We’ve watched Keith Whittemore tear up J/24 fleets near and far for a couple decades. His consistency in such a tough class is remarkable. With four days and eight races in the books, he’s leading the J/24 Worlds in Miami. There’s one more day and two races scheduled for what just might be a Whittemore world championship.
It doesn’t get more competitive than a tight J/24 fleet.
Copied from the J/24 class Facebook Page:
Keith Whittemore’s Furio extended his lead at the J/24 World Championship, as Biscayne Bay in Miami delivered a wild and exciting day for the 79 teams. Winds were regularly recorded at 18 knots with gusts in the 20s, testing competitors and equipment, and causing some boats to retire early. Whittemore’s Furio, who exceled in the Championship’s lighter days, also shone in the bigger breeze Friday, posting a bullet and a 12 for 32 net points in eight races. Two more races are planned Saturday to conclude the event. Chris Stone’s Velocidad held on to the runner-up position with 41 points, following a 26,5 on the day (discarding the 26). Rossi Milev’s Clear Air maintained the third spot with 42 points. The Seattle-based Furio crew is comprised of Shelby Milne, Willem Van Waay, Mark Rodgers and Brian Thomas. Whittemore explained that Van Waay has some regatta experience with Furio but joked, “The rest of us has sailed together for 4,000 years.” Whittemore also keeps a boat in Europe, and is regular on that circuit, creating friends and supporters worldwide. After Whittemore in race seven were John Mollicone’s Helly Hansen and Tokuma Takesue’s Gekko. Three J/24 World Champions comprised the top three in race eight: Mauricio Santa Cruz’s Bruschetta, Will Welles Buckaroo and Daniel Frost’s JJOne. Seventy-nine teams from 19 nations (Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Great Britain, Grenada, Hungary, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States) conclude racing Saturday. Complete event details may be found at the event website…
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.
Scheleen Rathkopf and her team are putting on the Whidbey Island Race Week for the last time before moving it to Point Roberts. Looks like there was one race in a Southerly in Saratoga Passage on Wednesday (yes, that has happened before) and lots of races the last couple of days.
I’ll try to get a report and Jan’s pictures out when the fat boy has sung. Charley Rathkopf is posting live results, so you can follow along tomorrow at work when you’re not working.
In the meantime, here are the results.Mad Dash and More Uff Da are dominating, but there’s close competition in the other classes..
If any of you folks have some pictures from the racecourse to share in the next couple days, please send ’em here, not just Facebook!
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.
We in the PNW get to give a big cheer for Team Hamachi. They sailed a great Transpac race and appears to have won the ORR division overall. Thanks to Jason Andrews who has supplied videos and reports to sailish.com leading up to and during the race. Mahalo indeed.
We did it. But the last 24 hours were really intense.
We were struggling to cover both Bretwalda 3, which was focused on sailing as fast as possible to Oahu, and Velvet Hammer, who was playing a tactical game. The Hammer was heading for the right corner to establish leverage on us, while we sailed more of a rhumb line to keep our VMG high. Squalls were rolling across the race course creating challenging wind angles and large wind holes. We struggled very early Saturday morning and watched the separation increase with Bretwalda, and our advantage decrease with Velvet Hammer. Hamachi had been atop the ORR overall standings since Wednesday morning, but all of us felt that lead slipping away.
Around 3am a series of squalls came through that increased pressure and improved wind angles which allowed us to start making gains on the competition. Then just after sunrise we gybed right on a favorable shift to cover Velvet Hammer and rode that for many hours. Sailing was slow in 12-15 kts of wind, even though they were forecast to be 20kts. Around this time we came into contact with Bad Pak (Pac 52) and Peligroso (Kernan 70), top sleds that started the day after us. Seeing these boats less than 200 miles from the finish made us start to comprehend the magnitude of our accomplishments.
The crew included Shawn Dougherty, Jason Andrews, Frederic Laffitte, Lucas Laffitte, Matt Pistay and David Rogers.
