(Seattle, Washingon)- Breeze On! The first race in the West Sound Sailing Association 2015
series charged off the line with 20 knot winds, sunny skies, 50+ degree
temps and even the snow line was down in the Olympic Mountains creating a
stellar backdrop. Just fourteen boats made it out to race on this
heavenly day. Maybe it was the small craft warning that kept them at
the dock, maybe it was too warm or sunny to be racing in February, or
maybe they just had to mow their lawn. Whatever the excuse was for not
racing Saturday wasn’t good enough as they missed what could possibly be
the best mid-distance race of the year!The Jim Depue Memorial race, hosted by one of the West Sound Sailing Association clubs, Port Madison Yacht Club, gets going off Point Monroe, the Northeast tip of Bainbridge Island. With the Northerly breeze the first mark in the course, after an upwind drag race, is set inside Jefferson’s Head, rounding to starboard. Then the fleet runs off across the sound to West point, again to Starboard before turning back south and crossing the sound again to the red nun off Eagle harbor and finally returning to Point Monroe for the finish, a distance of just over 16nm.
By the 10am start time the winds were Northwesterly, coming over the bluff and gusting into the 20 knot range. The race committee had a set a full port tack line, no chance of crossing her on Starboard and to make things even more interesting the RC boat (amazing PMYC even has an RC with its 150 person membership) anchored just off the shallowest part of Point Monroe! Leaving only about 90 ft below them before you were in 8 ft of water on a lee shore – true Island fashion. Not a big deal for the first two classes, as only 5 boats arrived to race in class 2 and 3, but for the 9 boats in class 1 things became a bit tight.
Skippers
in the final start had a choice of dipping the start from starboard
tack, but run the risk of getting closed out above the line. They could
barge the pin end on starboard and run across the line before tacking
to port after the gun or they could risk the shallow waters below the
committee boat and come in for the port start. Not an easy choice for
anyone out there and dictated more by how much the draft on your boat
was than which start was more favored. As you can guess, the big boats
lined up for the tight starboard approach and the little boats came at
it from port. The new J/88, out for her demo race, came in to the port
approach a bit early and couldn’t run down and burn time because of the
lee shore, so they pointed their bow right down the line with another
boat frothing up the line directly at them – a nervous few seconds.
Thankfully for everyone the starboard approach was too hard and the port
boats were able to harden up and cross the line cleanly while the big
boats on starboard tacked over behind them before settling in towards
Jefferson’s Head.The Northwesterly breeze let boats trim for a one tack drag race towards where the first mark, a large yellow inflatable, is supposed to be – 0.5nm west of the pier on Jefferson’s Head. I say supposed to be because, well, it wasn’t there. Boats searched all over the area it was supposed to be in and found nothing. The classes that started earliest and went to the right spot finally gave up and turned east along the beach while the larger group in division 1 barreled up their transoms and found the same no mark shoreline.
At the first turning mark, the J/88 set their chute and slipped right past the two large cruising boat leaders in a solid puff as the fleet headed off into the sound trying to find some consistent breeze again. Wind that was tough to find with the NW’erly wind direction and it wasn’t until the boats were a mile or so from West point that the wind finally settled in at a solid 20+ with puffs pushing over 25.
Three
boats held their chutes from West Point to Eagle Harbor. The J/88 got
some sustained rides at 16 kts (pushing over 18 kts in the puffs) and
the J/80 Jolly Green reporting sustained 12 to 13 kts with some good
rides over 14 knots. At one point, on the J/88, as they were absolutely
lit up (I can’t emphasize lit up enough) the chute trimmer looked back
at is wife and yelled out “Why wouldn’t you want to buy this boat!”
Showing his ear to ear teeth-baring smile. It was that windy of a day
and that perfect of a wind direction for these 3 retractable sprit asym
boats to excel and extend on the rest of the fleet that chose to drop
their spins and do the run from West Point to Eagle harbor under main
and jib.Safely around the red nun at Eagle Harbor the fleet began the long beat up Bainbridge Island with winds still in the 20’s and just the beginning of the ebbing current. Leading everyone and extending out in the front was the big Farr 395, charging to weather with the little J/88 nipping at their heels while behind them the J/35 Great White was finally at their perfect point of sail and were powering up the leaders transoms. Big waves, great breeze, wet crew, sunny skies and snow covered mountains out on both sides while the fleet sailed by downtown Seattle before turning west for the finish off Point Monroe – it couldn’t have been a more spectacular day.
Class 1 saw Sail Northwest’s J/88, sailed by Ben Braden and crew take a well-deserved second in class! Third place went to the only other boat to fly their chute all the way downwind, the J/80 JOLLY GREEN, owned by Mike Poole. Sailing photo credits- Jan Anderson. For more Jim Depue Memorial Race sailing information
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