It’s not really spring in Seattle until Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle (CYC) gets boats large and small around the buoys for their spring regattas.

This year, CYC divided the fleets differently for several reasons (including to give a certain contingent a chance to sail both their 22.5-foot sport boats and their go-fast grand prix behemoths). So this year, the PNW One Design Regatta (POD) closed out March on its last weekend, while the formerly-two-weekend Puget Sound Spring Regatta (PSSR) consolidated to a single weekend in mid-April.

J/70s pop their kites at a windward mark. Turning marks are always busy in this fleet. Photo courtesy of YachtRacing.tv

POD

Though POD Regatta isn’t entirely new for CYC, its place on the calendar and fleet draw might as well be. And it’s the first time POD has run in a few years. POD 2025 brought out 15 boats in the rapidly-growing J/70 fleet as well as the stalwart J/105s.

Saturday of POD saw overcast skies, light-to-moderate southerlies, and a hefty flood in the afternoon, making for some seriously tactical racing. With the breeze lightening as the clouds burned off, big shifts came into play as well. Four different J/70 teams took race wins in Saturday’s five races, and the same was true among the J/105s in their four contests. Variable conditions and competitive fleets often means sharing the wins with your fellow racers!

Sunday provided more of the same, but with a little extra sunshine and a stronger northerly breeze pushing into the teens. There was enough wind for the J/70s to have their jibs out in “lazy plane” mode working hard to keep bows and boat speeds up. Over the course of the day, the battle for the top spot took shape between longtime J/Pod sailor, Boris Luchterhand, and his team on Riff, and the well-known and accomplished pair of Dalton and Lindsay Bergan, who are relative newcomers to the local J/70 fleet, sailing Mossy. It came down to the final race, with the Riff crew taking the bullet and besting the Bergans on a tiebreaker.

Among the J/105s, Jeffrey Pace’s Liftoff team cruised to the top of the podium, showing speed and smarts with their pair of bullets to begin Sunday’s windier races, which gave them just enough buffer to hold off Mark Prentice and crew on Panic, and a charging Shauna Walgren and Al Hughes sailing Creative who won the final two Sunday races.

With 15 boats on the line, starts were hotly contested. Note the shift enabling port-tack starts for the lead boats. Photo courtesy of YachtRacing.tv

PSSR

PSSR drew the biggest, fastest race boats on Puget Sound, as well as several dinghy classes. Photo by Catlin Gibson.

PSSR drew dinghies and ORC-rated boats. Oh and the J/105s just can’t get enough and came back for a second helping of spring buoy racing. The ORC fleet was divided into the very big and very fast (TP52s and a few others), the pretty big and also fast (from Terremoto to a J/111), and the not so big but still pretty fast (from a Farr 30 to a J/80). Sharing the course with the bigger boats were Stars, Tasars, and Aeros. Cool to see such a wide array!

After a short delay, things got underway in southerly breeze centered in the high single digits. The committee was able to get one race scored. They started another one that was eventually abandoned.

A more consistent northerly graced the fleet on Sunday, and allowed for more races to be scored in each class. Around the fleet, top honors went to TP52 Glory, King 40 Hydra, J/112e Mystery, J/105 Moose Unknown, Dan Falk among the Aeros, Dave Watt and Andrew de Andrade won the Star class, and Jay and Lisa Renehan topped the always competitive Tasar fleet.

Congrats to all competitors and thanks to the club and the committees for getting the 2025 buoy racing season off to a great start.

Full results at cycseattle.org.

The class of the smallest ORC-rated boats had a wide rating spread, but speed differentials don’t mean starts can’t be competitive as ever. Photo by Catlin Gibson.
CYC POD CYC PSSR