Unfortunately, as we entered the 200nm “Live Zone” our YB tracker battery died. We contacted Race Committee, but they were already aware of the situation and in the process of contacting us. Apparently our tracker went crazy and started pinging the Iridium network constantly, which burned its battery out. They instructed us to give manual updates every four hours, which made for a very stressful day for all you tracker junkies. It was equally stressful for us on board! In actuality, at no time during the last day did we surrender the lead, it just looked that way on Yellow Brick.
Around noon the wind was forecast to go right, which would allow us to get headed up to Molokai on the opposite board. Instead, the wind continued to clock left and remained light (12-15 kts). While this improved our tactical advantage over Velvet Hammer, it made our odds of catching Bretwalda worse, and all we could do was watch them sail to the finish around 2pm in the afternoon (local Hawaii time).
Based on the differences in our ratings, Bretwalda owed us approximately 13.5 hours on corrected time. So once they crossed the line a clock started and we had to finish within that time allowance. Unfortunately, we spent most of the afternoon rolling slowly downwind through swells in light breeze, 150 nm from the finish. We felt good about our ability to finish in front of Velvet Hammer, who was 45nm north and directly upwind of us, but were not so optimistic about Bretwalda 3. The team kept pushing and around 4pm the wind increased to 15 kts, and then by 6 pm it was 17 kts. The wind angle was still terrible but we gybed back on to port and headed to Molokai. The boat kicked up on a plane (Hamachi’s boat speed is about 2 kts less than the wind speed) and we started trucking south. The wind continued to increase to 20kts and clock slowly right and the whole team was focused on burning down the miles to the finish. We approached Molokai on a tear at 17-19kts and gybed right towards the infamous Molokai channel. Luckily it was fairly tame that evening and the team threw down six perfect gybes to get around Molokai, across the channel and lined up for Diamond Head. We power reached across the line at 16 kts at 2:21 am Sunday morning to complete the 50th Transpac in 8 days 16 hours and 21 minutes, which gives us a corrected time of 8 day 0 hours and 52 minutes. This time has been, so far, sufficient to put us in first place overall.
It’s been a hell of an adventure and one that will not be repeated anytime soon. We were fortunate to start on the “right day” and the high pressure materialized in a manner that allowed us to power reach the whole way to Hawaii in winds that averaged between 15-20 kts. We never saw winds above 22 kts except for a few minutes, and always between midnight at 2 am to make it more exciting. We couldn’t have asked for a better crew and having one additional crew member became a clear advantage in the heavier wind versus the other J/125s. It’s going to take several days to catch up on sleep and begin to process the magnitude of this adventure and accomplishment. We have really appreciated all the support from our friends, family and Pacific Northwest sailing community.
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.
Just in from Hawaii - Hamachi did it! There were some tracker questions in the final miles that confounded watchers, but on the water apparently it was all clear. We’ll wait for Jason’s report to hear the details.Janet Lafitte, who has been the point person on putting out the Hamachi reports, says the following:
Aloha!
Team Hamachi slayed the field of J125’s, Division 3, and finished the First Boat Corrected Overall. WIN. WIN. WIN. The boys came into the dock around 03:00AM and the Mai Tais flowed. Hence, you will have to wait for Jason’s onboard report.
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.
Hamachi continues to charge toward the finish line in the Transpac, and continues to lead the ORR fleet (and the three other J/125s) on corrected time.
They’ve sailed a tremendous race, and there’s only 188 miles to go. Here’s the latest from Hamachi. Tune into the tracker (4 hour delay)
Been a wild 36 hours. Things got tactical starting Wednesday and we went south to cover Velvet Hammer and Snoopy, who were heading south for more wind. We split the difference between them and Bretwalda and spent most of the day sailing in 20-22 kts. That evening the full moon was blocked by low clouds and we rocketed through the night at ludicrous speed in pitch black. The boat was barely in control launching off the tops of big waves and accelerating down troughs and up the other side. The speedo was often out of the water so boat speed was indeterminate but we saw at least 23 kts of SOG the next day. This subsided after a few hours and it was a relatively “calm” night with winds 17-20 kts.
Winds were down Thursday morning and Fred towed his Mahi Mahi lure behind the boat for an hour. Didn’t catch anything - too fast. Thursday was lighter in the morning (12-15 kts) with big seas. Then the squalls started and the wind picked back up, along with even bigger seas. The boat was back to rocketing along at 18-20 kts in 20-24 kts of wind.
