT from this race!
Well, the little 35-footer that carries a big stick is finishing pretty darn close to the big guys. While Longboard won’t have the fastest elapsed time (as she did in 2014), finishing this close to two TP52s and a Santa Cruz 70 is little short of amazing. Kudos to Peter Salusbury and crew, builder Jim Betts and designer Paul Bieker.
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.
Update: Valkyrie‘s time, and the new record, was 8 days, 9 hours and 17 seconds. Wow. Kinetic finished 5 hours later and Westerly has finished as well.
They’ve done it! The TP 52 Valkyrie was first to finish, and no matter how the handicaps shake out, that is theirs to keep. Of course this breaks the record by a lot. It looks like they had to do a couple of gybes to get around Hawea Point. We’ll assess just how smashed the record is as Kinetic, and then Westerly, come in. Longboard is having to work their way west now, which is adding some difference, but she’ll be tied up next to the TPs and SC fairly soon as well. Kudos to Jason Rhodes, Gavin Brackett and the whole team. Mai tais all around.
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.
Word just came in from the Mighty Racing Vessel Rain Drop. This boat has been in the winner’s circle more than its share, and in fact won the Pacific Cup Hawaii Race eight years ago. This time around Joby Easton and Bill Huseby are bringing along their boys Carson and Carter. The four of them are making the classic Cascade 36 sing along, though from the description below it’s not as easy as it may look on the tracker.
From Bill Huseby, s/v Rain Drop
Wednesday afternoon at 1:00pm Pacific Standard Time. A 214 mile day yesterday was unreal. As Brad Baker (Seattle) put it, “We must have sold our souls” to put those kind of miles (TOWARDS THE FINISH) in the Mighty Racing Vessel Rain Drop. With only two of us able to drive (I know, nothing has changed) in the 18-26 knots of breeze with confused seas, Joby and I cried Uncle last night. As the sun went down we actually took the kite down, threw up the big genoa and winged it out. We each got some precious sleep. We figure it cost us about 10 miles or about an hour and a half.
The boys have been doing great at keeping us awake: Coffee, water, check the IAS for ships, ask us questions repeat as needed. I really wish the conditions were a little more benign so that they could drive too. Oh well.
The kite is back up now and we are SCREAMING along. For some insane reason we think we still might be able to make up the insane day and a half we had to spot them at the start due to the unfavorable conditions we small boats had. We will have a pretty good idea at 4:00 PST when we receive the roll call positions if we even have a chance. I feel like the overall win is slowly slipping through our fingers.
A bit scary for sure. Tonight when you curl up in your bed for a good nights sleep, please take a moment and send good thoughts to all the racers preparing to do night battle in the Vic-Maui, Pacific Cup, Single Handed Transpac AND a rowing race to the islands.
Ed. Note: It’s worth noting that a boat designed 50 years ago (albeit modified and no doubt meticulously prepped) is ahead of so many newer, lighter and supposedly faster boats. Whoever says you “need” a new boat to be competitive should be keel-hauled. Furthermore, this is the kind of boat that could keep going to the South Pacific for a year’s cruise in paradise.
Also, of some concern is the Tropical Storm Darby. Brad Baker reports, “Tropical Storm Darby is likely weighing heavy on many of the slower boats minds. Over the last two days the weather report has changed and now they are saying it’s going to maintain tropical storm strength and cross right in front of or over the competitors. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_ep5.shtml?5-daynl#contents ” I’ll check in on this later today as we watch the finish of Valkyrie‘s and Kinetic‘s epic ride .
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.
Brad Baker has been navigator on seven of his nine Vic-Maui races, with two first to finish finishes, two first overall finishes and 4 more first in class finishes.
