Round the County Race

It seems the Round the County race always serves up one marginal race day and one great race day. This past weekend, Saturday was truly marginal and Sunday could be called “OK,” especially if you were playing the shore along San Juan Island.

Saturday’s start verged on silly. Some boats were barely able cross the start before the time limit for starting expired. A lot of boats were stuck not far from the start line for hours. The race turned into a nice run in a southerly past Sucia Island, but at the turn at Patos things turned ugly.

A handful of the fastest boats were able to break through and sail for the finish at Roche, but ended up not making it in the time limit. For the most part the rest of the fleet crossed the halfway finish line and pretty much stopped there. It was quite the parade of running lights as boats headed for Roche Harbor to tie up for the night.

On Sunday the light-air downwind starts were entertaining, and it became evident early on the fleet was split on playing the shore or not. Boats holding out looked good early, but the boats along the shore had the last laugh as the northerly was found near the shore, but didn’t extend to the fleet outside.

Jan Anderson’s photos -see the rest here.

At one point, the ORC speedsters Crossfire, Glory, Blue and Dark Star were parked up together. John Buchan and the Glory gang decided enough was enough and quit, only to see the northerly show up as they were headed home.

Nearly everybody had their moment while patches of wind anointed a few boats at a time to be the heroes of the moment. But only a few could be in front at the end.

Some images borrowed from Facebook and elsewhere:

Steve Johnson’s TP 52 Mist won the cumulative ORC class results over the two days, followed closely by Jonathan McKee’s Dark Star. The J/111 Recon won Division 0 on the strength of an excellent second day. Freda Mae built enough of a cushion on Saturday to hold on for the multihull win over Big Broderna. It’s worth noting that that the Cal 33 Cherokee won her class by nearly two hours. Who says moderate displacement older designs can’t win in light air? Results.

My RTC – Chocolate Chip Cookies Rule the Day

Why is Round the County one of the best races, not just in the Northwest – but anywhere?

Scenery. ‘Nuff said.

Anybody can win. Capricious San Juan Islands winds and currents serve up surprise winners often enough that everybody should feel they have a chance. Because they do.

By the same token, if you’re one of those afflicted with that Highly Competitive Itch, it’s a race where you can leave it at home. If you go out when in pays, it’s easy to write it off as bad luck.

Weird course. This big circle course really demands a lot of sailing skill. Playing currents, guessing the geographical effects of the wind, navigation crew work on the sail changes and plain old boatspeed. It’s a wonderful challenge, especially after a season of round-the-buoys.

Roche Harbor. What a great stopover place. All those huge powerboats make it seem like Fort Lauderdale. Maybe not.

But for me it’s about the socializing. I’m not talking about the beer tent and all the renewed friendships that bubble up in Roche, although that’s all pretty special.

For me it’s getting to know new folks on a crew, or getting to connect with those onboard better. In a buoy series or short point-to-point race, there really isn’t much time for socializing. It’s about the race. On RTC, there’s usually time (and sometimes a LOT of time) for connecting with shipmates.

I was the new guy on Oxomoxo, and only knew the owner Doug Frazer. By the time we locked up the boat on Sunday night in Anacortes, I had several new friendships. Sailors are generally very interesting people, and their lives outsides of sailing are fascinating. A drifty RTC is a great chance to get to know them.

Our RTC had its moments, like when we nearly crossed the fleet on port. That is, crossed the start behind us. Unfortunately we couldn’t cross and had to tack, which I’m sure wasn’t too popular with those starters at the boat end of the line.

But here’s the good news – chocolate chip cookies are a good remedy for the Highly Competitive Itch. One thing about a real cruiser racer is that it usually has an oven. And what comes out of an oven? Chocolate chip cookies. No matter how you’re doing, or have done, they taste good. They did both days.

Kurt Hoehne

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.

For many of us, Round the County (RTC) race in the San Juans is the best of times and the worst of times, with one day having breeze and the next, none. Or, doing well one day and not the next. This year, the wind gods (Bruce Hedrick among them) decided on a relatively light two-day northerly for the race this past weekend.

It was a clockwise year, and the fleet had good breeze heading south after the start. After Davidson Rock things became challenging, with the boats that headed inshore seemingly doing the best. Of course short-tacking the shore to the finish kept crews busy. On day two, the boats that kept close to shore after Turn Point found some good breeze and were able to escape quicker than those who kept off shore. A freighter forced that decision on a few, and in fact keeping clear of commercial traffic this year was one of the points of emphasis from the organizers.

The finish turned out to a parkup off Lydia Shoal, where much of the race was won or lost. The results show Hamachi winning the ORC division just ahead of Dark Star with the TP 52s, for once, back in the pack. Class winners in PHRF included Recon, 65 Red Roses, Vitesse, Sir Isaac, Here and Now and Saltheart Foamfollower.

Sir Isaac

One of the great things about Round the County is the variety of boats that compete – and win! Remember the schooner Martha? This year there’s another schooner to talk about, Sir Isaac, John and Ann Bailey’s Chuck Burns designed 49-footer which won Division 3.

