Anacortes Race Week 2024 featured the event’s first-ever pursuit distance race. The winning team was Tom Greetham’s Melges 24, Distraction, who also took home Race Week’s top honors overall. Here’s their pursuit race story from Tom and Distraction crew member, Laurie Anna Kaplan.

Anacortes Race Week is a spectacular regatta in a fabulous venue, and the entire PNW sailing community looks forward to the event each year. After the first two days of brilliant buoy racing in sunshine and 8-14 knots of breeze, PRO Charley Rathkopf saw an opportunity to shake things up and invoke Addendum C of the Sailing Instructions—Wednesday would be a Pursuit Distance Race with reverse PHRF start times based on individual boat ratings, sending racers around Lummi Rocks and back. Charley introduced us to the orange Roadrunner/Wylie Coyote flag that would be flying from the Race Committee boat and strongly advised that each respective boat review their posted start times (inciting a bit of a scramble for those who hadn’t yet figured out how to utilize the Race Week WhatsApp community). 

The dynamic within the Race Week Melges 24 fleet had already established itself as friendly, supportive, and enjoyably competitive, with several boats gearing up for the 2024 Worlds in San Francisco. Similar to other one-design fleets, the Melges teams have a strong spirit of helping each other, this year’s group of strong sailors spent a lot of time trading tips and stories on the dock, before and after racing. The racing itself was lively and fun, and the final standings were not resolved until the final race on Friday.

The pursuit race presented an exciting challenge and opportunity, and something different than the typical sport boat race. The Melges 24 fleet had an informal meeting on the patio of Frida’s restaurant, where we compared notes and expectations over dinner. For some, a pursuit race was new. For others, especially those who had participated in Sloop Tavern Yacht Club’s immensely popular Race to the Straits, it was more familiar. Everyone walked away with the verification that our one-design boats would start at the predetermined time of 11:20:08.

Wednesday morning arrived with the promise of a southerly breeze, a little rain, and the baffling currents of converging tides on the east side of Guemes Island and north to Lummi Island. With a downwind start, boats hoisted spinnakers as soon as possible and maneuvered across Fidalgo Bay, looking for lanes of clear air as faster boats overtook slower ones that had started earlier. 

On Tom Greetham’s Melges 497, Distraction, we popped our chute at the start and sailed a hot angle as we worked over the top of the J/105 fleet that started a minute before us. At times, we were in “lazy plane” mode as the wind slowly built. The entire fleet chose the more consistent breeze in the channel between Huckleberry and Saddlebag Island. The wind continued to increase as we passed north of the islands, and we were soon steadily planing, reaching speeds of up to 16 knots as we sailed the tight reach towards Lummi Island.

A major decision was which side of Vendovi to take. The majority of the fleet in front of us doused their spinnakers and sailed the slightly more direct route to the west of Vendovi towards the rocks. We chose the east side of and continued charging under spinnaker towards the southern tip of Lummi, keeping boat speeds in the mid-teens. We briefly doused our chute and beat upwind until we could re-hoist the kite for the approach to the rocks. 

Just over an hour after starting, we rounded Lummi Rocks in first, followed closely by another Melges 24, Comfort Monkey, and third was Ogopogo, the Left Coast Dart. Ironically, we noted that the TP 52s should have just started.

After switching to our jib and keeping well clear of the protruding shoals at the rocks, we concentrated on connecting the puffs and keeping the boat moving forward in the dying breeze. As the wind holes became bigger and our windex started doing occasional 360s, boats behind us were sailing on erratic opposite tacks. We struggled to make headway as the hole expanded, but we eyed a distinct wind line and worked our way towards it. We managed to reach the new breeze and took off again in a steady 10 knots and flat water. Looking back, we could see the growing hole filling with boats with windless, draped sails.

The angle of the new breeze allowed us to sail a rhumb line course towards the finish, and we rapidly put distance between us and the rest of the fleet. As we approached Jack Island and the race area of the previous two days, we saw a race committee whaler approaching—it was Charley and a few RC members checking on the progress of the fleet. With the fleet off in the distance, they laughingly wanted to know if we had rounded the correct mark.

Realizing that we had been fortunate to escape the light spot, we stayed quiet and focused as we sailed, knowing all too well another hole could open up and swallow up as well. Near the south end of Guemes Island, we decided to play it safe and chose the longer course between Huckleberry and Saddlebag, avoiding the fickle winds in the channel to the west of the islands. The winds held steady through the channel and built as we crossed Fidalgo Bay towards the finish line. As we finished, we looked back to see the first TP 52 coming into sight, just over 12 minutes behind us. We had sailed as well as we could and were thrilled to have won, but luck was definitely also on our side!

The entire fleet finished soon after, and soon the dock was buzzing with stories and comparisons of the race. And many agreed that the first-ever pursuit race put on by Race Week was a great success. Meep meep!

Full Results here.