We set our A2.5 spinnaker back on Sunday morning around 5am and it has been up ever since. It carried us 1500 miles across the Pacific through some wild conditions but at 10pm PDT last night it suffered one too many indignities at the hands of its crew and blew apart. We quickly pulled it out of the water and launched the A4, which we’d packed knowing we were pushing its limits.
It’s been inshore match racing for the past 500 miles, and will continue to the finish. We gybe on the shifts and have seen some crazy wind angles. Right now the GFS says the wind should be at 58mag but we are sailing 95mag directly at the finish. Aloha! We had the A4, then switched to the backup (older) A2.5. Navigating more squals and just trying to keep the boat and gear together while we sail fast! Winds have been lightening some so expected finish is around midnight Sat (PDT).
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 full story has yet to be told, but the bottom line early in this year’s Transpac Race is that the crew of the SC 70 OEX was rescued by Roy Disney and company aboard Pyewacket. All are safely back on shore, and OEX is apparently still afloat. Rudder post damage was the culprit.
From the Hamachi drone……
It seems a breezy race so far, judging from the updates from the PNW’s own Hamachi crew. Here’s the latest “Half Way” report:
Well, we don’t know if its EXACTLY half way but we have 1250nm to go and it seemed like a good excuse for a party (not that Team Hamachi ever needs an excuse to party). We gathered on the back patio to contemplate the race so far and pass our flask, which quickly devolved into a YMCA dance party with the drone circling the boat, all while doing 15-16 kts. Our objectives going into the race were: 1) be safe, 2) have fun, and 3) win. So far we are doing well in all three categories. Taking stock half way, here are some thoughts:
- Best Moment(s): Sailing away from our closest competition
- Crew Lowlight(s): Too many body fluids and damp socks in a small cramped cabin
Things We Have Plenty Of: - Food: The weight Nazis will cringe knowing we went to sea with four days of frozen food and enough snacks for 12 days. There was a calculus of carrying more weight on the reach to keep the crew happy and sailing fast versus taking every last ounce our of the boat. Despite this extra weight we’ve had amazing boat speed. - Dude Wipes: Great marketing on someone’s part. We can sail fast confident that our “dude parts” will stay clean to the finish. - Boat Speed: Of the four J/125’s, we are the only one with six crew. Despite this extra weight, and all of our frozen food, we seem to have great boat speed. In the last 24 hours Hamachi has covered 294nm.
Things We Need More Of: - Purell: clearly we should have thought this one through. We left with a small half empty container. Definitely need more of that. - Hot Cocoa: The key to a fast boat is a well-fueled crew. We have plenty of Starbucks Via but need more cocoa for our mochas. - Ventilation: use your imagination - Boat Speed: While we’ve got a lot, you can always have more…
- Kudos: 1) David Rogers has been crushing it as our Lieutenant Ohura. It was rough going (literally and figuratively) in the first 24 hours as he was making up for a sick crew member and doing all of the boat data collection and navigating. Over the past few days he’s stepped up the game and built tools to track the fleet, our performance and answer everyone’s questions. 2) The Cooks: We are four days in and still eating frozen gourmet food. Thank you Janet, Marian (and Jason) for doing all the cooking!
Are We There Yet? The days are blowing by and we are a little shocked its already half way. Normally its a 10-11 day race for a J/125 but this year we are on track to finish in around 8 days.
Up Next: Sleep. Eat. Sail Fast. Repeat.
Hamachi is currently leading Division 3 and they covered 313 miles in the last 24 hours. Oh my.
Comanche, the gun in a knife-fight. She only sailed 448 miles in the last 24 hours. Photo by Sharon Green.
