(Seattle, WA)- The Orcas Island Yacht Club and the Friday Harbor Sailing
Club their 30th annual “Round the County” sailboat race this past
weekend on November 11th & 12th. As usual, it provides the sailors
with spectacular views of the enormous snow-capped mountains surrounding
the challenging waters of San Juan County Washington. The race is
approximately 76 miles with an overnight stop in Roche Harbor, San Juan
Island. Due to the great venue, the better winds of November, and the
overnight stop in Roche Harbor, the race has become one of the more
popular events in the Pacific Northwest. And, for the dozen-plus
J/crews participating, it provided yet another great experience and an
opportunity to close out the 2017 season with a few more “pickle dishes
& silver” for the “man cave” and trophy room in the basement.
One boat, in particular, celebrated their 20th Round the County Race
this year- Bob Brunius’ J/120 TIME BANDIT. The “banditos” have won
their class multiple times (2006, 2009, 2015, 2017) and placed 2nd three
times! Here is Bob’s account of their experience winning this year’s
race in PHRF 1 division:
“While many of the regattas in the Pacific Northwest have been seeing a
gradual decline in participation over the years, the Round the County
has been growing since it's humble beginnings 30 years ago. The race was
the concept of local marina owner and past Orcas Island Yacht Club
Commodore Betsy Wareham. This year the race had 123 participants enter.
What makes the race unique is the two starts - one on Saturday and one
on Sunday with an overnight at Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. The
race finishes on Sunday afternoon at the same place it started on
Saturday morning and it runs clockwise around San Juan County on even
years and counterclockwise on odd years.
The
race is long enough to let the fastest boats in the area stretch their
legs and still let the slower rated boats finish the full course most
years. With 8 divisions, the rating spread is tight and the fleet sizes
are big. The venue is really beautiful and boats often get an escort of
Dall's porpoise - or on other occasions kelp! Playing the tidal current
is a big part of the strategy and can favor those with lots of RTC
experience, or the lucky. Early November is a bit of the sweet spot on
the calendar between the doldrums of summer and the frequent storms of
December and January. It all adds up to make a very popular event.
Results are based on combined times from Saturday and Sunday.
This marked the 20th year that Barb and Bob Brunius raced their J/120
TIME BANDIT in the event. Most of the boat's race crew are in their
second decade of racing the boat and they do understand how to make it
go. They were tickled to place 1st in DIV I and 6th overall in the 100
boat PHRF fleet. HINZITE, also a J/120 sailed by Jim Hinz & Peter
Dorcey, finished right on the Bandito's heels both days and only 20
seconds behind on combined time!
Our J/120 is still the consummate race boat. TIME BANDIT has been
spending more time carrying kayaks and cruising the waters of the PNW in
recent years! The design does well at both duties.” Thanks to Bob for
this report.
Furthermore, we have a great report from the RTC team from Orcas Island YC and Friday Harbor SC:
“Round the County – America’s Greatest Sailboat Race – yeah, you know,
it probably is America’s greatest sailboat race. There are some cool
ones out there that bring in the numbers, the Mac, or the races to
Mexico and Hawaii and I’m sure some others as well but as an admittedly
biased Pacific Northwest Sailor there is just something special about
braving the short days of November to tackle the challenging current
riddled swirly wind waters around the San Juan Islands at a time of year
most people in America are hunkering down for winter or waxing up their
snowboards and making plans for their winter trip.
118 boats were entered by race day and something like 100 of em’ were
signed up within 72 hours of registration opening. So there I am
thinking about this, stuck in Everett traffic on Friday heading up to
A-town. My eyes drift up and I’m looking at the bow of my boat in the
rear-view mirror and pondering about all the boats delivering to the San
Juan’s from every direction imaginable – on their keels and on trailers
– from the Pacific Northwest, Portland, Hood River, the Great Lakes and
more. The draw for this race is amazingly diverse. Top level sailors
on stripped out high performance rockets on down the line to family and
friends on heavy cruising boats to old wooden schooners and crazy fast
multihulls; Round the County brings em all out, and you know what,
depending on how the conditions align, each type of boat has a chance at
the podium.
In years past the party was Saturday night in Roche Harbor but as the
entry list has increased and the party wore out its welcome in the now
posh marina of Roche Harbor, the revelry seems to have switched to
Friday night leaving everyone especially chipper and ready to race come
dock call Saturday morning – for many it’s shoving off at 6am to make it
to Lydia Shoals for the 8:30 start.
