Corinthian Yacht Club (CYC) of Seattle’s autumn celebration of boat racing fun for small boats is typically an October affair, but with the club hosting the Beechers Handmade Cheese Seattle J/24 World Championship Regatta starting in late September, CYC opted to gather the small boat racing community in mid-September for its Puget Sound Sailing Championship (PSSC) Small Boats. As the J/24s from around the region and beyond begin to coalesce for the upcoming Worlds, this weekend also served as a World’s warm-up as well as the fleet’s Western Regionals.
The J/24s were hardly the only boats on the water. In addition to an impressive 26 J/24s, an additional 36 boats across the ILCA, RS Aero, Snipe, Star, San Juan 24, and J/70 classes joined the party for two days of racing.
The excitement was palpable amongst the J/24s, with just two weeks until the Worlds. Teams from Oregon, California, Montana, British Columbia, Florida, and New York arrived to compete in the Western Regionals. Daniel Borrer, for example, loaded up his boat Jesus Lizard in St. Augustine Beach, FL last week, drove 3,000 miles crossing the country from corner to corner, and arrived in Seattle just in time to win the first two races on Saturday.
In spite of the light conditions and drizzle on Saturday, the race committee deftly got in at least three races across all fleets. Among the J/24s, the local team on Hair of the Dog, with Jakob Lichtenberg driving, was leading the regatta at the end of the first day with two second-place finishes and a fifth. “Our team felt we played wind more than current, and we think that made the biggest difference to being on top after day one”, said Jon Anderson from Hair of the Dog. Daniel Borrer’s Jesus Lizard finished the day with two bullets and an eighth-place finish, trailing the leaders by a single point. Rounding out the first day’s top three was another Seattle sailor, Michael Goldfarb.
In the J/70s, it was AnaLucia Clarkson, Libby Johnson McKee, and David Fassio slugging it out and trading bullets in Saturday’s light conditions. But as Sunday unveiled sunshine and a steady 8-13 knots, it was Clarkson’s team sailing War Canoe who found what Libby Johnson Mckee described as “a whole other speed gear,” taking three bullets on the final day of racing to edge out McKee’s Bamm-Bamm on the tiebreaker.
Sailing with Clarkson, Alyosha Strum-Palerm shared some of what worked so well on Sunday, especially with their upwind speed in chop. His details began with boat set-up and rig tune, saying, “We felt like being able to keep the lower mast straight allowed us to get some more grunt out of the set-up when we needed it,” and noting that having the mast rake set correctly was also critical. In terms of boat handling, they wound up “playing the mainsheet and using the backstay and traveler for larger mode changes,” but also adding that the fact that this was primarily done with moderate boom vang, which seemed to help get the boat speed back up when slowed by a wave.
Downwind, War Canoe prioritized sailing wing-on-wing on the jibe that had better wave alignment, which provided “big gains” by helping the boat “stay on waves for even longer than you would if you were reaching.” Strum-Palerm also shared a lot about the team’s communication, and it can be summed up by praising their quick, consistent clarity and understanding from all crew members through the rapid and frequent gear changes required when sailing in waves; it is a major focus for their team and contributes to their success.
For the J/24s in Sunday’s northerly, Borrer and his Jesus Lizard team came out swinging with another first-place finish. Goldfarb, who is also an accomplished Melges 24 and J/70 sailor, showed his deep experience by steadily improving and finishing second, putting the pressure on the leaders and moving his team up to second place overall. Goldfarb took the regatta lead in race five, with a third-place finish, while the other leaders had to count higher scores in the no-throw-out regatta. Goldfarb and his veteran team held a firm grip on the regatta lead for the final three races, posting two two bullets and a sixth, winning the event ahead of Hair of the Dog team and Jesus Lizard.
“We ended up getting two days of glamor sailing in a very competitive fleet,” said Goldfarb, once the regatta’s finishing guns fell silent. “The Race Committee and the club did their usual fantastic job and as for our team, we are happy, but we know we had a lot of good fortune over the weekend. Our focus now is on the Worlds and we are looking forward the racing. Meanwhile, the best part of the J/24 Western Regionals was the people—this is truly a great class and it’s the people that make it so.”
Around the other fleets, Alan Timms sailed very consistently to win the ILCA 6 Boys class by a solid margin, while Ester Ireland and Kaitlyn Beaver battled to a tight first and second place overall in the Girls class of the ILCA 6. Hannah Beaver took straight bullets on Sunday to take the ILCA 7 class. Amongst the RS Aeros, very close racing left Keith Hammer atop the podium, but the top four boats finished within one point of each other overall. Gabe Hall’s Juan Solo edged out Ken Johnson’s Grauer Geist in the San Juan 24s, while Kirk Smith took the Snipe win and Bill Siemers won the Star class.
In the end, PSSC was a wonderful weekend of September boat racing on Puget Sound, and there’s more fun to come when CYC kicks off the Beechers Handmade Cheese J/24 World Championship on September 28!
Images courtesy of Jonathan Anderson.
