Corinthian Yacht Club’s PSSC (Pacific Coast Sailing Championships) is always a chance to take advantage of CYC’s race management and get a refresher coarse on currents. And with big currents, this past weekend’s regatta off Shilshole Bay Marina was a big refresher coarse.
12 RS Aeros and 12 Lasers were registered, and 11 boats sailed in each fleet. We shared the course with those seeming megayachts (to us) the J/24s and Moore 24s, plus some Stars, Snipes and a couple of Tasars. The Cascadia Cup kept the juniors on the freshwater for this series, but we expect to lure them in for Turkey Bowl and Frigid Digit in the coming months.
Here are some photos courtesy of Jan Anderson. Visit her Smugmug page to see the rest. Click to enlarge.
On Saturday we worked with a light southerly and ebbing that had some confounding conditions. Sometimes in worked, sometimes out. Early in the flood,, holding west worked. Then everything went quiet, then a northerly came blasting in along with some rain. For those of us (I was one) thinking that that was it for the day – well, we’d be wrong. The RC scrambled to set a course in the northerly and one more race was sailed in a dying breeze. That brought the total to 5 races for the day and sent home some very tired sailors. CYC also offered a pig roast (after the Pig Parade when said cooked pig was put on display upstairs for all to see. Hmmm.)
On Sunday those of us who looked out at the glassy Sound and thought, “no racing today,” well – we’d be wrong again. The northerly came down Sound like a champ and 4 races were held. It wasn’t great breeze, but good enough for fair racing. And if one thinks that current always trumps breeze, well, one would be wrong again. On the beat in the last race of the day sticking one’s bow out into the ripping flood paid off.
Dalton Bergan won the Aeros handily, despite choosing a 7 rig for Saturday. His father in law Carl Buchan did the same, no doubt to match up better. (“I felt a little bad” Dalton admitted) The bigger Carl couldn’t quite overcome the sail area issue on Saturday, and ended third. Todd Willsie sailed a strong regatta, winning 2 of the 9 races, to finish second.
In the Lasers a number of young sailors showed up and showed their speed. Blake Bentzen won a close regatta with conistency. I feel lucky to have finished second and Stasi Burzycki finished third despite recording a 9th when his hiking stick took some time off from the tiller.
On a personal note, I was lucky on several accounts: lucky to have raced against such fine young sailors as Blake, Stasi, Luke, Kit and Per. Lucky to be sharing the course with such fine longtime sailors as Jay Winberg and Jim Santroch who still find the Laser a worthwhile challenge, lucky about Stasi’s hiking stick issue and lucky that breeze out in the middle filled in and rescued me from the flood in the last race.
–Kurt Hoehne, 200192