(Vancouver, BC, Canada)- Taking place from June 10th to 24th has been
the famous Pacific Northwest truly massive “Round Island Race”, one of
the world’s longest at 600nm+ (only Round Britain & Ireland is
longer!). In this year’s event, there have been thirty keelboats
participating in the infamous race, of which seven of them are J/teams
(23% of the fleet!). There are nine individual point-to-point races
that comprise the entire score for the Van Isle 360, your basic
circumnavigation of Vancouver Island! Here is the breakdown for each
leg:
- Date Start Finish NM
- 10-Jun Nanaimo Comox 37.4nm
- 11-Jun Comox Campbell River 27.6nm
- 12-Jun Deepwater Bay Hardwicke Island 24.2nm
- 13-Jun Hardwicke Island Telegraph Cove 41.0nm
- 15-Jun Telegraph Cove Port Hardy 28.7nm
- 16-Jun Port Hardy Winter Harbour 69.1nm
- 18-Jun Winter Harbour Ucluelet 138.1nm
- 21-Jun Ucluelet Victoria 98.2nm
- 23-Jun Victoria Nanaimo 59.9nm
“Day
6 - Telegraph Cove to Port Hardy: Winds up to 40 knots, 10 foot rolling
waves, hail and rain, multiple blown spinnakers, round ups, a blown
main, a lost rudder, broken spreaders, bent spinnaker poles... and a
quick trip to Port Hardy for most! It was sketchy out there to say the
least, but everyone made it back to port safe! Resting in Port Hardy
till tomorrow's race to Winter Harbour!Day 7 & 8 - Port Hardy to Winter Harbour: Just about every type of wind condition you can get, ruled this 80 nm race. Started off slow, some nice winds before hitting Nahwitti Bar and a nice run until winds died again at the finish. We had amazing sunset, despite the challenging conditions!
Day 9 & 10 - Winter Harbour to Ucluelet: That was a brutal leg. Winds starting in the 30 knots, waves up to 12 feet tall... crazy cold and bumpy, 138nm race took us over 33 hours to complete. Winds and surf lightened up towards the finish. Thank the universe I can fall asleep anywhere, or I'm not sure how I'd make it through that leg of the race!”
So far, the John Murkowski’s J/122E JOY RIDE (https://www.facebook.com/joyridesailing) has been leading her fleet. However, the duo of Jason Andrews & Shawn Dougherty’s J/125 HAMACHI (http://hamachiracing.blogspot.com) have been catching up fast on the “ocean” legs versus the “straits legs” that JOY RIDE seemed to enjoy! Through leg six, JOY RIDE was leading, with Ron Holbrook’s J/133 CONSTELLATION in third and HAMACHI in fourth place overall in the entire fleet.
The
HAMACHI blog commented on their experiences so far: “we just crushed
Leg 5 of the Van Isle 360. Winds were 30 plus kts at the start and
averaged 15 to 25 with peak of 35 kts. We started under reefed main and
J4, and then set the A3. We covered 29 nm in 2.5 hours taking line
honors for the fleet (ahead of Smoke who split their main at the start)
and allegedly set a course record. We saw 20.5 kts of boat speed and
averaged high teens. The boat beautifully handled 4-6 ft seas. We could
do this every race! It was a great couple of days racing around the
north end of Vancouver Island and through the Johnstone Strait.
Beautiful vistas, fast currents (5-6 kts helping and hurting) and good
fleet. Its been all upwind so far in 4-20 kts and Hamachi has held her
own, although we don’t understand ORC scoring. Hamachi took division
line honors on Day 4.The two J/109’s (Tom Sitar’s J/109 SERENDIPITY and Mark Hansen’s J/109 MOJO) were 2nd and 3rd, respectively, in ORC 2 division after six legs. And, Mardy Grossman & Scott Shaw-MacLaren’s J/30 NATURAL HIGH that have been sailing Doublehanded Division and were in first at the sixth leg point in the race. In other words, an amazing performance by the intrepid adventurers aboard the J/Boats in this tough, but spectacular event. For more Van Isle 360 sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.
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