The Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image competition attempts to define the very best in sailboat racing photography. All the images entered are spectacular, but I guess there has to be one winner, and it was Ricardo Pinto’s shot of Scallywag. Here it is:
As spectacular as that photo is, my favorite is the following shot. This one, by Melandri Mauro, is of a father-daughter celebratory dive after a J/70 victory. It’s a fine shot, but more importantly it tells a great story. My heart just warms up when I think of how happy those two were in that moment.
The gallery clearly shows why our sport is such a great one. There are classic boats, ultra modern foilers, old sailors, young sailors and lots of action. For the other 78 images, click here and feast your eyes! It’d be a good link to refer back to during the winter months.
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 Saturday of CYC-Seattle’s PSSC regatta this past weekend was one for the ages – 18-22 knot winds, big waves, bright sun, grins galore, and at least one tragedy averted.
When Tantivy‘s skipper Stuart Burnell realized crew member Brian Perry fell overboard, into the spinnaker, there was a moment of panic. “Where in the hell is Brian?” he thought. “If he’s wrapped in the chute, in the water,. . .” It was one of the those sailing moments that gets etched in a skipper’s mind, even skippers just reading this. What had started as an irritating, slow chore of clearing a wrap in a spinnaker after a gybe gone wrong, became a potential tragedy.
Brian, it turned out, was sitting in the spinnaker in the water after the boat apparently rolled. A few seconds later he squirted out from the spinnaker behind the boat, relatively unharmed. But that wasn’t quite the end of it. It turns out that as a member of the cockpit crew on the J/109 Brian wasn’t wearing a PFD. He’d come forward to help clear the wrap. And Tantivy wasn’t exactly set up for a quick takedown and man overboard retrieval, with the spinnaker half down and the crew all out of position.
Enter Scott Malone. Malone, who makes a habit of heading out when it’s blowing hard, was out bombing around in his 13′ RS Aero, enjoying blasting around among the big boats. He was near Tantivy as they rounded the weather mark and thought he’d make a go of keeping up with them. They started to scoot away, but wrapped their chute in a gybe, and he thought he saw his chance to catch up. Instead he saw a head pop out of the water.
“I took a land sight behind him and went over. But I actually lost sight of him. It’s amazing how hard it is to see a guy in the water.” When he located the MOB again, Perry waved him to sail in and help. Brian hung on to the side of the Aero until Tantivy, now under power, and a CYC Whaler, turned after about 5-10 minutes. Perry wasn’t eager to let go of Malone’s Aero, but eventually made it to Tantivy where he was retrieved.
Burnell, who wrote about a previous man overboard recovery a couple years ago here on Sailish, says “We are rethinking Tantivy’s life jacket policy!!!” And Malone, who’s crossed oceans singlehanded, came away struck by how difficult it is to actually see a person in the water. There was at least one other MOB, ironically on the other J/109 out, Shada.
This all seems like a great reminder how important it is to wear a life jacket in gnarly conditions and how vital it is to do regular MOB drills. And it doesn’t hurt to have a skilled dinghy sailor trailing right behind you.
The Racing
Once in a while, not nearly often enough, Seattle comes through with Saturday’s conditions. Puget Sound was carpeted with whitecaps, and you can see from Jan Anderson’s photos the day made for some great sailing. A total of 56 boats actually sailed the event, with three PHRF classes and five one design classes, four of which made up the south course right off Shilshole Bay Marina. Once again, CYC somehow set the courses in the deep water and waves and got in 9-11 races for all the fleets. Kudos.
If Saturday was a day for the boats that could plane, Sunday was sailed in equally perfect, if somewhat more sedate sunny conditions. In PHRF 2 the Melges 32 Wicked Wahine won, and in PHRF 3 the Sierra 26 Uno suffered the slog to windward only to plane past its fleet downwind, usually ending up winning on corrected time. The 9-boat J/105 reveled in the conditions, with Erik Kristen winning. Pat Denney’s Here And Now and John Cahill’s Gaucho were back at it in class 5, with Here And Now coming out on top.
Class 2 headed upwind with Wicked Wahine to weather.
John Cahill’s Gaucho ducking.
The Aphrodite 101 Elixir.
The Melges 24s Distraction chased by Good Enough.
Good Enough planing
Grauer Geist charging to weather.