The first thing to know about Sir Isaac is that she spent 10 years in a major rebuild. John and Ann sailed the boat for a few years before deciding to do the extensive work that would be needed to make her the cruising machine they wanted. From 2006-2016 Sir Isaac lived in one end of a building and the Bailey’s in another. They wanted to be close, after all they were doing all the work themselves! It would be no small job on the 1984 cold-molded boat.

The work including cutting the deck off (with a Sawzall, no less), replacing the deck, cabin and cockpit, glassing the cockpit, gutting and rebuilding the interior and re-glassing the hull. There was extensive vacuum bagging involved, and John Bailey credits “mentor” Russell Brown with advising throughout the process. The Baileys have plans to do some serious sailing in the years to come, including considering a race to Hawaii in 2020. So they built in additional tankage.

The second thing to know about the Baileys and Sir Isaac is that they “LOVE” their boat and the Salish sailing scene. “Everybody treats us nicely,” John reports. If the name John Bailey, associated with PNW sailing, sounds familiar, it is. John’s mother, Jo Bailey, co-authored the wonderful Gunkholing in the San Juans book that goes cruising with me every time I head north. Sadly, Jo Bailey died about a year ago. 

While a schooner rig is fairly daunting for a racing crew, the way it breaks up sail area makes a good choice for shorthanded cruising. The Baileys find it an easy rig to handle. The boat certainly has strong and weak points. This year’s light air reaching was very good for Sir Isaac, thought the beat up the west side of San Juan Island was not. The crew kept all those sails (including that marvelous “fisherman” hanging between the masts) going up and down and the the boat pointed away from the holes while John Bailey focused on boat speed. At the finish line parking lot, Bailey picked what was probably the best route – outside the Peapods, but not getting too wide before riding a wind line to the finish.

Photos by Jan Anderson, except where noted. Click any to enlarge.

Kurt Hoehne

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.

After our initial Round the County coverage, we were called out by Vin Colgin in the comments section: “More small boat results. Local super yacht results are interesting, but not relatable. I want to see more < 30′ news to increase participation.”

Hey, Vin, when you’re right, you’re right. I didn’t get a <30′ skipper or crew to report here, but your comment did inspire a tale from another classic that many could relate to. For the <30′ tale, I suggest you go to Ben Braden’s story of the race.

Alert reader Jarred Swalwell chimed in with his tale of crewing with Megan Kogut on the RTC on the Carter 37 Arrow: “Yes, it’s tempting to wax poetic about big, pretty expensive boats. Did anyone notice the ’73 IOR one tonner out there rocking the BBQ, radar tower + solar panels and 30 year old dacron? For a period, I had a lovely time with one elbow casually hooked around a shroud while eating hot beef stew and admiring a Moore 24 off our starboard bow plane a little on the downwind run on day 2. This just before I went back to admiring my beef stew. We finished near to the top third in both class and fleet. We had cushions to sit on, a diesel heater, substantially Moore than a pot to piss in, and of course cold beer. I did enjoy watching the sporty boats, they are pretty. At times, I even enjoyed passing the sporty boats. But seriously, it would be nice to see a few more comfortable plain white sloops out there having a good time, RTC is a terrific event. BTW, props to the Cal 34!!”

(It’s worth noting that Ben Braden ate a hot lunch on his own Moore 24 Moore Uff Da in the same race from his well-known barbecue while finishing eighth overall)

But more than that, Jarred’s and three other boats utilized raceQs to track the race, and compare notes afterward. racQs is new to me, and pretty interesting. I haven’t figured out how to embed the video but if you follow the links below you’ll see the tracks play out for the entire race. The screenshots are from raceQs. This would definitely be fun to set up with your favorite enemies on the race course to have something to talk about afterward.

Megan and I were on Arrow, an IOR boat.  We use raceQs to track and analyze what happened, a few other boats do as well so it’s a pretty interesting watch.  

Saturday is here.  You can see the shut down at the end and where a few boats (Bravo Zulu and Lodos) figured out the counter current on the other side of Battle Rock which paid off pretty big for them.

Sunday we stayed out and walked away from the short tackers in faster boats.  On the downwind we had to fly a smaller storm kite as our big kite had a tear.  But staying to the east on the course kept us away from a hole that a number of other boats got stuck into on the west.

–Jarred Salwell

There are a lot of us who can look around just about any harbor an identify “former” raceboats that still have a lot of fun and a few wins still in them.

Take Arrow. In 1973 Dick Carter was at the top of of the design game, with the help of none other than the Northwest’s own Bob Perry who was working for Carter at the time. This pinched-end, wide-beamed boat was the bomb, and still sails very well, even with Dacron. The design derived from the world One Ton champion Ydra. The faults with IOR boats of that era are well known, but they’re voluminous and usually fitted with decent galleys, heads and berths. They’re not going to keep up with a modern well-designed racer-cruiser, and they’re never going to plane (at least you don’t want to be on them if they do), but they definitely have style and sail well.

There are of course, plenty of other non-IOR boats that can be talked about (and raced) as well. So while it’s often easier to write about the expensive end of the fleet, get us the tales and pictures and we’ll certainly tell the stories from the heart of the fleet too.

Kurt Hoehne

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.