We’re also keeping track of Peter Salusbury’s Longboard. They are not, repeat NOT humming along. Oh, they’re going fast enough, covering 281 miles in the last 24 hours, just not “humming.” Here’s the story. Designer Paul Bieker helped deliver the boat to California and was extremely bothered by a hum/howl noise that emanated from the keel when Longboard was going fast. Bieker reports “I couldn’t stand the idea of them doing Transpac with that so I rented two tanks when we hit the dock and spent ~2 ½ hours rasping/sanding the keel trailing edge. It was a pretty funny scene that no one could see – a lot of it was spent straddling the bulb as I worked – like Slim Pickens in Dr Strangelove. My shoulders were sore for a week after the effort. I didn’t give it a big chance of working 100% but I thought it was likely to help some.
And here’s skipper Peter Salusbury’s note to Paul from the Pacific as Longboard hit her stride:
Hey Paul - it’s amazing! NO KEEL HUM AT ALL!!!!!!!
We are proposing to the Prime Minister to make you an Honorary Canadian and be awarded the Order of Canada.
We are going real fast today - the boat is lit up and we are confident we will reel in some boats by the end of the week. Slow start as our small waterline length was a real issue against all the huge waterlines in our division. But it’s Longboard time now so we are making the best of it!
Thanks for all your hard work fixing the keel - can’t believe we didn’t do that sooner.
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 Hamachi team is on the way to Hawaii. And they’re allowing us an occasional peek when possible. We already showed some drone video of their passage down the coast and shared some start footage on Facebook. Below, they’re off the west end of Catalina with lots of company (for now).
Hamachi off Catalina in TransPac 2019. Thanks to Jason Andrews!
Our friends on Longboardhad an interesting delivery and we here at Sailish are big fans of the Peter Salsbury owned & skippered, and Bieker designed 35-footer. They’ve made several changes to the already scary-fast boat, so we’re anticipating great things.
I was hoping to also be writing about Atalanta and her 120,000 lbs. charging toward Hawaii, but alas they decided to pull the plug and not race. We’ll be keeping an eye on the TP The Shadow II from Vancouver, which is in a very competitive class.
Stay tuned, because we’ll be hearing more from Hamachi, and Bruce Hedrick won’t be able to stay away from the tracker for the next few days. The big boys, including odds-on lines favorite Comanche and the other 100-footer Rio, have yet to start.
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 crews from Seattle to Bellingham gathered in Oak Harbor
on June 28 for the 2019 San Juan 24 North American Class Association Championships
there was great pleasure in greeting friends from previous championship
regattas and concern about the light wind forecasts for the coming weekend.
As Byron Skubi, the experienced PRO running the racing, said
the Friday night wind forecast for the weekend was “terrible.” A variety of wind forecasting sites showed
winds on Saturday ranging from 2-3 knots perhaps getting to 4-5 knots late in
the afternoon and only marginally better for Sunday.
As boats motored out Saturday morning on the 40-minute trip from Oak Harbor to Penn Cove, the light winds on Saratoga Passage and the flat glass on Penn Cove were not promising. Bu a dark line observed on the far west end of the Cove which slowly moved eastward and finally reached and then passed the Race Committee boat located just off of Coupeville.
Not to worry – the wind filled in with 5-6 knots westerly
and Byron sounded the first warning signal on time promptly at 11:00. The wind
was fairly consistent building to close to 10-11 knots in the afternoon before
settling back to 6-7 knots. Byron ran eight, count them, eight great races on
Saturday – windward-leeward courses, some long, some short, with both windward
and downwind finishes. David Steckman of Oak Harbor, the Regatta organizer, got
the racing off to a great start by dominating the first race on his renamed Juan Solo, followed by Mike Klep’s Bruce from Bellingham and Mike Irish’s Manhattan Transfer from Seattle. Pre-race favorite Return was over early at the favored pin end and its delayed
restart after ducking most of the fleet resulted in a 7th place
finish.
But Return bounced back handily, winning the next 3 races to regain the lead, with Juan Solo and my Grauer Geist keeping close with top 4 finishes in each race. Racing got closer as Return had another over-early call and finished 5th in the fifth race and got trapped on the far left side of the course in the 6th race resulting in a 4th place finish before grabbing a 1st and 2nd place result in the last two races of the day. Meanwhile Grauer rebounded with two firsts and a second, and Juan Solo kept close with its consistent top 4 finishes.
