Blakely Rock – S/V Kinetics

Blakely Rock Benefit

Crew Jumps Ship, Sails on Tranquillite

We decided to all go out on Tranquillite, a Swan 46, owned by a friend here in Seattle. Another nice day for racing with what was likely over 100 boats starting in over a dozen classes. STYC does their usual awesome job getting off over a dozen starts on time. We had decent breeze round the course from Shilshole over to Blakely Rock and most of the way back but it shut down as forecast right at 2pm. Down came the .75oz kite and up went the drifter which allowed us to drift our way around Meadow Point buoy and on to the finish. As the scratch boat in our class I don’t think we passed anyone so the day was all about sailing with friends, helping to raise money for the Sailing Foundation, a great organization, and enjoying just being out on the water. Here are a few pics from the race.

Next up for Kinetics is the Tri Island series with SYC.

The after guard discussing something import

New guy Alex from Boston getting some time on the spin sheets

Downwind look towards Meadow point and where there won’t be any wind in about 20 minutes

Blakely Rock Benefit 2014

I’d say we got lucky with the weather. It could have been a lot worse. As it was we had wind, a decent amount of it, not too much rain and it wasn’t that cold. For mid March that’s not bad. We always like to participate in these charity events. The cause this time was Sail Sand Point and the club raised $9,300 for them. That’s a win!

There is a nice write up by Ben Braden here of the race so I won’t repeat what he has done such a good job of. We had a good time for the most part. Things went a bit pear shaped at the end for us but we got out, sailed, had fun and came home safe. Below is a photo from Jan’s Marine that finally shows our new A2 from another boat.

SBYC Snowbird 2013-2014

We went out feeling pretty good. We grabbed a second place in our 5th and final race of the Shilshole Bay Yacht Club’s Snowbird series. It was a great day for a winter race. Good wind, great course (we went over to Blakely Rock off of Bainbridge Island), the rain was very light and the competition was good. We had a good start although it was dicey being on port tack with the big Beneteau coming in on starboard but in the end the Bene was in a no win situation and all of us port tackers won out. We played it conservatively at the Rock turn and let the Dehler 39 Deltane get inside us. That allowed us to have fun all the way downwind to Meadow point where we were side by side most of the time. They pulled ahead but we slipped inside at the leeward mark and made it to the line a bit ahead. The crew all did well today and it shows we are starting to click and get smarter as a team. Thanks to SBYC for putting on the series. A big thanks to my friends that show up for the fun and games.

Next up another Blakely Rock race with my club STYC. We know the drill if the wind is the same! Here’s nice pic from Sara’s cam with me trimming for a change. Jacqui on the helm dueling it out with the Dehler 39 about 50 feet to my back.