BC sailing

The Positive Energy Pumpkin Bowl This Weekend

Kurt Hoehne Dinghy Racing, Laser Sailing, Youth Sailing , 0 Comment
The Positive Energy Pumpkin Bowl This Weekend

West Vancouver YC’s Pumpkin Bowl is an amazing event geared primarily at youth classes, and Bruce Hedrick and Sailish.com are giddy to be able to help out. Bruce will be providing a look at the weather and Sailish is providing a bit of promotion, not that it really needs it. The event features youth classes, the Laser District 6 Championships and lots and lots of positive energy. PRO Stewart Jones, a rigger in the area and one of the driving forces behind the regatta, explains what makes this event so special.

So what is this Regatta?

We try and fill the Club with Youth Sailors and volunteers to create the greatest energy level you can imagine.

Here is a link to  Regatta Tool Box for the event you can see the numbers of sailors. https://www.regattatoolbox.com/eventDetails?eventID=F2eOyWPXGe – There is much more on Facebook as linked on Regatta Tool Box.

With coaches and racers we have 189 boats registered through the classes. Over 200 sailors plus  over 70 volunteers on the water and over 30 more in the club area helping with launching, parking, lunches and all the other administrative functions that go along with the logistics.

There are four race courses in the area inside Passage Island, down to the lighthouse and up to the Whytecliff Park. We put a volunteer mark set team of boat and two workers on each mark and have safety, spectator boats and media boats all on the water.

.The on water volunteers all attend a safety briefing one evening. They meet their fellow course workers and receive assignment sheets so all know their roles for the day of the event as well as all the safety and crisis scenarios to help the event overcome obstacles. The onshore and on water volunteers are all recognized with a Club hosted BBQ after sailing on Saturday.

We are very proud of our event. Last year in two days we completed 63 races for the Pumpkin sailors.

We have many financial supporters from our membership and others that help to allow us to provide great features to the regatta.

The classes initially include:

  • Opti Green
  • Opti (White, Blue & Red)
  • Laser (4.7, Radial & Full Rig)
  • 420
  • RS Fevas
  • 29er
  • X Class

Other facets and freebies include:

  • Free Technical shirt all logoed up
  • Mercedes toques to all
  • Make your own lunch both days
  • Chilli, soup and hot chocolate after sailing each day
  • Two sittings for dinner, close to 350 meals, maybe more
  • Desert, Ice cream bar
  • Movies for the Opti kids, face painting and pumpkin carving
  • Older kids have a roaring quiz evening with prizes
  •  Many door prizes
  •  Medals for first year Opti kids and Harken plaques for placing in the fleets
  •  A very realistic Witch attends every year as well
  •  A billeting service with members is also well used
  •  Lots of fun as the dinghy season is coming to an end for another year.

So that is Pumpkin, lots of fun and people working together. We have good partnerships with the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue 01 who provide one or two large vessels on the water for the whole regatta if not tasked to a call. Vessel Traffic Services continually reports to mariners of the large number of boats in the area. One deep sea vessel transited on the west side of Bowen Island when leaving Squamish after traffic  ‘filled him in’ on what he was going to encounter at the mouth of Howe Sound.

Please do your best on letting people know about our regatta that will have over 300 people on the water and close to 250 boats going in every direction.

We sent a link to the competitors to look for your  Salish.com posts to get your call on the weather for the regatta.

Thanks for helping Pumpkin Bowl, a weather briefing adds an extra touch, you do it so well.

Regards

Stewart Jones, PRO Pumpkin Bowl

Ed. Note: I don’t know about anybody else reading this, but I’m sitting here at my computer wondering why I’m not headed north with a trailer full of Lasers and Optis.

