Kicking off 2025 with a shortened course in a light-but-building breeze.
Ushering in the new year, Three Tree Point Yacht Club’s Duwamish Head Race is the second event in the Southern Sound Series. While some don’t race in the winter, it can be very rewarding to those who do, and this series is certainly the best attended group of events on Puget Sound during the chilly season.
For once, we didn’t have a delivery. For the pre-race ritual, our crew on the Cal 33 Cherokee stopped in at Auntie Irene’s Coffee Shop in town where we ran into the crew of the Olson 40 String Theory. With only a few tasks prior to departure, we got to work and knocked it out quickly. Time to go sailing.
Out at the start, we were joined by the boats with the hardy crews who had delivered on Friday, along with some locals too. With temps in the mid-40s, we milled around and discussed tide and wind forecasts. Very light wind put the race into postponement. This closed the normal time gap between the Cruising and Commodore classes and the rest of the PHRF and ORC racing class starts.
As the race committee ended the postponement, we keenly observed flag signals, displayed by the race committee on the pier, and monitored the radio. In our start sequence, knowing that the current was sending us toward the starting line, we selected our big genoa for speed in the light air. With time counting down, we did not like our risky position, especially since the wind now lightened further. I decided to bail out, sailing south away from the line to avoid an OCS. This cost us time, but not a lot of distance, at slow speed.
area, had an impressive showing taking second in class and
besting her sistership. Photo by Patrick Doran.
Once started, we sent up our blue A1 spinnaker on port jibe and had some decent pace. As subsequent starts followed in the light, oscillating breeze, our class of seven boats sailed toward the middle. We had started in shifty northeast to east-southeast winds, but now had steady southeasterlies, but only in the 3 to 6 knot range. With a forecast for stronger south to southwest pressure on the north part of the course, we planned to play the west side and change kites to the S2 for that shift. While we were feeling alright with our progress, there were periods with boat speeds of only about 3 knots.
The faster boats had a slow time off the start, and we saw some collapsed spinnakers near Three Tree Point. So, between postponement and some visibly slow sailing, a decision to shorten course was being considered. Unfortunately, boats approaching Alki Point were sailing in a 10 to 13 knot southerly when the radio crackled to life and we heard the announcement of a shortened course at the Duwamish Head mark. We did not like the call, knowing our best opportunity to regain the lead was upwind in decent wind and chop.
The wind picked up a little at Alki Point and we readied the genoa for the reach to the finish, with Moore 24 Bruzer sure to win and Ranger 33 Aurora close in front. We were sailing faster with our S2 still flying, but to pass Aurora and save our time on them was quite unlikely. For this, we should have gone to the genoa—the leach loads of a tight spinnaker reach really shorten the life of flying sails. Nonetheless, we carried our S2 through the line, but it was a lighter breeze by that point. It took some active driving and trimming for a mile of sailing right on the edge of wiping out!
Of the boats that started after us, some broke away from their class sailing past us before Alki Point, and doing well in their classes and overall. The three Antrim 27s in PHRF 5 had close results, with Jeremy Bush on Goes to 11 taking first, though only 20 seconds separated the three. In PHRF 3, Cody Pinion and Tigger took the win. Also, in PHRF 3, a congrats to Jerry McKay and his new boat, the Farr 36OD Wicked Sister (sistership to Annapurna) who showed some good speed and finished second in the class.
2025 is going to be a great year of sailing, so come out and join us! The next stop for the Southern Sound Series is the Toliva Shoal Race hosted by Olympia Yacht Club on February 15—a very challenging, but quite picturesque course.
Thank you to all the volunteers and clubs that support this great series!
Results can be found HERE.