J/105 conditions
The J/105 Paladin
Is that a Melges 32 under all that water?
A few wipeouts were a small price to pay for all the planing.
The four one design fleets on the south course enjoyed solid racing. The Melges 24s lit it up downwind while the J/80s and Moore 24s put on a show of their own.
And what about the definitive non-planing one design, the San Juan 24. Well, they had fun too. Class stalwart Ken Johnson said, ” I’m not sure I’ve been in that much wind and those kinds of waves in a San Juan 24 before.” There were no spinnakers on Saturday. “All four skippers out there are very experienced in San Juan 24s and all knew better than to try!” Like all IOR designs, the little SJ 24 made it’s way upwind just fine, even if the comfort factor wasn’t very high. On Sunday the San Juans enjoyed some great racing in more sedate 10 knot winds, with Mark Bradner finishing up a very successful year with the win.
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 J/24 fleet sailed the yearly District 19 championship this past weekend of Oct 6th and 7th 2018. The District event was held under the larger umbrella of CYC Seattle’s Puget Sound Sailing Championship that runs over the first two weekends in October. The regatta, the venue and the time of year offers a fantastic framework for an epic “end of year” one design competition. With good reason to expect breeze of varying strength, oscillations and a bit of tide. All of this with the expectation of a dash of October Pacific Northwest rain and a cold beer from the club house after racing. As part of the larger regatta, we raced among 505s, Snipes, lots of Aeros and much to everyone’s surprise a single Laser racing a single Hobie? But the CYC Race Committee was up to the task, and the fleets were well sorted and well organized.
Twenty J/24s signed up for the event, and at stake was the championship as well as a World qualifier spot for next year’s 2019 World Championship in Miami. Friday night offered extra focus on preparation, inspections of boats and rigorous review of eligibility of boat (class certificates and a ton of other stuff that we tend to forget in between these big regattas). Good news: We now all have tight lifelines and paper work on file with the club.
Saturday: Started out with breeze and we all had to feather a bit to hold the boat flat. We got three good races in and as expected had to balance our strategy: On the inside we found a bit more tide relief, but the pressure on the outside was just a bit better overall. Over the day the breeze died down and at the 4th race we ran out of wind and had to abandon after a 45 minute upwind. Dinner and drinks at the club house was great. Pete Sauer won the day in borrowed boat Self Abuse with a solid 1st, 2nd, 1st. Michael Johnson in Pearl 2nd and finally Mark Laura’s Baba Louie in third.
Sunday: Again good breeze. Everyone wearing their best genoas and fully hiked. Lots of races and lots of drama with tons of boats called back for OCS (the “around the ends” rule became routine for the day), and the usual compression at both windward and leeward marks leading to even more drama. And finally the tug boat that decided to run a 600 ft floating dock over the top mark. The competition remained tight and before the last race Pete in Self Abuse found himself ahead by just one point to Scott Milne’s Tremendous Slouch and the boats in 3rd, 4th and 5th were all within striking distance of the trophy – which lead to a dramatic last race!
Results:
Team Self Abuse with Pete Sauer, Key Jeffcock Alex Simanis, Joe Greiser and Joe Wilderman went on to win the last race and secure the 2018 District 19 trophy. Well done and well deserved.
Scott Milne’s Tremendous Slouch finished just two points behind and in the process secured themselves a berth for Worlds in Miami (as Pete already had a berth from earlier in the year winning Western Regionals). Also congratulations for crawling back from a tough start Saturday and winning Sunday overall.
Mark Laura’s Baba Louie finished third and just three points behind Slouch.
From our perspective on Hair of the Dog it was just a fantastic weekend. It is a privilege to race against a number of the top J/24 boats. Boats that have not just participated, but done well at Worlds. Here is what we learned: It sucks to rig a boat in the rain. The hoist is still out to get our windex. Port gives way for starboard, unless port is absolutely dead in the water and on the mark. Also, it is cheaper to hit an inflatable mark than a fellow J/24. It sucks to have to return under spinnaker to restart under an OCS recall a good minute up the first leg. That a full day of sailing followed by a haul of the boat and de-rigging makes for an exhausting day.