At the end of Saturday, after 8 races (one throw-out
permitted with 6 races completed), Return
had a 2 point lead over Grauer Geist
with Juan Solo just one point further
back. Jeff Kendal’s Fancy lurked in 4th place while Bruce, after two second places in the first two races, had fallen
to 5th overall as it suffered both a OCS in the third race and a DSQ
in race 7.
Proving the forecasts wrong again, a nice wind came in again on Sunday, and Return quickly took advantage to clinch its Championship win with two firsts and one second in the first three of four races held that day, followed by a safe second in the last race. Meanwhile Juan Solo and Grauer Geist were battling it out for second place – after winning the third race Grauer just had to finish just one boat behind Juan Solo in the last race to match her second place finish in the 2018 regatta. However, she lost track of Juan Solo at the start and had to go left while Juan Solo and Return headed to the right hand favorable Penn Cove current on the north side – at the windward mark, Juan Solo had a boat length lead on Return with Grauer another length back. The first two boats headed to the southern shore, where there is supposed to be a favorable eastward current. We followed on Grauer about half-way to the shore and, believing it had a favorable downwind angle to the long leeward mark, was the first to gybe. Nothing like being in the middle, and forced to watch boats on the south shore sail by and, at the same time, boats further behind at the windward mark that gybed toward the northern shore also found stronger wind and sailed by! Juan Solo held on to win the last race and second place as Grauer sailed to its worst finish, which became our regatta throw-out.
The racing was close and competitive. Of the 12 boats in the
regatta, 4 had at least one first place, and 7 boats had at least one top-three
finish. A single mistake on the course pushed
all the boats back in the fleet. Even
the top three boats had 6th and 7th place finishes.
At the awards ceremony Mark Bradner noted that he had been
sailing with the same crew for 15 years, and that crew consistency was
instrumental in Return’s win: Gary Reifel on foredeck, David Valentine on
main and David Fukuhara on sheets. Return previously won the SJ 24 NACA
championship in 2011, 2013 and 2015.
Boats had to be conscious of building tide both days (the
low was about an hour or so before racing started). It was easy (too easy for some of us) to get
pushed to the starting line early, causing many loud calls to “Stay Up, Stay
Up” as boats tried to jockey to keep from crossing the starting line
early. The Race Committee called boats
over-early in most races, but in only the third race did it signal a General
Recall (of course many skippers said they had had great starts and it was other
boats that were over early). The Race
Committee wasted no time in hosting the black flag and a conservative restart
followed.
With many boats lumped close together after the start, the
wind just lifts over all the boats. Boats that did well got to clear air
quickly, even if it meant ducking boats, irrespective of where on the Cove they
sailed. And skippers also had to
skippers had to balance the wind and the current. As the current built, the counter-clockwise
Penn Cove current is said to favor the northern side (the right-hand side going
upwind in the westerly) and the south side of the Cove going downwind – but
until the current really set in going up the left hand side or the middle,
wherever there was clear air, paid off. And
going too far to the north side commonly resulted in boats overstanding the
weather mark, letting boats coming in on port sail a shorter distance and tack
underneath them.
All in all, and despite having just 12 boats participating,
the 2019 regatta was great fun with challenging competition and racing, proving
again that when all the boats sail about the same speed it doesn’t really
matter how fast they are going. The
pleasure of one-design racing!
On Friday night the Class elected its 2020 officers: Dave Steckman of Oak Harbor as Commodore,
Mark Bradner of Seattle as Vice Commodore and Jeff Kendall of Seattle as Fleet
Measurer. The Class also decided to hold
the 2020 North Americans on Shillshole Bay in Seattle on June 26-28, 2020, and
to have a small group review the class specifications to see if any should be
modified (most have been in effect since the mid-1970s).
The excellent Oak Harbor Yacht Club hosted the regatta. Thanks
to Club Manager Joe Catanio for the excellent food and drink each night and OHYC
Commodore Ferd Johns for welcoming all of us.
