Year in and year out, the Swiftsure International Yacht Race hosted by Royal Victoria Yacht Club, seems to teach me lessons about preparation. Of all the races in the Pacific Northwest, preparing for Swiftsure most closely resembles preparing for the other ocean-racing classics around the world, and I have found that building good habits here has helped me tremendously elsewhere.
This recap is going to be a little different. While I will recount some of the stories and interesting moments from this year’s race, I also want to share the lessons, triumphs, and mishaps from our crew, using some good advice from excellent sailors and friends as a framework.
For the crew of Terramoto, the now 30-year-old Paul Bieker-designed Riptide 35 MK1, preparation for the 2026 Swiftsure Race started back in December 2025. The catch was that our core group on Terramoto had been planning to sail this year’s race on the new-to-town Melges 40, Blackbird.
For those of you who do not know, a Melges 40 is a full-on Grand Prix inshore race boat designed for windward-leeward racing in the Mediterranean Sea. Every sail-control system is led through holes in the deck. It is pretty much the wettest boat any of us has ever sailed that still has a keel. Oh, and about that keel: it is a 3.2-meter strut with an 1,100 kg bulb that cants 45 degrees off the centerline—not exactly a typical 40-foot race boat.
Due to quite a few scheduling conflicts, we were unable to fit any races into our schedule before Swiftsure. However, we were lucky enough to get two weekends of practice leading into the race. In hindsight, we learned more in those four days of practice than I have learned during an entire racing season on other boats. For us, reefing was a primary concern with the Melges 40, which brings me to:
Excellent, Relevant Advice #1
Jonathan McKee taught me that you must be able to reef in any condition and without hesitation. Come up with a system, make a checklist, and practice!
On Blackbird, the boom was not set up for reefing, and the main halyard had only one halyard-lock bullet. We installed a Karver Reef Hook system at the end of the boom and added another lock bullet to the halyard. We took detailed measurements of the areas with extra track reinforcement on the mast to avoid damaging the track in the reefed position. Once completed, we went out and practiced reefing and unreefing several times—some in “slow-motion” mode to make sure the system worked and some in full-on race mode. In the end, we felt confident in our ability to reef if needed.
However, the best-laid plans do not always work out, and one week before the race start, we discovered structural damage in our keel fin. Our race was over…
Or was it? I quickly sent an email to my friend Jim Betts and asked what the likelihood was of getting the Riptide 35 Terramoto out of his shop and ready to race in seven days. About 20 minutes later, I got a response saying, “Let’s make it happen.”
Another quick call to Terramoto’s owner, Bill Weinstein, to see if he wanted to go for it: “Absolutely.”
The catch was that Terramoto was currently sitting indoors in Anacortes with the keel off and the rig down. Five days later, Terramoto was rolling down the road in Anacortes. Forty hours to race start… oof. Luckily, our crew had an uneventful delivery to Victoria and immediately got into the nitty-gritty of preparing for what was expected to be a wet, windy race, despite not having put a sail up on Terramoto in over a year.
We checked all our batten tensions, hoisted jibs to make sure the head-strop lengths were appropriate for our halyard lock, checked our rig tune against historical numbers, secured any loose nuts and bolts, conducted a rig inspection, and verified that we had all the required safety equipment.
One of the most important aspects of any offshore or coastal race is having the right mix of food on board. In recent years, we have moved away from freeze-dried meals for races as short as Swiftsure because of the added complexity of preparing hot water. Instead, we stick to cold food, including sandwiches, bars, and three large pizzas, which we “meal prep” into Ziplock bags.
With pizza and crew loaded aboard, we made our way to the start off Clover Point. Conditions were moderate to begin with, with only 12–15 knots from the west. However, wind readings farther up the course showed gusts into the 30s. We started with the J2 and full main, expecting to switch to the J3 or J4 by the time we reached Race Rocks. As expected, the breeze built into the 20s, and we began our jib change, just as we had practiced.
But wait, Terramoto has a twin foil setup versus Blackbird’s single foil. We began dragging the J3 up the inside of the J2 for our sail change, but soon remembered that we had only one jib cunningham to tension the luff (Terramoto has a jib halyard lock). We would have to do a “hot swap” of the cunningham onto the new sail to achieve proper luff tension. As we were doing this, we began tearing the old sail out of the headfoil. Not good.
