Seattle Yacht Club’s Grand Prix Regatta on October 24-26 was the battle of the year, primarily but not entirely against the elements. The competition was tight, the weather was occasionally sub-optimal, and the energy was great.
If you’re from my generation, it brings to mind a Billy Joel song “You may be right, we may be crazy, but we just may be the lunatics you’re looking for.” On Saturday night there was an epic karaoke birthday party for one of the racers, and somehow I missed the mark by not singing it. Everyone is eternally thankful for that. But mainly, Grand Prix was all about the three days of epic fall sailing.
Going into the weekend we knew the forecast was 101% chance of rain, high probability of a massive storm with tornadoes on the coast on Saturday, and all bets were off for Sunday. Perfect! On the J/111 Lodos, we were ready for a weekend of fun!
Friday delivered a solid 15-knot breeze for the afternoon races. Many of the boats were shorthanded due to weekday demands. The “Out of Office” crewmembers lucky enough to be sailing instead of working were running double duty on their boats, with everyone over 50 keeping fingers crossed they wouldn’t be sent to the bow to help. With the rain pelting us, we got a couple solid two-lap races completed in an unexpected easterly breeze.
Fitting for Grand Prix, the TP52s led the way all weekend, and they helped the rest of us get a sense of what was happening up the course. We always had eyes on Glory for a good reference. Right behind was a strong fleet of fast boats in ORC2 boats, which was so deep with talented sailors you didn’t know which boat to watch the most; but it was a joy to watch them start all weekend. With short legs and multiple laps, it was nice for the tacticians to see the whole leg play out before even starting.
We spent the evening drying out every single piece of clothing we had on, plus all the sails. When was the last time I was that soaked on the race course? Maybe never. The clubhouse was packed, nonetheless, and everyone had a good war story to share.
And then came Saturday. Some boats called it at the dock and we all wondered if the race committee would call it, too. There were side-bets about who would be staying at the dock, but really it was only blowing 8-10 knots at the 9:00 am boat call, and it wasn’t even raining. On Lodos, we believed in the forecast enough to foolishly leave the big kite and the #1 at the dock even before the wind started blowing.
The Race Committee called for a “harbor tour” race, how nice. We thought for sure that the J/105s would stay in the bay, but we all went for a tour. With another easterly predicted to become southerly, they set a couple marks in the bay and carried on to Blakely Rock and then north near Edmonds and back. The big boats made a trip to Duwamish Head in the middle. As it turned out, it wasn’t that windy. Interestingly, it also wasn’t particularly upwind in any direction, so the trimmers got to hone their reaching trim settings. On top of that, the sun even managed to come out some of the time. It was downright civilized, as you might expect from a Seattle Yacht Club event.
After the quick buoy section of the race, we chased the puffs to Bainbridge Island. Sometimes we were catching the lead boats and sometimes they were getting away, but mostly the door was shutting behind us and it took most of the day for the big blow to arrive in Puget Sound. We finished at a reasonable hour in the afternoon and enjoyed an enormous amount of Dominos pizza at Corinthian Yacht Club and had a great visit with the Cascadia Sailing crew—the newly formed team of badass women from Washington and British Columbia who are using their recently-acquired IC-37 to prepare for the inaugural International Women’s Championship crew.
Elsewhere in Western Washington, all heck broke loose weather-wise early in the day, but in our little corner it was actually quite nice until we were safely tucked away at the dock. Who knew? Never leave the big sails at the dock, clearly.
After refueling and refreshments at the clubhouse, eventually the party moved on and there was some really questionable singing at the Rickshaw amidst a rollicking birthday bash.
On Sunday, we got in two more buoy races in the unexpectedly consistent easterly, making it an astonishing three consecutive days in which there was racing in easterly breezes in central Puget Sound. Weird, and kinda fun!
In the big boat fleet, Mist and Smoke mixed it up a bit on the last day and Glory held strong. Old school Absolutely brought it home to win the ORC2 fleet and Overall for the regatta, and Canadian friends on the J/111 65 Red Roses continued their comeback streak with a strong finish to win ORC3. With a three-way tie for second place it was a tight fleet, and Lodos took third on the tie-breaker behind Nefarious! With 13 boats in the J/105 fleet, it was Moose Unknown in first for the weekend. In the little boat and furniture division, the Hobie 33 TC came out on top for the weekend. Afterburner won the J/80 division.
We had a lovely time at the Seattle Yacht Club for Sunday evening’s dinner after racing, and it’s always fun to see everyone dressed up in their going out clothes (instead of their going out on the water clothes). A favorite moment was John Buchan calling his buddies Steve Johnson and Steve Travis to the microphone to share a hug for the decades of sailing together, and the joy of being able to still duke it out on the course and enjoy the evening together. Overall, the weekend was fabulous; even when we were laughing about how silly it was to be out there sometimes! You may be right, we may be crazy.
Full results at seattleyachtclub.org
Photos courtesy of Seattle Yacht Club.
