This write up has been composed in collaboration by the Northwest Maivens: Molly Howe, Stephanie Campbell, Taylor Joosten, Emily Bishop, JJ Hoag, Melanie Edwards, Emily Hawken, Genevieve Fisher, Elishia Van Luven, and Vikki Fennell.
During the weekend of October 12-13, a group of sailors from Puget Sound migrated south to the palm-lined, sunny shores of Long Beach, California, to compete in the Linda Elias Memorial Women’s One Design Regatta (LEMWOD). As the premiere women’s fleet racing event on the West Coast, it regularly draws Olympians, match race champions, and college All-Americans from the most elite yacht clubs and teams, mostly from California and Hawaii.
The Northwest Maivens sailed proudly under the burgees of the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club and the Port Townsend Sailing Association, and with massive support and sporting team gear from Kate Hearsey at Maiven Sailing. With the indomitable Molly Howe at the helm, the team showed up ready to put themselves on the line, and in true PNW fashion, where we take our racing seriously, second only to the amount of fun we are having.
The regatta is by invitation after an application process and submission of resumes because the event is sailed in a 10-boat fleet of Catalina 37s, owned by the Long Beach Sailing Foundation. We spent the practice day on Friday fast tacking, coordinating maneuvers around marks and through jibes, working through starting sequences, and tuning up with the other boats.
Corralling 10 people from different cities to practice is nigh unto impossible before these events, so having a practice day to try different scenarios and rigging options is clutch. Not to mention, that some of the team had never sailed with each other before. There are times when things just work—this year at LEMWOD felt like that—which isn’t to say that everything went flawlessly, it never does. Having the space to learn, the knowledge to pivot, and the intention to grow makes all the difference in the world. When 10 people are paying attention and anticipating the next moves, even mistakes go away quickly.
After our practice sail, we returned to the harbor under full canvas, taking advantage of the perfect weather to sail and dance to some bops. The team had a concise but constructive debrief, which included Taylor and Molly leading us in reflection as we went round the group sharing our high tide and low tide of the day, quickly finding we didn’t have many lows but were eager to put all we learned into action on race day. We endeavored to mingle with the other teams with varying degrees of success. Most of the teams kept to themselves, but we definitely started to chip away at the Long Beach Freeze after a few well-earned beverages. It certainly helps when the entire team vibe is effervescent and delightfully hilarious.
On the way out to the race course the next morning, as we listened to our playlist of walk-up songs, someone realized that the boats had no names, only numbers. So, of course, as is custom in Northwest sailing lore, the roll of black electrical tape was retrieved from a gear bag and the naming of boats commenced. The Catalina 37s are a 30-plus-year-old fleet that have been sailed hard and put away wet, so in the spirit of the event, camaraderie, and admiration for those that came before, we chose Ethel as our moniker. We imagined that Ethel had probably seen some things, and named her with the hope that we all will still be racing just as hard when our own names are equally vintage.
The definition of a “maven” is one who is experienced or knowledgeable, and Northwest Maivens were “hot to go” and showed our stuff right out of the gate on Saturday. Molly, Stephanie, and Taylor worked together on tactics to get a clean start in clear air; the team coordinated on tight boat handling and secured a third place in the first race. Proving to the rest of the fleet (many of whom have been sailing the boats and the event for 10+ years) and ourselves that we absolutely deserved to be there. After the race they would announce the finishers in order over the radio and I loved hearing the cheer from our boat when they said, “Third place, Sloop Tavern!” The other teams were probably thinking, “What is Sloop Tavern?” But after that first race, we certainly had their attention.
As day one progressed, we had high tides and low tides in our results as we learned how skilled the other skippers were at starting, how quickly the Catalinas slow down in any sort of bad air, and how much power they need to get up and go. Without local knowledge, we gathered data and experimented, finding that we were on par with regard to boat handling and boat speed, and tactically in the mix, often making gains downwind. But the racing was so tight that even a small reduction in boat speed meant that the more experienced teams were already there capitalizing.
Emily reflected that, “The real joy was seeing a group of highly skilled sailors, many of whom had never sailed together before, seamlessly perform at a really high level. A big part of our success was proactive communication. Molly set a great precedent for starting and ending each day with conversations about what we were doing and how we could improve, and everyone else on the crew gave productive feedback for all of us to continually streamline our maneuvers. We spent a lot of time anticipating things that might go wrong and talking through what we could do to avoid them rather than taking a reactionary approach. There wasn’t a single ego on board, and we all jumped in wherever we saw a gap to keep the boat moving.”
From the jump, our boat handling and communication were solid, and we spent the day focusing on small tweaks and adjustments to try to squeak out every bit of boat speed and get more efficient with maneuvers, all the while having a blast with smiles for days. You know it’s a good time when the call for the pole and spinnaker up around the windward mark evolves into, “Tits up, Ethel! Nice and perky!” The Maivens ended the day feeling pumped for more racing.
Back at the dock, Elishia and Emily somehow convinced the rest of the team to recreate the moment of their meeting Vikki at the same event in 2016, by jumping in the yacht club pool; mostly clothed, just as they had done all those years before! As expected, the Maivens made friends with the bartenders and wait staff at the regatta dinner hosted by LBYC, and predictably persuaded the club manager to give us the code to the stereo system. We proceeded to DJ and dance, grabbing as many of the servers and sailors from other teams as possible to join the rumpus in the middle of the main dining room. The Northwest Maivens didn’t just win the party, we were the party!
After an early morning tradition of renaming the other boats (a sign of respect in our local sailing culture) and an on-the-water dance off between teams as we waited in postponement for the wind to fill, we were ready to see how much more we could improve on day two. The Catalina 37s are sensitive to weight placement, and we were getting progressively better at backing the jib and throwing our weight around as a group as we roll-tacked the heavy 37-foot boats. Molly and Stephanie were nailing the starts, and race two of the day had us in a jibing duel with Hawaii (who were winning overall) on the last downwind leg, merging right at the finish line and sneaking out a photo finish in front of them. We were impressed that our team could do that many jibes—not an easy maneuver on this boat—and not lose any distance on them. On the dock, their team came over to tell us that, “You were a force to be reckoned with out there! We kept crossing and saying, ‘There’s the Sloop Tavern team again! We couldn’t shake you!’”
As soon as the final race finished, the whole team was in agreement that we wished there was more racing because we had really started to gel and figure the boat out. A review of the final results revealed that we finished sixth overall and beat every team at least once, which left us hungry and eager for next year!
In Molly’s words, “High tide: Putting together a team that became cohesive, literally overnight, and an abundance of skills and beautiful spirits. Also, our ability to come out sailing a clean regatta. Low tide: It ended too soon!”
