You know it’s going to be a good day of racing when 1) the smell of cows wafts on the back of the thermals rolling down Blowers’s Bluff, 2) the marine layer dissipates by noon revealing the snow-capped Olympic Mountains to the west, and 3) the pure white mumd of Mt. Baker and the craggy Cascades erupt on the Eastern horizon.
Four days down, one to go. Going into Thursday’s racing several of the 11 classes of 115 boats competing in Whidbey Island Race Week 2012 were tied for the top spot. And many were within just a one-point spread between places two, three and four. Seven races are needed for a throwout, And with the wind forecast to get heavier by Friday, meaning the toss out for their worst score is a given for the racers, keeping the final outcome a suspense to the bitter end is a given.
During the summer in Puget Sound one is able to race every day of the week. So why bother making the trip to a remote outpost on an island that still relies on propane for heat and seems more at times like a scene from Northern Exposure rather than just 75 miles between the two booming tech metropolitan hot spots of Seattle and Vancouver, B.C.? For starters, the northern latitude of the Pacific Northwest manifests itself in days that last longer than anywhere else in the contiguous United States. (Geographical fact: Seattle is further north than Toronto, Canada.) Throughout July the morning sun pokes it fingers through the drapes shortly after 4:00 am. It doesn’t get dark again until past 10:00 pm. Local Fourth of July fireworks displays don’t even begin until about 10:30 p.m., which sucks if the holiday falls midweek. (But at least our civic displays of professional pyrotechnics last longer than 15 seconds…)
Perhaps another reason more than a thousand yachties choose to spend their summer vacation at WIRW is the local bounty. The long damp spring resulted in blueberries the size of plums and raspberries as big as fun-size Snickers, yet even sweeter. The crab season is seeing record hauls –the Dungeness are crawling over each other just to be first to the turkey legs in the pots. The Kings have returned, finally, so if you like wild Pacific salmon, simply drop a line at lunchtime and you’ll be feasting in 45 minutes. Though you’ll be competing with bald eagles, harbor seals, sea lion, Great Blue Herons and Orca whales for your daily meal.
Need more convincing? How about few mosquitos, no snakes, deer ticks nor venomous spiders. low humidity, temps in the mid 70s and blue skies, with a couple of clouds tossed in simply to make the sunsets stunning. But let’s get back to the racing. The RC managed to juggle the 100+ in eleven classes meaning there here starts at the same time there were classes finishing, such as the flock of T-Birds coming across the start line while the Vipers, with “The Doctors”’s Dr. Sears, aboard FNG, crossing the finish line to secure another great race.
Thursday’s racing included a gate. Would it pay to go left or right? Depends on the weather, of course, but one of the front runners, James Spear’s FNG, chose the less popular starboard gate. A flyer? Perhaps, but following the herd is simply that, while choosing the path less traveled is often, well, more interesting.
Speaking of more interesting, Bryan Agnetta’s Davidson 30, Dangerous When Wet, a front runner in PHRF class 3, earned one of the several Over Earlies on Thursday. The first, and so far only (knock on wood) collision was between David Cohen’s, J/9-, “Eye Eye” and Bruce Chan’s Farr 30, “65 Red Rose” (aka, Cystic Fibrosis) at the start of Thursday’s first race. Another interesting race-type move of note was the really nice port tack start by John Rahn on his Melges 24, Pickled Beets. Not surprisingly. Two of the top boats , Shrek, John Hoag’s ID35 , and Adam Korbins’s Astral Plane, led the fleet around the courses on Thursday.
Liza Tewell