Dennis and Marjie Wade Clark joined us for dinner Saturday
night, and Dennis gave an engaging talk about the origins and history of the
San Juan 24, followed by questions regarding the boat’s design. Marjie was the winning skipper of the first SJ
24 North American regatta, sailed on Bellingham Bay with over 50 boats
participating! To date she is the only
female skipper to win the regatta; her father designed and built the wire
sculpture of the boat that graces the SJ 24 NACA trophy. Chuck Skewes of Ullman Sails noted that he
got his start in the sailing industry working for Dennis as an apprentice
sailmaker in the mid-1980s. Chuck also described
his “year as a professional skipper” and commented on sail trim issues he
observed from the Race Committee boat.
Ullman Sails was the principal sponsor of the Regatta and
contributed money, prizes and support.
Other main sponsors: Oak Harbor
YC and Indigo Slate (t-shirt design and cash), followed by Jan’s Marine
Photography, Samson Ropes, Swinomish Casino & Lodge and Oak Harbor Marina.
Wayne Balsiger of Seattle chaired the protest committee,
aided by Bill Weinsheimer and Chad Holcomb, both of Oak Harbor. In addition to PRO
Byron Skubi, others on the Race Committee Boat were Chuck Skewes from Ullman
Sails, Larry Munns, Jane Mays and Avis Berney. The mark boats were manned by
Craig Cooley, Russ Wood, Ron DeRu, Dale Hendrickson, Rick Almberg, Joel
Servatius, Ben Servatius, Chad Holcomb, Max Van Dam, Peter Hillberry and Steve
Sears. Many thanks to all these
volunteers who make a regatta successful!
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.
Keeping the speed up on West Sound. Jan Anderson photos.
Those unstoppable Martin 242 sailors planned it, sailed it and can now call it a success. The 2019 Martin 242 North Americans were held in West Sound at Orcas Island June 29-30. In the process they proved you don’t need great wind to have a great regatta.
The wind wasn’t actually all that bad, ranging from 2 (hey, that’s not 0) to twelve. And the shifty breezes kept all 27 boats engaged.
But the camaraderie was the big winner for the weekend, with BC, WA and CA sailors together claiming #Martinswintheparty. I wonder what other classes might have to say about.
The winning boat All In was from California and skippered by Michael George. Second was Michael Clements and third was Alex Fox. Results.
Organizer Ken Machtley reports the following tidbits:
Our next big Martin 242 event is Cow Bay (Cowichan Bay, BC). Chris and I
are taking a Martin to Whidbey in a couple weeks (he won overall in a
Martin in 2016)
California is set to host next year’s NA championship, date/place TBD.
Vancouver will host in 2021, date/place TBD (much discussion about
possibly holding at Race Week at PR).
The two spectator boats got about 20 folks out on the water to see the racing up close.
No protests were heard (one was filed, but dismissed for being filed past the deadline).
Ullman Sails was an outstanding sponsor for us from financial support to giveaways and on-site presence.
We had ~25 volunteers helping out on the water, decorations, food, bar, dock, spectator boats, etc.
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 12th running of the race was without question worthy of the 20th Anniversary celebration as the racing was tight in all divisions.
For the first time in the history of the race, the racers were received up to date weather forecasts with insightful tactical knowledge as supplied by Bruce Hedrick and Kurt Hoehne of sailish.com on every leg of the race. Technology was forever challenging in passing on the information and some how the information managed to surpass the internet barriers in the remote portions of the island.
New for 2019 was the Helly Hansen Team Competition where boats from each division were randomly picked to form 5 teams, each with a TP 52 or the Bieker 41 as the fastest boat on the team. At the opening ceremonies, crews were provided with wrist bands in the colour and name for their team, Red-Team Race Rocks, Green-Team Johnstone Strait, Orange-Team Cape Scott, Yellow-Team Nahwitti Bar and Blue-Team Salish Sea. The idea behind the teams was to create an environment for the crews to mingle and the result was a success. At the final awards, the winning teams were as follows:
First – Team Salish Sea – Blue, Boomerang, Tuna, Oxomoxo, Riva, Serendipity and Ultraman III
Second – Team Nahwitti Bar – Back Bay, Freja, Glory, Goldcrest, Iris, Rubato, Serenite and Zulu
Third – Team Race Rocks – 65_Red Roses II, Discernment, Fortuna, Image, Lodos, Shearwater and Smoke.
