Lots of sailing going on this weekend combined with plenty of weather. In other words, a typical fall weekend with an Annular Eclipse topping. We just won’t be able to see it because it’s going to be raining. Just about everywhere.
Today’s surface analysis chart shows a series of low-pressure systems aimed right at the Salish Sea. Until you look at the 992MB low just off our coast, which now is projected to move in a NNW direction and parallel the coast up into SE Alaska. The attached cold front will drag across the Salish Sea with gusty winds. With the coastal buffer zone in play, this front will weaken as it comes onshore. This means the strongest breeze will be along the coast, the eastern end of the Strait of JdF, and the northern part of the San Juan Islands.
The other interesting chart is the 48hr surface forecast chart 15 Oct, which shows the entire north Pacific. In the middle is a very large low-pressure system (950MB) which is actually the remnants of Typhoon Bolaven and at this point, it is aimed at the California/Oregon Border. True, it is projected to weaken to 962MB and it should continue to weaken however if it does make landfall, it will still be a significant storm. It is particularly interesting that this week is the anniversary of the 1962 Oct 12 storm which was also the result of a weakened, post-tropical Typhoon.
How all of these will affect the racing this weekend is shown below:
Time Eagle Island PSSC Pumpkin Regatta
0900 S 5-11 SSW 3-7 SE 7-12
1000 SSW 3-7 S 3-7 SE 5-11
1100 S 2-7 S 4-11 SE 5-12
1200 SSW 2-6 S 8-12 ESE 4-9
1300 SSW 3-5 S 4-8 SE 4-9
1400 SSW 3-5 SSW 3-8 SE 4-9
1500 S 6-9 SE 3-10 SE 5-10
1600 WSW 8-11 SE 3-8 SE 5-10
1700 WSW 0-5 SE 4-9 ESE 8-13
Sunday
0900 ESE 0-6 ESE 8-14
1000 E 4-8 E 6-12
1100 SSE 3-6 ESE 6-10
1200 L&V* E 4-8
1300 L&V ESE 3-6
1400 ENE 3-5 E 2-5
1500 NE 3-6 E 2-5
1600 N 4-8 E 2-5
1700 N 3-5 E 2-5
*Light & Variable
Not terrible conditions but mainly light with rain . A much stronger front will come through on Monday.
Bruce has raced and cruised the Pacific Northwest his entire life. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Washington in Biological Oceanography and learned meteorology “to keep from getting kicked around on the race course.” Bruce spent nearly two decades as Associate Publisher for Northwest Yachting Magazine, retiring in mid-2015, and was the chairman of the board of trustees for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in 2014. (photo of Bruce driving Playstation is a bit dated, but cool)
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 story for this year’s Big Boat Pacific Coast Sailing Championship (PSSC), put on by CYC Seattle last weekend, has a lot more to do with mark sets than mark roundings. Principal Race Officer Charley Rathkopf was beta testing the MarkSetBot. Robot marks? Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
This self-propelled floating mark can be instructed via computer through the web, to hold a GPS position. It’s electric trolling motor, autopilot and cell phone work together. “Once you get it in the water and all connected, it worked great” Rathkopf reported. There are still some kinks to work out, but hey, that’s what beta testing is all about.
This wasn’t just Rathkopf’s doing. CYC members Bob Combie and Hans Spiller were instrumental in getting the club selected as a tester, and getting the Midwest product on Northwest waters.
Rathkopf reports that the bot could change position very quickly when directed, but didn’t have enough battery power to get itself back to Shilshole after a full day of holding position on the water.
Another beta tester had claimed they really needed a bot like this because “we have to set marks in 100 feet of water!” I’m sure their heads shook in disbelief when they heard Puget Sound marks are set conventionally, and successfully, in many times that depth.
As good as the CYC crews have become at setting marks in deep water, and they are amazing, as a Laser sailor I’m all in favor of something that speeds up the process. It gets cold out there sitting around wet waiting for the line to be reset!
All the photos in this post (and many others) are by Jan Anderson. I’d like to make a personal plea to you owners and crews to go to her web site and order (yes, pay for) photos. She works very hard at her craft and gives us all the chance to relive our races time and again. Click any photo to enlarge.
Trimming on Jedi
Slow motion Melges
Elixir
Gaucho into the mark
Here and Now
Namaste
J/80 Start
The J/105 Delirium
Glory, Smoke and Jedi
Of course there was excellent racing in light breezes all weekend. In the J/105 class, Erik Kristen and More Jubilee won the series without winning a single race. In the Melges 24 class it was Kevin Welch’s top shelf MiKEY program with the clear win. Worm Lund and Snappy Tom won three of the races to seal the victory, and in the 8-boat J/80 Crazy Ivan won handily.
A grand total of 22 boats raced in handicap classes. Classes 1 and 2 had three, count ’em three, boats apiece. Class 3 had seven boats and a modest rating range. Nine boats sailed in Class 7 with a rating range of 126 seconds/mile. Glory and Wicked Wahine won classes 1 and 2 while Bat out of Hell won Class 3 and Here and Now took Class 7.
It’s worth noting that the one design classes appear strong. The 10-boat Melges 24 fleet seems quite solid, as does the J/105 class. The San Juan 24 and J/80 classes appear to be strengthening.
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.
Get out and enjoy the weekend! Beautiful day today and it looks like it will hold for the weekend. Perhaps the most interesting feature this week is Hurricane Ophelia as it continues to build with some models showing the British Isles taking a direct hit.
