 After a Thursday afternoon of sunshine and breeze and an evening of music and food in the rum tent on the lawn of the Oak Harbor Yacht Club, the racers aboard the 115 race boats competing in Whidbey Island Race Week 2012 stumbled from their nearby tents and returned to the waters of Penn Cove the morning of Friday, July 20 for one final day of fun.
The Vipers, a dozen strong with ten making it to the starting lines for their Pacific Coast Championships, settled their scrappy week-long fight with a total of ten races. Thanks to the throw-out, it was Ed Feo’s Locomotion representing Alamitos Bay Yacht Club who broke the tie over local favorite Garret Johnson and his KAA crew from Anacortes YC. Each earned a final tally of 26 points. Surprisingly, KAA never bulleted a race, but held strong with five seconds during the week. Coming in third, with three firsts under their belts, was the FNG Dr. James Sears and his crew aboard FNG, also from Alamitos YC.
For their 2012 World Championships, the 16-boat Thunderbird fleet who selected WIRW as the venue to vie for the carved wooden perpetual trophy also enjoyed ten races in which to decide bragging honors, at least until next year. As with the Viper contest, Craig Burnell and crew aboard the super speedy Predator also claimed the top for the championship by winning a tie breaker. With just three bullets and just one second place finish, Burnell’s boat from Seattle’s Corinthian Yacht Club eked out a win with 25 points to Duncan Stamper’s Sunday, whose 25 points contained just one bullet and three seconds. Kyle Henehan’s San Diego based Compound X, representing Mission Bay Yacht Club took third for the week with 31 points. (Burnell’s cousin, Stuart Burnell, aboard his T-Bird, Kuma San, took fifth. Joe James, representing Three Tree Point Yacht Club, campaigned Stuart’s other boat, Tantivy, a perpetual front runner in Puget Sound races. Tantivy took fourth in the P4 Class.)
Tie breakers for the week’s top places weren’t reserved for just first—second and third in the Melges 24 class were also decided by a tie breaker. Each representing Seattle’ Corinthian Yacht Club and each with a week’s total of 25 points, Chris Johnson’s Wiggle Room took the silver, while John Rahn’s Pickled Beets took the bronze. Fellow CYC member, Tom Norris, and his crew aboard Gravy secured gold with 18 points.
The J/105s always put on a Corinthian show of good sportsmanship and solid competition and WIRW 2012 was no exception, with bullets sprinkled among the fleet, and daily awards going to almost each of the eight entries. But it was Jerry Diercks and his Pacific Northwest posse aboard Delirium who walked away with the big win at the end. The three amigos campaigning Corinthian Yacht Club-Portland’s Free Bowl of Soup, Doug Schenk, Eric Hopper and Matt Davis, took second overall with 24 points. And just one point behind stood Bellevue, Washington, based Erik Kristen and his Jubilee.
Several classes saw clear breakaway leaders, such as Class P10. Karen Anderson’s Martin 241, Dragonfly, gave up just one bullet but was able to throw it away to earn just seven points. Shannon Buys’ Magic Juan, coming off last month’s San Juan 24s North Americans (also held at the Oak Harbor Yacht Club) managed to overcome a first day bottom-of-the-pack ninth place and crawled back up to second for the week. (The San Juan 24s NA’s winner, Dave Steckman’s Oak Harbor based Skamokawa fell to fourth, missing third for the week by just one point.) Looking strong and finishing strong with a shiny new headsail, though not necessarily consistent throughout the week, was the venerable Jim McAlpine and his sprightly crew aboard the J/24 Lucky Jim, also from Oak Harbor.
Also finishing with a perfect score of 7 (thanks to being able to toss a sixth-place finish, as did Dragonfly) was Laney Gale and her crew aboard the Olson 911, Blue Martini (representing both Hood River Yacht Club and Seattle Sloop Tavern YC), in the Performance 30 class. Second, from Montesano, of all places (this small county seat in Washington is not far from the birthplace of Kurt Cobain), J. Rosenbach’s Beneteau 35s5, Bodacious, earned a hard-fought-for second with 15 points and a relatively consistent string of second place daily spots. Third was Ken Chin’s Olsen 911 Kowloon, with their Montana-based tactician, Dennis Muri, calling the shifts. The Kowloon Nation also gets the award for best crew shirts for the week.
A third woman skipper also claimed a top spot. April Butler’s Dart, Ogopogo, from Bainbridge Island, Washington earned first in the PHRF class P8 over the two Rocket 22s, Chris Lloyd’s southern Washington state, Octopussy, and Aaron Leskoseck’s, South Lake Union Trolley, from Summerland, British Columbia.
In the Super 30 class, two Flying Tiger 10Ms had to wait for the final day to decide the 10-boat strong leader. After the dust settled, it was Kirk Leslie’s Prowler, from West Vancouver who emerged victorious. Charles Rice’s, Charlie Mike, representing Portland Yacht Club, took second, with Daniel Randolph’s Farr 30 from Seattle, just two points behind in third.
The top three PHRF classes duked it out like a rumble on the water. John Hoag’s 1D35, Shrek, and Herb Cole’s Melges 32, Ballistic, first and second in the big boat class, finished within one point of each other. Andre Wojcieszek’s 1D Radical Departure, down from West Vancouver’s Eagle Harbour Yacht Club, took third place for the class back with them north across the border. In Class P2, representing Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, Jack Prentice and his crack crew of kids and adults aboard the J/109 Diva took an early lead and never looked back (though they threw a rare fifth place in at the end of the week’s racing just to sandbag a bit). Brad Butler’s Sierra 26x, UNO, earned a respectable second. Third place was anybody’s guess, and in a suspenseful finish to the week’s racing—finally earning a bullet—it was S. Adam Korbin’s J/109, Astral Plane and his crazy Canadian crew from Royal Van who celebrated their bronze win like partiers of an Olympic caliber.
Yet another tie-breaker was needed to decide the overall finisher in Class P3. With just ten points it was Bryan Agnetta’s Davidson 30, Dangerous When Wet, whose bullet in the week’s final race secured them the top spot in class, with Bob Mayfield and Pat Nelson’s J/29 Slick taking second, also with just ten points. Poster child for the week (literally), the IOR two-ton, Shoot the Moon, with Don Wills at the helm, took third. Wills has competed at Whidbey Island Race each of the regatta’s thirty years, and his achievement was honored with the artwork gracing this year’s poster. Coincidentally, an earlier boat of Wills’, the sleek lined Q-class, Grayling, was racing at WIRW 2012 in Class P9. Grayling is now campaigned by Duke Phan.
Whidbey Island Race Week 2013 is on the calendar for Sunday, July 14 through Friday, July 19, with Dinghys Whidbey Island 2013 (SWI) set for July 13 and 14. With 2012 being a Vic-Maui year, WIRW sometimes sees a slight cannibalization of crew. This year’s Vic-Maui winner, Tom Huseby and his seasoned crew aboard his newest J/145, Double Take, may return to WIRW in 2013, along with some other big boats to make it a fair fight. And rumor also has it that Whidbey Island Race Week organizer Gary Stuntz has lined up a title sponsor throughout at least the next three years (with specific dates to be determined by the tides), so plan your vacations through 2015 accordingly.
