Piper Dunlap pointed out that on the Wednesday race starts, Satch’s Rock still awaits starters who venture a little too close to the Indian Point shore as they are heading for the [...]]]>

May 16th Barcott race as the fleet heads to the first mark. Another great photo by Wendy Feltham from SILENT WAY

Piper Dunlap pointed out that on the Wednesday race starts, Satch’s Rock still awaits starters who venture a little too close to the Indian Point shore as they are heading for the line. That wasn’t an issue for the rock’s namesake who has STEP’N ANNIE out of the yard and moving really well. Good crowd out on another beautiful evening.

The last two beautiful sunny weekends there were two great high school sailing events held down [...]]]>

Darby Flanagan, Olivia Gibbons, Eliza Dawson, Serena Vilage and Cody Kowalski receiving their 2nd place trophy at the District Champs held at the Center for Wooden Boats May 4 -5. Photo by Scott Wilson, the Bellingham Coach.

The last two beautiful sunny weekends there were two great high school sailing events held down at the Center for Wooden Boats. May 5th – 6th the NWISA Doublehanded Districts were held and May 11th – 12th the Mallory Cup, Doublehanded Nationals, were sailed under beautiful conditions.

For the Doublehanded Districts on the water, dictated by persnickety winds, were 14 Flying Juniors and 14 Vanguard 15s manned by NW high school sailors. For the Port Townsend team it was a well sailed, but at the same time difficult event. After Saturdays racing they were in second place behind the Bainbridge Island team, but early Sunday they took the lead and at one point were ahead by 11 points. Then by the 30th race they were tied with the North Kitsap team and by the end, after 32 races, they were behind by 3 points and that had them taking 2nd place in the 14 boat fleet.

The sailing conditions made the management and sailing of the course a challenge, with breeze that oscillated from Southwest to West and back again. The Northerly, a favorite on the lake, didn’t show itself until Sunday and even then it flirted with the Westerly. In addition to the shifts, the breeze on Saturday came and went, sometimes only managing to be an elongated puff.

Racing ran from approximately 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM on Saturday and again on Sunday until just before 3:00 PM. With A division sailing V-15s and B division sailing FJs and both fleets on the water, it was a long weekend for the sailors but their focus and enthusiasm never waivered. Congratulations to North Kitsap High School for qualifying for the Mallory Trophy!

Last weekend at Nationals everything seemed to come together to make for perfect racing conditions and a well-run event. A number of the Port Townsend team came down to help out with the event and to watch the sailing. The favored Northerly wind was present at 8-12 knots both days, which made for great racing. With the combined effort from coaches, alumni and sailors from the NW teams the event was a great success.

Twenty teams from across the Nation showed up to compete. An entire rotation of 20 races in each division was completed by early afternoon on Sunday. It turned out the 4 out of the top five teams were from California, with congratulations going to the Point Loma High School team on winning the regatta and becoming the National Champs. The North Kitsap team came in 18th.

(Results revised Monday, May 14.  Norma Mae has been given a provisional rating of 150 and Sea Puppy’s time has been included)

Eleven PT boats, and one Sequim boat (Sea Puppy), were ready to challenge Port Ludlow sailors Sunday [...]]]>

SCIROCCO and THATUNA racing back to PT. Photo by Wendy Feltham from SILENT WAY

(Results revised Monday, May 14.  Norma Mae has been given a provisional rating of 150 and Sea Puppy’s time has been included)

Eleven PT boats, and one Sequim boat (Sea Puppy), were ready to challenge Port Ludlow sailors Sunday morning for a race to Port Townsend.  Apparently the sight was so intimidating that no Ludlow boats dared to join in, or maybe they are all NBA fans (who knows?).