We tried to speed up the process of getting the new sail up and onto the lock, but it also began tearing out of the foil. Oh no. As I watched in horror while we double-zipped both sails out of the headfoil, I thought of advice from my friend Andrew McCorquodale, who taught me to use a jib-tack safety during a headsail change. This advice is:
Excellent, Relevant Advice #2
On an asymmetrical boat, Andrew recommends clipping the spinnaker tack line to the jib tack to prevent the sail from tearing out of the track while hoisting the new jib or tacking off the old one. This is especially important on a boat with halyard locks.
Rocks in building breeze.
Having forgotten this excellent advice, we now had two jibs flying free from the top of the rig in an impressive display. The crew sprang into action, and everyone who was not holding the tiller was soon on the bow wrestling the sails back aboard. Once things settled down, we hooked up the J3 again and, rather than tempt the zippering gods a second time, performed a downwind hoist to prevent it from tearing out of the foil. I’ll admit, it is an unpleasant feeling to be sailing downwind at 10 knots knowing you still have 45 miles of upwind sailing ahead of you.
We continued through Race Rocks in a pretty robust sea state, encouraged by nearly four knots of current and 25 knots of breeze. At this moment, we should have reefed. However, we had not practiced reefing on Terramoto in over a year, and I was worried about tearing the bolt rope out of the track. I was kicking myself for not following my own rule from Takeaway #1. Luckily, we were able to manage the boat with a full main and J3, although it was far from ideal.
After this, our strategy was relatively simple: continue to the U.S. shore, play the shifts up the Washington coast, and stay out of trouble. We managed to do just that (other than pinging the wind gear off the top of the rig during an especially hard landing) and rounded Neah Bay around 4:30 p.m. We set the A2 spinnaker and began sailing down the Strait in pursuit of Club Swan 42 Free Bowl of Soup, Santa Cruz 52 Rosebud, Carkeek 40 Zvi, and IRC42 Zulu 5.
Conditions swung in favor of the Riptide 35 as we began planing downwind at speeds exceeding 20 knots. Soon, we were closing in on Sheringham and managed to pull off the first of two jibes in more than 25 knots of breeze. We were now gaining on Zvi and Zulu 5, both of whom we could see ahead without spinnakers set. We made our final jibe toward Race Rocks, and the wind kept building. Knowing our time with the spinnaker up was limited, we rigged for a letterbox takedown well in advance. This is something our crew has practiced extensively, and everyone knew exactly what to do. This brings us to:
Excellent, Relevant Advice #3
Tim Scanlon taught me how important it is to know how to execute a letterbox takedown quickly and confidently. A letterbox takedown is when you pull the spinnaker down between the mainsail foot and the boom using the lazy guy or lazy sheet. This blankets the sail behind the main and unloads it.
The key steps are:
- Lead the lazy sheet between the mainsail and boom, through a snatch block on the high side, and then to a winch.
- Ease the outhaul to increase the gap between the main and the boom.
- Prepare the tack line to run.
- Take up tension on the lazy sheet using a winch handle.
- Blow the tack line and begin grinding in the lazy sheet. The clew should pass through the gap between the main and boom and move to the weather side.
- Gather the entire foot, including the tack.
- Drop the halyard.
Perhaps our lack of wind instrumentation made us a bit braver than we should have been, but we eventually doused the kite about two miles from Race Passage. When we finally had a chance to look around, we realized the wind had likely been well over 30 knots. Victoria was now in our sights as we planed toward the finish under main and jib. The wind slowly began to ease and lift, so we hoisted the A5 for the final few miles into Victoria before crossing the line a little after 8:45 p.m. It was the earliest I had ever finished the race, and it was incredible to be able to go out for a normal dinner at 9:30 in the evening on Swiftsure day. Adding to the positive experience, we are proud to have come first overall among ORC Monohulls on the Cape Flattery course.
Despite the mistakes we made along the way, we still managed to sail safely and have an incredibly fun time with a group of people I have sailed with for many years. Swiftsure gave us what it always does, a taste of ocean racing among excellent sailors in one of the world’s most beautiful venues. This year’s addition of cooperative tides and big breeze made it one that will surely live large in the memory bank for every sailor fortunate enough to have made the journey.
Full results www.swiftsure.org/results
Note: Feature image by Richard Marshall.
