Day Third – Wednesday, July 15
By Liza Tewell
Oak Harbor, WA, USA (July 15, 2009) — Wednesday, July 15, the third day of the five-day ‘Ohana Harbor Coffee Whidbey Island Race Week regatta, brought the total number of starts fired off for the 94 boats so far to 64. Ranging from the J/125, Roxanne, with a PHRF rating of 6, to Tom Black’s US25, Blackie, with a PHRF rating of 244, each of the entries in the regatta’s nine classes has accumulated six races – just one more race is needed to allow each boat a mulligan and to throw out their worst performance for the week.
This year’s event is a week earlier than those of some other years which makes the weather more of a crapshoot, though the marine layer bubbling over the strait to the west on Wednesday morning signaled the imminent arrival of the familiar westerly in Penn Cove.
And a crapshoot is what the sailors faced in the day’s first race. For the first four of the nine classes competing, they saw their initial race – a longish windward leeward – abandoned because of a 90-degree wind shift at the leeward mark set in Saratoga Passage. Whereas the westerly in Penn Cove was consistent and true, the wind outside the cove shifted to a northerly after the race began. The convergence of both winds created a hole, coincidentally just where the big yellow triangle was set. An hour earlier the breeze was stable, but as the sailors aboard the nearly 100 racing boats have learned, anything can happen weather-wise in early July.
Though temperatures did not reach into the 70s, sunscreen was still a necessity. When the sun comes out in the Northwest, even if a northerly bent to the breeze keeps it cool, sunburns arrive quick and hot. When it comes to sunblock application, mid-July racing at sea level can be uncannily like spring skiing in the Cascades.
With a day of three races already under the collective belt of the fleet, and another couple of days slated for more competition, one day doesn’t necessarily make a regatta. The decision to abandon the race was made in the best interest of running fair races. Unlike some weekend races when there’s only one chance at running the course and that’s it, a regatta such as this, with the possibility of perhaps 11 races total, the choosing to run – or abandon – a race is made in the best interest of holding the fairest race possible. Those who may have felt it was the right decision included the Melges 32, Ballistic, whose Tuesday starts were a little more on target. On board is rigger Chris Tutmark, who is taking a breather from campaigning his Mini TransAt. Follow his progress at http://usa724-mini.blogspot.com/.
Because the wind was a bit breezier on Wednesday, the current a little messier, and opening day jitters had given way to more cut-throat competition, starts were more aggressive, as well. The “Performance 30” boats in Class P7 even managed to rack up a race week rarity – a general recall. Unfortunately in some classes, not all boats that were on course side when the horn sounded went back to dip the line, resulting in some unhappy campers, literally. Plus, an additional finish line created some confusion to those who didn’t keep track of the courses as best that maybe they should, as a start line violation results in automatic disqualification.
For those who did manage to keep track of their proscribed courses throughout the day, they were lucky. Of course, there are those who say that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And then there were those who went into Wednesday’s racing with some unanticipated issues, such as DSQs from the protest hearings in the morning. Wednesday’s interesting results simply added to the hodgepodge, indicating that the regatta is far from decided.
Those who were seeming to be the clear front-runners Tuesday in class P4, Erik Kristen’s Jubilee, and Mike Schiltz’s Money Shot, were shadowed by the performance of Lorenzo Migliorini’s Allegro Vivace on Wednesday, who pulled a reversal of fortune. “There are a lot of good sailors in our class,” says Kelly Martin, emphasizing “a lot.” A crewmember aboard Bifrost III, Martin acknowledges that the talent among the one-design J/105 class is not lacking.
There are plenty of distractions, however, to keep racers from dwelling too much on missed starts and rules infractions. Crabbing (with a license) is legal Wednesday through Saturday in the waters around Oak Harbor, and in addition to sails and foulweather gear, and sandwiches and beer, several boats also carted crab pots out to the race course. Planning to pool their catches of Dungeness crab, the racers of ‘Ohana Whidbey Island Race Week seem to be channeling the Deadliest Catch.
Back at the docks, the plethora of hotel boats make sure that the instant community that has sprung up on the Oak Harbor Marina guest docks is full of like-minded sailors who play as hard as they race.
On dry land, REI tents have sprouted like mushrooms in tent city on the Navy base, just a stone’s throw from the marina – and the rum tent. A misnomer, the tent is actually an area on the beachfront grounds of the Oak Harbor Yacht Club that’s surrounded by vendors and drink stations. A covered stage at one end hosts a live band during each evening’s festivities and results ceremony. It’s been some years since the party grounds were indeed held in a true tent, not unlike a circus big-top, but the name stuck.
Additionally, the handle “Adult Summer Camp” is also a misnomer as there are half as many kids at race week as adults. In fact, some adults were at one time the kids at the regatta. Those still making the transition between the two include Clara Koch, who, at the age of 12, is at her 13th race week. Koch was just three months old when she attended Whidbey Island Race Week for the first time. Brenda Stuntz, racing in P5 her all-women Melges 24, Cool Beans, and her husband Gary Stuntz, organizer of Whidbey Island Race Week, have brought along for his first race week, the newest member of their family, three-week old Christian James.