The hosting ports graciously welcomed the fleet with barbeques and live bands/entertainment in a several ports.
A very special First Nations welcome and blessing by Kwakwaka’wakw Chief David Knox and drummers provided the fleet with a union to the seas that have been traveled for centuries by sleek hand carved canoe.
While the inside legs provided relative shelter and steady light to medium breezes, the two outside legs were slightly different. Leg 6 from Port Hardy to Winter Harbour provided reasonably consistent winds for the fleet, but the road in from Port Hardy to Winter Harbour took its toll on the roadies. There were a record number of flat tires for the vehicles, and several rims with mangled tires were flown out by seaplane to Port Hardy for repair. A crew member on Jam was inadvertently hit by the boom and suffered a laceration requiring 5 stitches by the Royal Canadian Navy Medic before he was air lifted out for further observation. Follow up from the sailor has been positive and he is feeling well.
Leg 7 from Winter Harbour to Ucluelet turned out to be a similar repeat to the 2011 leg. A strong south easterly “breeze” pummeled the fleet from Brooks Peninsula to approximately Nootka Island where a long narrow, breezeless transition zone extended over 40 miles offshore acting as a restart and equalizing the tactics of the boats that had chosen to sail far offshore in an effort to circumvent the doldrums. Once through the transition the fleet was greeted with a long awaited northwesterly that propelled the fleet to the Ucluelet finish. Upon setting foot on ground, stories emerged of leaks found in what were thought to be water tight joints and crew succumbing to the inevitable seasickness that the open ocean can bring.
Leg 8 from Ucluelet to Victoria had the TP52’s Sonic and Glory in a drag race at over 18 knots for line honours. The video on Facebook shows the sun setting behind the boats and a golden glow off of the foresails with perm-a-grin on the Sonic crew.
For
Divisions 2 & 3, by the time they reached Race Rocks the breeze was
up in the low 30’s, it was dark and strait of Juan de Fuca lived up to
her reputation. Several boats reported knockdowns and equipment
failures, and crew spirits remained high for the final leg from Victoria
to Nanaimo.
Entering
the last leg, the podium for all divisions was open for boats that had
sailed consistently around the island. No division had been claimed, the
quest for line honours was open and the trophy for overall winner was
very much up for grabs.
As
always, the big decision on Leg 9 is which way to go when you must
choose left, the inside route through the Gulf Islands or right, the
outside longer outside route via East Point on Saturna Island.
Essentially the fleet split, and a good number of boats chose to head
all the way to Dodd Narrows, a tactic that in the past has never paid
with a podium finish. Over the years, many skippers have tried to make
the current gate that blocks access to the shortest route to the finish
line, but in 2019 Neptune decided to let the fleet pass. In Division 3,
Marc-Andrea Klimaschewski, skipper of Image led the way with long line
of competitors and was able to finish first in Division 3 followed by
HMCSTV Goldcrest and Boomerang who finished second and third
respectively. For the first time in 20 years Dodd’s pays in a big way
for Division 3.
The overall winner for the race is 65 Red Roses II skippered by Alex Smyth and owned by Bruce Chan sailing out of the West Vancouver Yacht Club. Line honours went to Smoke, skippered and owned by Steve Travis sailing out of the Corinthian Yacht Club Seattle.
In Division 0, Blue was able to sail past Smoke and Sonic for first, second and third place finishes overall. Division 1 saw 65 Red Roses II, Riva and Jam take first, second and third. Division 2 was Serendipity, Mojo and Shearwater. Serendipity and Mojo were actually tied for first place so tie breaking procedures had to be employed to determine that Serendipity was the first place finisher. In Division 3 Wraith, Flow and HMCSTV Goldcrest prevailed.
The Van Isle 360 wishes to thank all of the competitors and the sponsors who supported the race. In addition thank you to the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, The Canadian Coast Guard, Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue and the Royal Canadian Navy, specifically Renard 58 and her amazing crew for providing the safety net while the competitors sailed what will be surely become lifetime memories.
The dates for the 2021 race will be announced in the spring of 2020.
