(Seattle, Washingon)- It was another beautiful day with J’s finishing 2nd and 3rd in various
classes! And what an amazing day it was. The Olympia Chamber of
Commerce employees were scrambling all over town Monday morning,
February 23rd – scrambling to collect and put together all the amazing
images and reports from Saturday’s Olympia Yacht Club Toliva Shoal race.
“It was truly a Chamber of Commerce day,” laughs Garry Greth.The weather was exactly as predicted by Northwest Yachting’s Bruce Hedrick in his pre-race weather blog (http://www.nwyachting.com) – “This should be an absolutely banner weekend for boaters and that will be especially true for the sailors doing the Toliva Shoal Race out of Olympia. It looks like this could be one of those great Toliva Shoal Races where the tide, wind and weather will all come together to produce what should be a great race.” With sun, 50+ degree temps, current going the right way and winds out of the north at 12 to 16 knots, sixty-three boats arrived for Saturday morning’s start.
Confusion can abound at the beginning of the south sound races with their compressed 2 class starting sequence and boats can be rushed up to the line a bit unprepared after noticing their flag flying. Yet the conditions couldn’t have been better with the standard starboard lifting tack out of Budd Inlet and then getting sucked through Dana Passage with the ebbing current. Short tacking is much easy with the current pulling you along and the fleet quickly rounded Johnson Point, quicker than many have experienced in the past.
Once around Johnson Point the Nisqually reach was just that, a tight reach with the northeasterly breeze. Some tried their spinnakers but they didn’t last long on the way to the Nisqually mark before it was time to tack their way up to the Toliva shoal buoy and the turn past Prison Island, through the Balch passage, and down past devils head towards Budd inlet.
“We rounded the [Toliva Shoal] buoy and set the spinnaker for the run toward Balch Pass where the current would be starting to flood.” Says Dan Wierman, returning to racing on his J/35 GREAT WHITE. “Often with a northerly, this would be a reach, but with so much easterly, it was a run and the wind stayed fairly steady through the pass. We had a great run down Drayton Pass. At Devils Head, we could see a lot of boats go wide, but with the easterly bent to the wind, we chose a tighter course around Devils Head and reached toward Johnson Point.” Unlike previous years the NE bend to the breeze allowed boats to hold their chutes from Devils Head to Johnson Point and the entrance to Dana Passage before the long port pole run to the finish through Budd Inlet.
Alas, the winds did begin to die down as the sun set over the Olympic mountains and as the vibrant colors developed along the horizon the few boats left on the course dropped their canvas and motored in towards the clubhouse to join in on their stellar after race party and warm stew their volunteers had been preparing all day. People from around the country often wonder why Pacific Northwest sailor give them a blank stare followed by a sly smile when they are asked “when does your racing season start out there?” Start they say? Well it never ends!!
In PHRF-2, Ron Holbrook’s big J/133 CONSTELLATION took third in class. In the hotly contested PHRF-3 class, Brian White’s J/35 GRACE E took third place. The PHRF-5 class saw the always-fast J/29 SLICK owned by Bob Mayfield take second place. For PHRF-6, Dennis Clark’s J/27 LXII took second in class.
For more Toliva Shoals Race sailing information
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