Thank you everyone for a great weekend. To the traveling boats that made it to Seattle. To the strong class measurers and registration team Michael, Noel, Christa, Kelly, Alice, and Melanie. The entire CYC organizing authority lead by Matthew Wood. And of course the on-the-water RC team lead by Geoff Pease that got a ton of races thru in tricky conditions (with lots of sailors him offering “advice”). A personal thank you to the protest committee that twice listened to our ranting and correctly (and mostly gently) explained why our cause did not ‘stand up in court’.
–Jakob Lichtenberg
Ed. Note: Thanks for the report, Jakob, with the “additional notes” certainly adding some color!
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.
Five classes enjoyed CYC-Seattle’s small boat version of PSSC (Puget Sound Sailing Championships) last weekend. 18 J/24s made the trek out from Lake Washington to sail on the Sound, which provided great racing. The RS Aeros were out in force with 20 on the line for at least one of the races. A half-dozen 505s were out, as were three Snipes. Jay Winberg, the lone Laser, won the class with three straight bullets! (My apologies, Jay, for not being out there. I blame lead poisoning from keelboats.)
We have a short report from the top of the RS Aero fleet. Derek Bottles won it over Dan Falk, Dalton Bergan and Scott Malone with consistency. Falk and Bergan spent race three together toward the back of the fleet, which really hurt their final scores in the no-throwout regatta. Here’s Derek’s report
The RS Aero fleet is now well established in Seattle, 21 boats having sailed PSSC. The Aero is still a relatively new boat but mature enough everyone is sailing the boat well making the racing close. For this year’s event the tricky part was the conditions. Saturday started out with a solid 8 knot wind falling off to 3 knots while at the same time a major flood current built. It was easy to get caught in a hole or adverse current. Sunday saw the wind build from 8 knots to approximately 12 knots over the day, the last race was sailed in the most wind of all weekend. Staying in the right wind, current and shift was not easy as seen by how mixed up the finishing order was race to race. In these conditions I focused on not taking big risks and letting others make errors I could capitalize on. -Derek Bottles
Looking at the J/24 results, it’s pretty obvious that the racing was tight. Just about every boat had a great score and a regrettable score, with consistency winning out in this fleet as well as Pete Sauer sailing Self Abuse came out on top. (photos courtesy of the Pearl Racing Team and Joy Okazaki Facebook pages). I don’t have a report, but I do have the photos! For more information on the Seattle J/24 fleet, check out its web site.
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.
Sometimes in a drifter of a race it’s best to just look around and say “What a great day to be on the water!”
Then sail into another wind hole, watch your fleet sail away and say again “What a great day to be on the water!”
This year’s Foul Weather Bluff Race was one of those. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, a reminder of why we love to live here. It was the winds that were fickle. Sometimes coming from here, sometimes from there, sometimes not at all. There were plenty of winners, and no doubt they all deserved their pickle dishes as it took a great deal of concentration and fortitude to keep focused until the finish line. A Melges 24 owned by Evan Walker and the 40′ Martin designed Gray Wolf, owned by Evgeniy Goussev were a very close first and second overall. Results here.
The most excitement came, as is often the case, at the Scatchet Head Buoy. A flooding tide made getting to the buoy and around it a bit excruciating. It’s just sooooo easy to leave a bit of gelcoat behind in that situation. On approach to the turn, the boats that played the Whidbey shore escaped the worst of the current and got some puffs, while those that stayed further south were swept back when the wind died completely at times. But no worries, there were several restarts later in the race.
Photos by Jan Anderson. Click to enlarge. See (and purchase) the others here:
Lining up for Scatchet Head
Getting around the buoy.
Getting around the buoy.
Getting around the buoy.
Freja looking powered up – for a few moments.
Kiwi Express.
Headed for the temporary buoy off Pilot Point.
Even the mighty Crossfire couldn’t generate her own wind in some of holes. Nigel Barron took a trip up the rig (with a camera) and got the following shot of Nefarious. In return, Genevieve Livingston got a shot of Nigel hanging near the hounds. For good measure, Rick Donahue supplied Crossfire’s track. According to Barron, Crossfire “led the fleet into at least three holes.”
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.
Here’s another of the highly organized and enthusiastic Vancouver Island Racing Series races. A good mix of boats and clearly a balance of racing and shoreside activities. Of particular interest is the Martin 242/Hotfoot 27/Moore 24/Hotfoot 24 class and the 6-boat cruising class.
The Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club’s 2018 Challenging Racing And Social Happenings regatta (CRASH for short) was held on September 14-16 in a perfect mix of wind conditions from 2-22 kts, with boats from Schooner Cove to Esquimalt and from Vancouver to Point Roberts and Orcas Island testing their skills against the international competition.
Photos by Nat Klein. Click any to enlarge
We had a record entry of over 40 boats racing from 13 sailing clubs and associations including a large and spectacular multi-hull fleet, a highly competitive Round the Buoys fleet of Martins, Moores and Hotfoots, two well balanced PHRF divs, and this year we also introduced a true Cruising Class that ended up being highly competitive. Cruisers were given a 5 minute start window and individual start times within this window were entered into SailWave, thus “de-stressing” the start box for those beautiful big multi-purpose boats. The results can be found here: http://crashregatta.com/results/
International Race Officer John Abel lead our well-trained race management team and over 70 Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club volunteers came out in support, supplemented by our friends at RVYC.
All Social Happenings (craSH, remember) were held in the Port Sidney Marina hospitality tent. Entertainment included almost real-time drone racing videos of the day’s racing, live music and dancing, a high-quality meal Saturday plus free first night dinner and all breakfasts. Our second emergency top-up of sponsor’s beer just lasted til the end of the well attended prize-giving on Sunday. Perfect?
Planning for 2019 has started, put CRASH in your calendars!
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.
Immediately following the Northern Century race, David Odendahl checked in with Bruce Hedrick about how the conditions Bruce predicted panned out on the water. His race story, however, is a glimpse into a different way of looking at the race and -with his blessing- I’m sharing it with the rest of you. Winning’s fun, but sometimes quality time on the water, conservatively sailed, with the other half of the double-handed crew, is reward in itself. Next time you decide to skip a race because, let’s see, bad sails, rough bottom, too much junk onboard, bad rating or countless other reasons, just think of how great it would be just to spend that time sailing with your family or friends. -KH
By David Odendahl
Just getting over sleep deprivation.. I think my son Mark and I each got about 3 hours apiece.
It was another amazing experience. We kind of look at N100 as a team challenge more than a race. Sure we try to go fast and beat other boats, but it’s more about the experience between us, the boat and the Salish Sea..
As we have done in the past, we generally run under the genoa during the first 10 miles of the race, and it’s frankly pretty effective. It’s quite an effort to manage the chute on our boat (CS36 with mast head/dip pole) and my kids don’t sail as much as they used to, so it’s old, out of shape me on the foredeck.
The wind is so inconsistent at the start, and frequently close/beam reaching, the other boats lose a lot of time playing with their chutes. We just blithely keep going along under the genoa (the tortoise vs the hare) and usually keep up and even lead the pack sometimes, as one can see on the tracker.
But eventually it usually settles down into a light air run up Rosario and to Point Roberts. That’s when we need to pop the chute on the way north.
But it was a really dark night, with a ¼ moon and the smoke and a lot of ship traffic, so I made the executive decision to wait until dawn for the chute.
It was probably a critical choice, since one boat was about 30 minutes ahead of us, and they got around into the northerly from the Strait of Georgia that had set up like you said.
For us, we got there too late, and got stuck in a hole trying to round, and lost a few miles to a couple other boats who were able to skirt the hole we were in.
We made nice progress in the northerly you predicted down through Haro Strait. We had a tough time escaping Haro Strait… Usually we head out on port until we get headed quite a bit, and then we tack over to Hein Bank.
Again, we found ourself in a hole that took a while to get out of.
Once we got to Hein Bank, the winds had lightened considerably, and we drifted through the night as the ebb started. Our main goal was to stay out of the VTS lanes.
We called the race at 8:30 AM when it became impossible to finish, even if the wind filled in.
We turned the motor on and crossed the finish line with 45 minutes to spare.
There was maybe a 6 knot southerly in Rosario once we rounded the corner from Haro.
It sounds miserable, but it was fine. Again, we look at this race differently.
The best part of the trip was when we found out on the trip home that my son had gotten an early acceptance into graduate school at UW (Electrical Engineering)!
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.
Here’s a great opportunity to give back to the sport and learn a thing or two in the process. While the event doesn’t happen until December, if you’re interested in becoming a US Sailing judge, save the dates now!