This year’s forecast was for an OK Southeasterly on Saturday with the
currents looking like they will line up well and a bit more breeze
forecast for Sunday. So there we are, ready for the start with our bow
pointed 180 degrees from the start line, nose into the current waiting
to jibe around at just the right moment and swing up across the line on
the moderate Southeasterly. Two minutes, wait for it, 1:45, 1:30…Ok,
helms over, jibe around and come up directly into the new Northeasterly
breeze! That’s how it works back there around Orcas Island, one minute a
southerly and the next a northerly…it’s all about the timing.
Off
everyone went, to weather now in a light northeasterly, the current
behind us – mostly – running the front of the flood past the Peapods and
off towards the Sisters and Clark Island. Little elevators of flooding
current pushing random groups of boats out into the lead until the big
fast ORC boats began working through the fleet of early starters moving
so fast that they sucked the wind along behind them and pulled the
southeasterly back onto the race course and the pretty colored sails
popped up across the bay. Boats lined up across the waters from
Clements Reef out towards the mainland looking for wind and positive
current to give them that simple little edge on their competition.
As we came into Patos Island, now sitting somewhere mid-fleet, we
watched the Santa Cruz 33 Muffin do a crazy round up away from the
island with their chute flying high at the end of their sheets. When we
arrived at the same spot we noticed the depth coming up and saw the
rocks over the side in the clear water – so this is why they rounded
up! Up and around it we went, no issues for us, but later, after the
race, I learned that Muffin wasn’t as lucky and had actually hit the
rock hard causing the roundup and had quickly found themselves
scrambling towards safe harbor to deal with and assess the damage.
Rounding the halfway point at Patos Island brought everyone into
Boundary Pass and what looked to be a nice little drag race to Turn
point. Pole forward, wind over the port beam at 6 knots, fire up the bbq
and have some lunch type of drag race. But that’s not how the San
Juan’s work. About halfway down Boundary with the upwelling’s of the
new ebbing current starting up the winds decided to crap out and we were
back to the light weird winds and current elevators that had boats 100
yards from you shooting forward down the course – sometimes on both
sides!
The fleet then stacked up again around Turn Point and it was decision
time for everyone. Tack over and get into the bay towards Danger Shoal
or lay hard on the starboard bow and hold out into Haro Strait and hope
for the building ebb to push you along. Of course by this time the big
fast boats had been tied up for an hour or so while their crews were
enjoying the hot tub but us common folk were still out there trying to
figure out how in the heck to get to the finish line inside Battleship
Island with the building ebb on the nose coming out of Spieden Channel.
Many worked up towards Danger Shoals in the now dying southeasterly
while a smaller group sailed down Haro to Henry Island before tacking
back in along the island and working the eddy and small puffs back North
towards Battleship Island, shooting the gap between McCraken Point and
Battleship then sneaking across the line in the now surprisingly strong
ebbing current.
A bunch of boats made this work well. Stories went around Saturday
night of attacking botmarks, finishing in the wrong direction and
dodging current line debris but at the end of everything the days
challenges left a smile on most everyone’s faces (except the poor
Muffin’ers) as they dropped their heads on their pillows wherever they
were staying on San Juan Island.
Sunday dawned much simpler for everyone. The delivery to the starting
area is minimal, the winds looked to be a solid 20 knots out of the
Southeast and all everyone has to do is find a lane out of the wind
shadowed starting area and push their boats hard around the south end of
the islands before popping the chute for the epic run up Rosario to the
finish. Sounds perfect right? What are odds this will happen in the
San Juan’s?
So, off we went with the fleet taking two distinct tactics as they
worked south into the building flood current. Most chose to short tack
along San Juan Island in the eddies, tough work with all the traffic but
I’m sure it kept the crew warm and excited. A few in the fleet decided
to take it easy and lay on port tack from the starting line until they
had to decide between tea at the Empress or tacking over to starboard
towards the halfway finish line and on toward Iceberg Point. Did you
catch that – one tack after the start at Snug Harbor and then lay
Iceberg Point on the south end of Lopez. Now those crews were sitting
there cold, legs falling asleep, minds and conversations drifting off
towards work and that summer vacation they had in Mexico but you know
what? That was the right way to go. As the legendary Master Bezwick is
fond of saying “It ain’t a flyer if it’s the right way to go.”