Silent Way was the first to call the RC as they finished.  By the time I got to City Dock the fifth finisher, Sirocco, was about to cross the line.  A big thanks to The Wizard for taking times in my absence.  My GPS time for Sirocco was 14:48:12 and the Wizard’s time on course for Sirocco was 2 hours 53 minutes 12 seconds.  To accommodate for this 5 minute difference, I subtracted five minutes from the time on course given for finishers 2, 3 & 4 (Silent Way, The Wizard, & Dorado) so they would be in sync with the 8 finishes I subsequently took via GPS and Sea Puppy’s time which was taken with GPS.  Confused yet?

In addition to the rated boats, Pleades finished 12th at 15:11:58.

Port to Port 2012 – Race Port to Port 2012

Port to Port 2012

Race Port to Port 2012

Information is provisional and subject to modification
Regatta results saved: Monday, May 14, 2012 6:46:25 AM PDT

Division: PHRF A (11 boats) (top)

Notes

Information is provisional and subject to modification

Principal Race Officer: Myron

Version 5.7: Regatta scoring by JavaScore, an Open Source project available at http://www.gromurph.org/javascore

So we [...]]]> 13 boats came out for a beautiful evening on the Bay.  Unfortunately the later starting boats missed a great opportunity to top the fleet by remembering that the Sailing Instructions specify staying 100 yards from the ferry terminal EVEN WHEN NO FERRY IS PRESENT.  It’s not our idea, but the Coast Guard’s.

So we pulled a “PT” and pretended that since the entire fleet was in violation, then “whatever.”  Sirocco had been setting a little tet off the ferry dock, but not lately.  Not that they are to blame, esp. with two boats sailing inside the terminal pilings!

We realize that without a mark, judging 100 yards can be difficult, but if one boat had made an effort to at least demonstrate some respect for this rule, we would have had to disqualify the rest of the fleet.

Spring White Cap Series 2012

Race White Cap 2012 race 5

Information is provisional and subject to modification
Regatta results saved: Friday, May 11, 2012 8:44:37 PM PDT

(Entries=16) Cruisers | PHRF | Thunderbirds | PTSA Fleet

Division: Cruisers (5 boats) (top)

Notes

Division: PHRF (5 boats) (top)

Notes

Division: Thunderbirds (6 boats) (top)

Notes

Fleet: PTSA Fleet (16 boats) (top)

Information is provisional and subject to modification

Version 5.7: Regatta scoring by JavaScore, an Open Source project available at http://www.gromurph.org/javascore

Spring White Cap Series 2012

Series Standing – 4 races scored

Information is provisional and subject to modification
Regatta results saved: Friday, May 11, 2012 8:44:37 PM PDT

(Entries=16) Cruisers | PHRF | Thunderbirds | PTSA Fleet

Division: Cruisers (5 boats) (top)

Notes

Division: PHRF (5 boats) (top)

Notes

Division: Thunderbirds (6 boats) (top)

Notes

Fleet: PTSA Fleet (16 boats) (top)

Notes

Information is provisional and subject to modification

Version 5.7: Regatta scoring by JavaScore, an Open Source project available at http://www.gromurph.org/javascore

Battles on the ocean are hard. Especially in super light air like what we have had out here the last few days. The chess match is long and painful and very often has stops and starts that stretch out the agony.

We are amongst it with [...]]]>

Click for bigger image

Battles on the ocean are hard. Especially in super light air like what we have had out here the last few days. The chess match is long and painful and very often has stops and starts that stretch out the agony.

We are amongst it with CAMPER at this stage and there is a lot of runway left and tons of potholes along the way.

First of all, this could not be more unlike every other leg we have had in this race. Dry, cool nights and warm days. T-shirts and shorts always. No hint of a need for foul weather gear. A huge full moon making it closer to needing sunglasses at night rather than headlamps.

This game of chess probably has been a bit more like a tug-of-war if you are watching at home. We stretch out to what seems like a “comfortable” lead only to hit the next light air patch and watch the troops coming reeling us in. CAMPER is within sight almost always, making things a bit more tense with constant bearing checks with the handheld compass.