From Wayne Balsiger of Corinthian Yacht Club
US Sailing Advanced Judge Seminar
Are you interested in learning more about how protest committees work? Are you interested in becoming a US Sailing Judge? Become a US Sailing Certified Judge!
Judges are responsible for conducting protest and redress hearings when competitors believe there has been a breach of the rules. Judges also conduct arbitration hearings, enforce Rule 42 (Propulsion) on the water at fleet racing events and consult with organizers and race officers ahead of events to review race documents and procedures. Judges improve the quality, consistency, and fairness of racing through proper administration of the Racing Rules of Sailing.
Join us in a US Sailing two-day Judge Seminar (Advanced) required for certification as a US Sailing Judge or US Sailing National Judge. Some protest committee experience is helpful, but not required. No prerequisite class is needed. It covers topics involved in successful judging: rules and requirements for handling protests and requests for redress, techniques involved in running good hearings, deriving a set of facts from testimony , applying applicable rules, and arriving at conclusions and a decision, writing up protest committee decisions, handling open hearings and arbitration.
Additionally, the seminar will concentrate on four areas of development: Mock Hearings, Part 2 rules, Part 5 and Appendix M rules and rule 69.
The lead instructor is Charlie Macaulay. Charlie is a Judge and has served as a member of the US Sailing Judges Committee and is a member of the Area L Appeals Committee.
When: December 8-9, 2018
Where: Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle, Shilshole Bay marina (downstairs)
Study Materials: You should answer the AJS Study Questions We strongly recommend that you study and answer each question, and write down the relevant rule citations prior to attending the seminar.
For additional information about host and location or housing available, please contact Wayne Balsiger, webalsiger@comcast.net, 206.370.1601. For questions regarding registration please email: raceadmin@ussailing.org.
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.
Thanks to Sue Weiss for all her race committee work and going the extra mile to get some news out. She was on the race committee for the T-Bird West Coast Championship over Labor Day weekend. I don’t have a report, but here are some photos and results. For more information, go to the Port Townsend Sailing Association page.
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.
PITCH has nearly always tossed something the sailors’ way. Great big fleets once upon a time (Pacific International -IOR- Ton CHampionship), great racing, great -sometimes really great- breeze, great parties. Those who made it to Bellingham this past weekend got to enjoy that outstanding Bellingham hospitality and two days of great racing. While the fleets aren’t nearly as big, there’s still a good time to be had in Bellingham Labor Day weekend. And check out the menu of the regatta feast. Thanks to Mike Powell for once again writing about the event, even though his attention was pretty well locked on the telltales on his own J/33 Keet much of the time, and when they weren’t he heard a chorus of “Focus!!”
By Mike Powell
Twenty five boats came to Bellingham Bay for the 2018 KarMART USA BYC PITCH Regatta. They were split into 5 fleets including a Martin 242 one design fleet. Conditions on Saturday started with fantastic breeze in the mid to upper teens for the first two races and slowly eased as the day went on to light wind as the early fog burnt off and the sun came out to close the day. Sunday was similar with less early wind but always with a racing breeze and enough consistent shifts that paying attention to the compass was a good idea. Race committee lead by Charley Rathkopf got off 8 races for each fleet with a short line for small fleets the starts were tight and exciting.
The most hotly contested fleet was Class 5 between Stephanie Schwenk’s Wild Rumpus and Erik Yaremko’s S2 9.1 Flying Circus matching identical scores at the end of the regatta with Rumpus taking the win with the most recent 1st place finish. The other fleets sorted themselves out with strongest boats taking picket fences or close to while the other positions moved up and down the leader board as the weekend went on.
Saturday saw the the fast fleet of Wicked Wahine, Absolutely and Bat Out Of Hell sent off on a medium distance race around Eliza Island after a couple of buoy races. Like so many island races, they ran into glassy conditions on the backside and ran out of time to finish the race. Everyone else raced windward/Leeward courses and rarely waited long to start the next race. The party, as always, was on form with help from my favorite local pub, Stones Throw Brewing plus burgers, Tr-Tip and Monica’s famous Mole’ Chicken being on the menu over three nights of socializing at the Bellingham Yacht Club. Thanks to all the racers that made the effort to come to the Bay and race and great work by the BYC volunteers running the event, cooking and keeping a square course, thank you one and all!
