The 2026 version of the Southern Straits Race hosted by West Vancouver Yacht Club over the Easter long weekend will go down as one of the fastest in the race’s 56-year history.

Bruce Hedrick’s pre-race weather briefing promised a fast race and by Good Friday morning, the forecast wind speeds were promising that elapsed time records were about to be broken.

The fleet started half an hour earlier than usual and in reverse order to give the smaller boats more time to complete the shorter Halibut Bank Course in daylight. All the starts got off on time, sailing downwind in a 5- to 10-knot easterly, which incrementally grew strength as the fleet left English Bay and headed north and west into the Strait of Georgia. By the time boats passed Bowen Island, the true wind speed was nudging towards 20 knots and the fleet enjoyed a fast off-the-breeze blast to their respective turning marks.

On the Sisters Islets Course—the longest, at 100 nautical miles—the winds built into the upper 20 knot range in the Lasqueti corridor and the Division 0 boats were flying, with Dan Sinclair’s Andrews 77-foot Mach II rounding Sisters Islets before 2:30 in the afternoon. Dan reported sitting on boat speeds between 24.7 and 28.4 knots for 1.5 hours on the way out to Sisters Islets. The upwind beat to Ballenas Island featured winds consistently in the 21 to 27 knot range, so J4s and reefed mains were a pretty common sight in a gnarly current-generated sea state. 

On the 55-mile Entrance Island Course, the fleet had a fast run to the island followed by a power reach to White Islets and a largely port tack favored beat all the way to the finish. The doublehanded entry of Alex Smyth and Graeme Clendenan took line honors on the J/111 65 Red Roses before 6:00 p.m. on Friday evening. 

On the Halibut Bank Course—the shortest at 36 nautical miles—the fleet avoided the higher wind speeds farther west in the Strait of Georgia, but still enjoyed a fast race with the elapsed time winner Vita Nuova, a Grand Soleil 40 skippered by Benjamin Lightburn finishing before 4:30 p.m. 

Back on the Sisters Islets course, after rounding Ballenas Island on the way home, the easterly winds started to moderate down into the 14 to 18 knot range resulting in reefs shaken out with the J4 changed in favor of a J1 or J2 as the majority of the ORC fleet beat north-northeast to Sechelt. After tacking near Trail Islands, the port tack beat featured a long slow lift as you approached Gibsons with the wind bending due to a moderate outflow from Howe Sound. Boats that committed to the north on this leg seemed to do better being inside on the lift, particularly for the smaller boats in the fleet.

The first boat home in a very impressive new record for the 100 mile Sister Islets Course was Dan Sinclair’s Mach II, which finished at 8:30 Friday evening. Dan sailed a beautiful race with only 10 crew—a job well done with a new elapsed time record that may stand for years. 

On corrected time, the Sisters Islets course was dominated by several J/109s led by John Peterson’s Legacy, which narrowly beat out John Polglase’s Double Time by just over four minutes to win Overall and Division 2. Big shout out to Tolga Cezik who was racing doublehanded in the J/111 Lodos and finished an impressive fifth overall in a very deep field on the Sisters Islets Course. 

Ben Mumford’s Santa Cruz 70 All Of It, with an all-star young crew from RVYC, won the battle of the big boats to take Division 0 and Gord Wylie’s XP-44 Phoenix won Division 1 (is Gord ever not on the podium?). 

On the Entrance Island Course, this fleet featured six doublehanded entries for the first time and they dominated the results. Not only was 65 Red Roses the elapsed time winner sailing doublehanded, but Chris Read and Rick Wunderlich on the beautiful Sabre 386 Amiskwi sailed a great race to win Overall, Division 3, and the Doublehanded Division. But it was close racing! Amiskwi beat Ross Bernard and Gerard Smit doublehanding the Sabre 426 Zen No Zen by a tight 1 minute 8 seconds on corrected time, and Bill and Susan Kitchen’s famous C&C 39 Terna III by only 1 minute 20 seconds. 

On the Halibut Bank Course, on corrected time Steve Rojak’s J/29 Elusive was the Overall and Division 5 winner with the doublehanded team of Paul Doran and Paul Thompson on the Dufour 38 Classic Radiance taking second overall and the Doublehanded Division win. Huge kudos to Chris Booth on his Cal 20 Adelie, who finished the course at 7:19 in the evening—wrapping up their day just over an hour ahead of the biggest boat on the long course, Mach II. West Vancouver Yacht Club has worked hard to provide a course option for everyone at the Southern Straits Race, no matter the size of boat or the experience of the crew, so it’s great to see a historic boat like a Cal 20 still racing in this event. 

It was really interesting to see doublehanded entries on all three distance courses perform so well against their fully crewed rivals. Keep an eye out for increasing double handed entries in 2027 because clearly there is a growing interest in the Pacific Northwest fleet.

And finally, the Inshore Course for the sport boats and casual cruiser entries trying out the Straits Race experience. Trevor Tunnicliffe’s VX One Bee narrowly beat out Rob Mulder’s Melges 24 Ferdinand by 20 seconds to take the overall win in the seven boat fleet. This was a real fast race with the lead boat finishing a little over two hours after the start. 

As always, it was a privilege for our Longboard team to share the course with so many talented sailors; and again this year, it was an equal privilege for me to act as Race Chair for Southern Straits Race. Knowing how much goes on behind the scenes, please join me in thanking all the volunteers and staff at West Vancouver Yacht Club for their hard work in organizing and running the event this year. Also, a huge thank you to our extensive list of generous sponsors—the event wouldn’t be possible without their support. 

Congratulations and thank you to all who participated in this year’s Southern Straits Race, and special thanks to our Washington state and Vancouver Island friends whose commitment extends beyond the race course and includes long and sometimes difficult deliveries. 

Each year, Southern Straits is truly a special experience of adventurous challenge, stunning scenery, and genuine camaraderie—and 2026 was no exception. When this extraordinary race also involves super fast elapsed times and in such exciting conditions, even better! This Straits Race was certainly one for the books.

Full results at www.wvyc.ca