Enough breeze for a fun and fluky trip to the famous rock and back for the third and final installment of this years varied and exciting CYC Seattle Center Sound Series.
Editor’s note: Before we get into this story, I want to say a brief personal thank you to the author, Ben Towery. In 99 magazines out of 100, Ben’s full Center Sound article would get a big flashy spread in the print edition, and it deserves it—what he and his crew are doing with Sabotage is awesome. But in this rare instance, late in our publishing cycle, we got a riveting, emotional feature first-hand account from one of the overboard sailors who was rescued in the Possession Point Race two weeks prior. Since that is a unique and important story to share (check it out in the April issue beginning March 31, 2025) and happens to be Center Sound related, it got the green light for print, and Ben graciously supported the decision to bump his report to online-only. Thanks Ben, for putting together this report, and for your understanding when we had to adjust sails with a last-minute wind shift.
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the first portion of Ben’s report, in which he hits some highlights of an offseason refit, as well as his crew’s experiences in the first two CYC Seattle Center Sound Series races.
With two weeks between the second and third races, we had a little more time to make some tweaks to Sabotage. We managed to rig some much needed check stays and install a new lithium battery. We also made some adjustments to our spinnaker tack line fitting at the bow and clean up from the epic winds of race #2 to Possession Point.
On Saturday March 22, we got to the dock ready to race. With our Class 7 series standings so close, we anticipated a great day of racing around Blakely Rock. The forecast was trending very light, however, and the race committee was already sending out notices of a shortened course. e would see an ebb tide for most of the race.
We got underway knowing we needed to keep Ross 930 Gaucho behind us but still sail well against everyone else in order to win our class for the series. In a light southerly, the race committee announced the anticipated shortened course with Blakely Rock to starboard, then back through the start line, around a roving temporary mark and back to the finish. We wouldn’t know where the temporary mark was until we got back to the northern end of the course as RC would place it based on wind strength. Having us cross the start line meant the race committee could finish us there if the wind was dead. The RC also threw in a change of start order, with the slower classes going first so all the teams could end up at the CYC party at about the same time.
We worked ourselves into a nice position in the pre-start, but once the gun went off we got edged out by a J/80 to weather of us with Gaucho just below us. Stuck in a bad air sandwich, we made a quick clearing tack then headed back on starboard tack towards the West Point Beach to stay out of the ebb and get some push from the lock flush that comes out of the canal. We managed to stay just ahead of Gaucho and Hobie 33 TC as we made our way to the West Point Buoy with Quest 30 Charlotte just to leeward of us.
In a southerly with an ebb, local knowledge suggests the play is usually to get up to West Point and then cross the Sound to get tide relief on the west side along Bainbridge Island. But every time we started to head west things didn’t look so great. We kept left and towards the middle of the Sound, and managed to stay in breeze and keep ahead of anyone who went right—conventional wisdom be damned! Gaucho headed west and, for several minutes, we contemplated covering them since we needed to beat them for the series win. But we couldn’t justify leaving the lifted, stronger breeze and kept going. We were in good company with Charlotte, who was having their best race of the series and swapped the lead with them and TC until we got closer to the rocks. It was the Class 8 stalwarts on the J/27 LXII that lead us all there.
By Blakely Rock, we were on course to have a nice rounding in front of TC but got a bit of bad air as the TP52 Glory caught up to us and affected our wind for a bit. That made us have to take two extra tacks tacks, and we saw Carlotte round the rocks first with us and TC side by side. TC snuck between of us and the rocks, so we gave way as they held us out a bit for their jibe set. We stuck with a bear-away then gybed in a nice puff toward the middle. The jibe-set definitely was the play, however, and TC and Charlotte led us back to West Point, where the wind shut off. Charlotte and TC legged out a bit and, even with some fresher breeze towards the finish, we couldn’t make up the lost ground to either one. Charlotte were the well-deserved winners of the day with TC taking second—while double-handing nonetheless—and Sabotage took 3rd. The rest of the pack were stuck in very light breeze on the southern end of the course with Gaucho ending up crossing in 6th, which meant Sabotage won the series! Gaucho claimed 2nd in Class 7, and Charlotte’s race win meant they moved into 3rd for series.
This was an excellent showing for us on the new boat. We’re incredibly excited to keep developing the boat and find her true potential. With boats like Gaucho, TC, Charlotte and the rest of the talented crews and fast boats in our rating band, we know our work is cut out for us. This will be a competitive and fun year for sure. The long term plans include heading offshore—ultimately racing the Pacific Cup from San Francisco to Kaneohe, HI in 2028. A huge shoutout goes to Corinthian Yacht Club for putting on an excellent series and to our very competitive class for exciting competition.