Ophelia
Then there’s the tornado outside of Portland turning over some small planes. The great thing about the weather is that it’s never boring.
Today’s chart shows a setup most Vic-Maui, Pacific Cup, and TransPac sailors dream about; a nice and round 1041 MB high-pressure system with almost perfect spacing in the isobars. The only problem is that weak low-pressure system sitting over the Pacific Northwest. This will result in some atmospheric instability and generally light conditions over the Salish Sea.
For PSSC this will mean a pretty nice southerly over the Shilshole area and about 8-15 knots until late in the afternoon when the breeze will start to drop and shift more to the southeast. Sunday the breeze will fill in from the north at about 8-10 knots and should hold for the day. All in all, pretty perfect conditions for a regatta.
The tides will cooperate as well which will make the racing very interesting. These are the tidal currents at West Point.
Saturday
0948 Max Flood .97 knts
1254 Slack
1424 Max Ebb .3 knts
1748 Slack
Sunday
0536 Slack
1100 Max Flood 1.02 knts
1348 Slack
1524 Max Ebb .27 knts
1854 Slack
With the southerly and a flood tide for the start of racing on Saturday you can expect a southeasterly shift along the shore north of Meadow Point and along the breakwater off of Shilshole. Even with a flood tide, there will still be an advantage to going left off the start line and minimizing the number of tacks to the weather mark. Chances are it will also pay to do a starboard pole set at the weather mark and hold that until you start to get lifted as you sail north. After the bottom mark, the direction you go will depend on how far to the west the mark is, where your competition goes and how far the wind is to south or south-west. If the mark is way to the west than you may not be able to go far enough to the east to get back into the south-easterly. If this is the case then it’s back to basic’s, stay between your competition and the finish. On the run north be sure to have someone check the flags on the committee boat and see which end of the line is favored and if one side of the course is favored.
13 October Surface Chart
14 October Surface Chart
15 October Surface Chart
16 October Surface Chart
The northerly on Sunday will make things even trickier as there may still be a slight north-easterly component in the morning. If the sky is clear over the downtown area and it can heat up sooner, this will bring the wind around to northwest sooner. Again, keep your head out of the boat and watch which way the smart guys are going.
Bruce has raced and cruised the Pacific Northwest his entire life. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Washington in Biological Oceanography and learned meteorology “to keep from getting kicked around on the race course.” Bruce spent nearly two decades as Associate Publisher for Northwest Yachting Magazine, retiring in mid-2015, and was the chairman of the board of trustees for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in 2014. (photo of Bruce driving Playstation is a bit dated, but cool)
Corinthian (Seattle) YC’s PSSR Regatta started off last weekend with the small boat edition, and Puget Sound delivered with just enough wind for two good days of racing. With nine races sailed (eight for the J/24s), the winners all had to earn their way to the top. The PRO for the event, Egor Klevak, did an excellent job of keeping things moving along the entire weekend. Melissa Davies did a great job of drumming up participation, which was up substantially from 2016 across the board.
This year the seven Moore 24s were switched from the “large boat” half of the event (to be sailed this coming weekend) to the small boat event. That, combined with the 12-boat J/24 class meant that everyone had to stay alert in the starting area to avoid those unpleasant big boat/small boat interactions. It also meant the inevitable couple of incidents while one fleet was going through the start line while another fleet was starting. There’s just not a lot of room to get through a line when the J/24s are jockeying for position. Everyone stayed on their toes and it all worked.
Here are some of Jan Anderson’s photos. Click to enlarge. There are lots more here, and I know she’d love you to see them.
RS Aero start
Blake Bentzen foused
Moore 24s downwind
Derek DeCouteau and Jamie Stewart
Dave Watt’s upwind form
J/24s not giving an inch
The Snipe
Dan Herron
The author, confused
Kirk and Katia
Jay Leon
Lucas Lafitte and Big Tuna
Saturday’s predicted light southerly held ’til mid afternoon, when a northerly blew down on the fleet with some gusty breezes, and the existing race was abandoned for some classes. Rather than saying enough racing for the day, Klevak reoriented the course and sent everyone for one final race of the day in a waning wind. It meant that by the end of the day a full five races had been sailed and a good regatta already was achieved. And it meant some very, very tired sailors.
And it appeared that that had been a wise move with a glassy Puget Sound the next morning. But as the land heated up, the northerly once again turned on and four more solid races were sailed. The strong currents of the weekend caused much consternation and some surprises. In the last race, for some classes, better wind actually trumped the ripping flood while heading upwind. As the crews gathered in the CYC clubhouse, the TV showed the Seahawks managing to hold onto a win. What a weekend!
Ben Braden and crew won the Moores, young Lucas Lafitte put his stamp on the J/24 fleet, Dave Watt won the small Star class and Kirk and Katia Smith stood atop the Snipe class. Results here.
Both the RS Aeros and Lasers had very good fleets, each with 11 boats on the line. Dalton Bergan managed to win the RS Aero, despite going with the smaller “7” rig on the first day. Second was Todd Willsie, the very first RS Aero owner in the region and third was Bergan’s father in law Carl Buchan, who may have regretted matching Dalton’s “7” rig the first day. Youth was the theme for the Laser class as Blake Bentzen won with a very consistent performance, with strong performances by Stasi Burzycki, Luke Gibbens, Kit Stoll and Perham Black (only the second day, but was he ever fast).
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.
