It was a light air coin toss in this year’s lap around Blakely Rock dedicated to Carol Pearl.

I love a good light air race. The speeds and the forces are low, and the strategy is tough. Light air sailing takes a combination of patience and focus that just suits me well. However, there is light air and then sometimes there is no air. That’s how I would characterize this year’s Blakely Rock Benefit Race, which was hosted by the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club on Saturday, April 5. 

The race course was a patchwork of wind holes and gentle zephyrs. One minute, you are a genius: gliding along in your own private breeze. The next minute, you are an idiot: trapped in a windless hole watching the rest of the fleet sail around you. It was hard to make all the right moves. The good news was that it was an absolutely stunning day on the water. Both the mountains were out. It was seventy degrees and flat out gorgeous!

The start for the race was right up against the breakwater at Shilshole Bay Marina. Unfortunately, the start line was in a pretty bad wind hole. There was a little bit of wind at the pin end of the start line, but over by the committee boat there was none. Onboard my B-25, Blur, the wind gauge read a solid, unforgiving, zero knots. So the obvious place to start was at the pin end. That’s where the smart place to be was. We watched the cruising class attempt to start. The horn went off and they… just sat there. No wind at all. We were next to start.

For reasons that I can’t fully explain, I had steered us over to the committee boat side of the start in an effort to clear the start line. That’s where there was no wind at all. Not a good plan. I really wasn’t paying attention. I have no idea what I was thinking, but when the start horn went off, I was completely stalled out behind the committee boat on port tack. We went through the entire five minute start sequence, just sitting there chatting with the committee boat. A couple of boats were smart enough to squirt out on the pin end of the line. The rest of us all sat still, trapped on the start line, considering our life choices.

About five minutes later, we got a small breeze and we crossed the starting line (technically in the next fleet’s start). We were a solid five minutes or so behind the smart folks, so we were playing a game of catch up. The good news is that the breeze held, and we worked our way up to Magnolia Bluff. As we did, it became apparent that we had dialed in our trim settings pretty well for the conditions. We were sailing faster and higher than most of the fleet. We got up to Magnolia, and then tacked over to head to West Point. This was to be almost our last tack before reaching Blakely Rock. As we came up to West Point, the wind rotated to the east and we got lifted up to a heading pointing right at the rock.

The ride up to the rock was pretty steady with no major wind holes or issues. We sailed it pretty well, and we were making ground on the competition ahead. The folks who got to the rock early sailed into a hole, and we ended up catching up with the folks who had the early lead. That felt pretty good! We rounded the rock in excellent position in contention for the top places in our fleet. We set the chute and headed downwind along the shore of Bainbridge island. Next stop, Meadow Point and then the finish line.

This is where it all went wrong for us. There were basically two routes back to Meadow Point. You could sail along the shore of Bainbridge in a narrow band of wind on the west side. There was a big flat spot in the middle of the sound, and you could go toward downtown Seattle and take the eastern side of the sound. Most of the fleet was going to the east side. We went west because the wind looked pretty solid. There was a flat spot we had to cross, and then we thought we would be home free to make it the rest of the way to Meadow Point. We watched some boats make it across the dead spot, so we tried to do the same. It didn’t work. We got about halfway across and the wind completely died. Zero knots of breeze. We came to a complete stop and watched all the boats on the east side sail past us. We were well and truly stuck. To say it was frustrating is an epic understatement. We could see wind on the water about 300 yards away. So tantalizingly close!

We sat there in that hole for about an hour. At least it felt that way (it was probably 20 minutes). Then a kindly breeze came along and we started to scoot downwind again. In relatively short order we were making 6 knots downwind and flying past boats on the east side. We went from idiot to genius because the wind gods favored us! It only cost us one ritual sacrifice. That wind held up all the way down to Meadow Point. We rounded the mark and sailed back up to the finish in reasonably good form. Our round trip time was about 4 hours and 36 minutes. Not too shabby. We took 4th place in our class. I’m counting myself lucky for that. It was a very tricky day of sailing. The weather was gorgeous and our biggest concern was re-applying sunscreen, so I’m going to count this one as a beautiful day for a race. Full results can be found HERE. 

Note: This report was first published by the author at blur-racing.com.