To be honest, these are conditions that suit CAMPER a bit better than us. They have always excelled in the light air and this is no exception. So for this we are pretty pleased we have held them off to date. And as we approach a left turn at Harbour Island in the Bahamas, we are stressing out a bit because overnight we lost sight of them and in these fickle conditions that could mean disaster. When we see them, we have a better chance of defending effectively. When we don’t see them, we rely on the 3 hour position reports to tell us what the next move should be in the chess match.

The danger always is being too defensive, or too offensive. There has to be a balance and we have to remain fortunate that we simply don’t sail into another wind hole that they don’t sail into.  A little further back are Groupama and Telefónica, neither out of this by any means.

So that is a bit of a play-by-play to date, typically not my style for a blog but necessary nonetheless. On board we have the typical banter, to which Shannon Falcone has certainly added a few interesting stories with his non-stop chatter. Probably a nice change of pace, as was Thomas Johansson who sailed with us on the last leg, for a group that has been together a lot over the last two years! For sure we have all heard the same stories a few times, and a new mix is certainly welcome.

So as we come down to the final miles, we will attempt to apply the basketball adage of keeping ourselves between our opponent and the hoop. Sure it sounds easy, but when you can’t see your opponent anymore it is like playing basketball in the pitch black and trying to stay with your man. Keep playing the odds, and if they are going to pass us make them sail around us. Not easy to do, but you never know.  – Kenny

PT 505's at the windward mark in San Francisco

For [...]]]> Those dinghy sailors are up to their shenanigans again! The PT 505 fleet will be hosting their annual Spring regatta on Saturday and Sunday, May 26 &27. Boats will come from Seattle, Bellingham, and Vancouver, BC to race these high performance two-man skiffs.

PT 505's at the windward mark in San Francisco

For more information or to volunteer on the Race Committee call Piper Dunlap at 360 774-0819, or Dan Ginther at 360 531-3225. Find Notice of Race here:

The Port Townsend Rigging sponsored 2012 Port-to-Port race is a challenge race between two yacht clubs: The Port Townsend Sailing Association and the Port Ludlow Yacht Club.  In the distance past there was likely a moment in some local sailor’s dive where one slightly tipsy resident of one town pointed a finger at [...]]]>

The Port Townsend Rigging sponsored 2012 Port-to-Port race is a challenge race between two yacht clubs: The Port Townsend Sailing Association and the Port Ludlow Yacht Club.  In the distance past there was likely a moment in some local sailor’s dive where one slightly tipsy resident of one town pointed a finger at the resident of the other town and announced that “you lads can’t sail and your bottom needs cleaning.” No doubt many of the historic races started this way – a drink, a taunt, a trophy. Australia got the Sydney-Hobart, we got the Port-to-Port. It’s our own local version of the America’s Cup.

It’s also a lot of fun. There’s a great party on Saturday night, a long afternoon in the shipping lanes on Sunday where you can settle the boat down and play the current, and a chance to sail against some boats you ordinarily don’t see. This race is for a reciprocal trophy, awarded to the club with the most winners in the top three positions, after corrected time using standard PHRF ratings. The winning club gets to defend the trophy the following year and the trophy currently resides at the Port Ludlow Yacht Club. The race alternates direction annually.

The schedule for this years Port-to-Port race is:

Saturday, May 12th, 5pm. Pre-race Party Beer, wine, and refreshments at the white tent near the marina store in Port Ludlow. Greek dinner of kabobs, salad, baklava to follow. Your RSVP to Kathy Grace is appreciated but not mandatory.

Sunday, May 13th, 1030am. Skippers Meeting at the picnic tables near the Marina store

Sunday, May 13th, 12noon. Race begins in Port Ludlow and finishes in between City Dock and the PTSA racing buoy in Port Townsend

Race documents in downloadable format:

2012 Port-to-Port race instructions PDF

2012 Port-to-Port Poster JPG

U.S. Coast Guard Keep Clear Handout

With a steady NW breeze at the start, it seemed that Indian Point to the tower and back would offer the best possible windward/leeward opportunity.  The situation began to deteriorate as the fleet attempted to round the tower and never improved.