Catch the last of the ebb on the Canadian side of Haro Strait and then
turn left into the eastward flooding current of the Straits of Juan De
Fuca. There they were, this little red Chicken Coup Special Blade
Runner, sailing out where they shouldn’t otherwise be – ahead of some
much bigger and faster boats. Yet like everything else in San Juan
Island racing it’s all about the timing. The J/120’s were able to run
this move all the way to podium finishes while other boats made it just
as far as Lydia Shoals before the wind crapped out and they waited,
waited, and waited… Changed sails, changed again, changed back, waited,
found the current building against them and then see a little red
chicken coup special ghost in behind them – crap – then look up and see a
damned Moore 24 reaching in towards the pin from the right and with
their momentum coast in around the pin, jibe and sail off into the
building darkness of the east literally hours after they had arrived at
the finish area. The emotions, the challenges, the ups and downs, the
friends and foes, the conditions at 48 degrees North in November – put
it all together and you have the Greatest Race in America.
Thank you Orcas Island Yacht Club for coming up with this crazy idea of
racing around the Islands in November and then actually doing it and
sticking with it over all these years. Each year is different, each
year is challenging, each year a different boat has the conditions they
need to step up on the podium. See you all next year.”
With regards to the class results, the top J in ORC Division was the
J/160 JAM in 4th place. Taking 6th place in PHRF Division 0 was the
J/122 GRACE. The J/120s went 1-2 in the PHRF Division 1, TIME BANDIT
and HINZITE, respectively. The Petersen’s J/109 LEGACY took fourth in
the same division. In PHRF Division 2, the J/35 ALTAIR took 7th place.
The PHRF Division 3 saw a clean sweep by J/crews, led by the J/105
JADED, with the J/92 ZAFF in 2nd and the J/105 LAST TANGO in 3rd place.
The J/33 KEET took 5th place in the same class. J/29s faired well in
PHRF Division 4, with HERE & NOW taking a 2nd and CRAZY SALSA
placing 4th.
Sailing photo credits- Jan Anderson- JanPix.com Follow
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(San Francisco, CA)- The weekend of Thanksgiving in America has become
what is known as “Rivalry Week” in American college football. Over
time, many events have been created that augment the gathering together
of the “tribes” that support each university, whether competing schools
have fun in tug-of-wars, go-kart racing, battle of the bands, chili
cook-offs, or bocce ball. All in the name of fun and, for the most
part, engaging in a friendly reparte’ with the opposing team and alumni.
In
California, the San Francisco Bay region enjoys two of the more
prestigious universities in the world- University of California-
Berkeley (a.k.a. “Cal”) and Stanford University. Alumni from both
schools, many of whom are members of St Francis YC, decided it would be
fun to have an informal, off-beat, regatta at StFYC prior to “the
game”. In recent years, it has been a fun event sailed on StFYC’s
J/22’s literally right off the clubs extended waterfront decks. This
year, the club hosted the 14th edition of the “Big Sail” with Paul
Heineken as chief on-water commentator.
all the hot and heavy action- particularly on shore.
(Hamburg, Germany)- There are still a few months to go before the first
event of the SAILING Champions League 2018 in Porto Cervo, Italy (31 May
– 3 June), but the preparations are already in progress. As in 2017,
the first four clubs from every nation qualify for Act 1 and Act 2,
where they will compete for their places in the SAILING Champion League
Finale.
These are the teams that are eligible for the two qualifier events in Porto Cervo and St Petersburg:
(Moscow, Russia)- Top
Russian woman keelboat skipper, Valerya Kovalenko, was honored this
past week for her performance in the PRO-Yachting series hosted by The
Royal YC in Moscow, Russia.
(Sausalito, CA)- The annual San Francisco Bay One Design Winter Series
kicked off last weekend thanks to Jeff Zarwell's REGATTA-PRO race
management and Sausalito Yacht Club. The local San Francisco Bay fleet
of J/70s, J/120s and J/105s enjoyed sunshine and mild breeze on the
first race day of the weekend series that sails on the second Saturday
of each month- from November thru February. The San Francisco Bay
summer wind and fog machine has turned off for the winter and unless
it's a storm front, conditions on the Bay can be delightfully balmy on
the Berkeley Circle as they were this past weekend. Jeff provided this
report on the first weekend of racing:
Day One
