What a year for sailboat racing in the Pacific Northwest! Many of our qualifying events saw upticks in attendance and it seemed like there was a little more even distribution of winning results across the fleets. More boats sailing and more boats winning races are good things. By our count, the total number of boats who participated in at least one of our qualifying races jumped to 543 this year. That’s a big number!
The qualifying races for our Top 25 offer a good representation of keelboat racing in the Pacific Northwest, with a mix of distance and around-the-buoy races, single-race events, and multi-race regattas. Our scoring system is on a percentage basis, depending on the size of the class: 0% (did not finish) to 100% (first in class), where the event score = (Finishers – Place) / (Finishers – 1). Overall scores are an average of a boat’s best five finishes. There is no minimum number of races required to qualify. Multi-race events (like the Southern Sound Series) are scored as single events. Ties go to the boat with the larger average fleet size. And it pays to sail more than just five events—most of the boats on this list did.
There’s always intrigue throughout the Top 25, but it’s concentrated at the top this year. For the first time in over a decade, we have a repeat #1 boat in John Aitchison’s J/105 Moose Unknown. They were our top boat last year with a score of 100% and they’re our top boat this year with a score of 100%. Their skill and effectiveness to have won at least 10 major regattas over the last two years is genuinely remarkable, especially in a tight one-design class. Just, wow! The other first of note is that we had to use our tiebreaker to determine the #1 Boat. John Buchan’s TP-52 Glory had a brilliant season, and sailed to a score of 100% in our system as well. Yet, as the big boat ORC fleet tends to race in smaller numbers, Glory’s average fleet size (4.0) was bested by Moose Unknown’s (11.8). We’ve long published our tiebreaking methodology so this shouldn’t be a surprise, but it could prompt some fun yacht club debates about which is the more impressive accomplishment. They both are, frankly.
Congratulations to every one of 48° North’s Top 25 racing sailboats of 2025! It is a privilege to present this list, and hats off to those in the racing community who live it and love it, and sail so well.
2026 TOP 25 QUALIFYING RACES
SSSS Southern Sound Series
CYCS Center Sound Series
WVYC Southern Straits Classic
STYC Blakely Rock Benefit
CYCS Spring Regatta
SYC Tri-Island Series
CYCP Pacific NW Offshore
RVicYC Swiftsure Int’l Yacht Race
Race Week Bellingham
CBSA Cowichan Bay Regatta
BYC PITCH
CYCE Foulweather Bluff
CYCS Puget Sound Sailing
Championship
SYC Grand Prix Regatta
OIYC/FHSC Round the County
Feature photo by Jan Anderson. Photos by Sean Trew, Jan Anderson, and Phil Calvert as noted.