Cowichan Bay Report – Northwest Multihull Championship, Martin 242 NAs and Plenty of PHRFers

Alex Fox Racing, Uncategorized , 0 Comment
Cowichan Bay Report – Northwest Multihull Championship, Martin 242 NAs and Plenty of PHRFers

The 39th annual Cowichan (“Cow”) Bay Regatta was sailed at the beginning of the month. In those 39 years a lot of marks have been rounded and a lot of Canadian food and beverages consumed in that northern nooke adjacent to the Saanich Inlet. It remains BC’s summertime destination regatta, a chance for PHRFers and one-design fleets to get away from the big cities and hone in on equal parts racing and fun. I see a great appeal to Cow Bay as a likely jumping off point for a summer cruise. It provides great racing and a nice event for transitioning from racing mode to Gulf-cruising-mode. Thanks to Alex Fox for providing this racing rundown. Heidi Leckenby helmed their T-Bird Scooter to second in PHRF 4.

Cowichan Bay 2018

By Alex Fox

This year was everything Cow Bay’s advertised to be. Great venue, fine social activities and a kind 8-12 knots of breeze, with enough shifts and current variations to open the course options up, keeping the fleets tight and competitive.

The multihulls held, as always, their Northwest Championships, with 12 boats this year ranging from the F-24 Geneva up to the 40′ Dragonfly. Duncan Gladman’s speedy new (to the area) Dragon came out on top with great consistency, seeming to like it when the breeze was up a bit. One point behind in second was Bad Kitty, Bob and Ron’s ever-present yellow cat, with Geneva, last year’s winner, settling for third. 

Division 1 was a mixed PHRF fleet, SC 50, Aerodyne 38, J-109, Flying Tiger, Henderson 30 , CM1200 and more. The battle came down to the 109 Tantivy, from Seattle, just edging out Baaad Kitty, the Henderson from Royal Victoria, again by a single point with Kairos in third. 

Division 2 was something of a sportboat fleet. Three Melges 24’s , a Left Coast Dart, Elliot 770, no fewer than four Dash 34’s, or variations of and a Ross 930. The Melges and the Dart waged war on each other and the bigger boats, with the last race deciding the overalls. Mike Bond sailing the Melges with the ever changing name (ed. note: apparently Hold My Beer for this regatta), came out on top, with Paul and April’s Ogopogo edging the Melges 24 Sunnyvale for third. The Dash’s had their own battle within the fleet and interestingly that went to the one in original form, Optical Illusion.

Division 3 was pretty much dominated by Stephanie Schwenk and crew on Wild Rumpus. The little Santa Cruz 27 came, saw and conquered after a series of runner ups in recent memory. This division had a big range of boats from the Ultimate 20 and Pocket Rocket, a gaggle of Hotfoot 27’s, to a couple of J-29’s including second place Godzilla from Vancouver, a regular on the VIRS circuit, and her sistership Rhumbline in third. Most everyone had their day in this 13 boat fleet, with seven boats recording top three race finishes. 

Division 4, the small boat division came down to a battle between four of us. Vidas Stukas on his much modified Turbo-Bird, Zig Zag, won it. Heidi making her regatta helming debut aboard our T-Bird, Scooter. Brian Robinson was third on the Cal 9.2 Flight and Windward 30 Pitoraq ended up fourth. Zig Zag dominated day one with three bullets to our one, then Flight really found the gas pedal on Sunday, winning two races. They might have finished third, had their spinnaker not blown. This was fun, tight racing with Graham Heath on Pitoraq, the 2017 VIRS series Overall winners, being a bit unlucky to fall to fourth, after mostly second and third place finishes. It was close racing with some very different boats, showing that handicap racing is alive and well.  

The Martin 242s held their North Americans at Cow Bay as part of the regatta and Michael Clements on Wicked won going away. Second was the always contending Dirty Dog with third and forth filled by two Orcas Island boats, Crazy I’s and Purple Martin, shaking up the usual pecking order. This fleet always wins the party, hiring a DJ and hosting the dock party on Friday night. 

Cow Bay Regatta is run by a group of hard working volunteers, who come from all over. Brigid, a former local sailor, who now lives in from Oak Harbour, deserves special kudos though for coordinating everyone’s efforts over the past bunch of years. Way to go everyone!

Results.

Ed. Note: If any of the fleets (multihulls, Martin 242s) want to provide more specific info and pix, I’ll be happy to do a separate post. Just email me. Long live BC racing!