Every year Round the County delivers one of the best racing experiences in the Pacific Northwest. The weather in November almost guarantees some challenging conditions. Combine that with the amazing geography of the San Juan Islands and you have all the ingredients for some great fun sorting out tactics and strategy. This year the weather was dominated by mild, light wind conditions so knowing when and where to stay out of the current was the key to doing well. It also generally favored the lighter boats that accelerate quickly in light, puffy conditions. On Kinetics we had some new and veteran crew ready to do our best with the mighty beast.
We failed to stay out of the current enough on Saturday fearing a lack of wind under the lee of Lopez Island after a late start. That put us way down in our division 3 which was dominated by the J105’s that day. The wind was a bit too light to get the big Nordic 44 moving well. On the plus side, we finished and the weather was really nice with sailing in water with almost no chop or swell of any kind.
After an excellent start on Sunday, hitting line within seconds of the horn, we sailed out to Turn Point on Stuart Island where the entire fleet went about trying to find the best way around in an adverse current and light wind. Ultimately it was decided to short tack around the point. Others went way outside in what looked like a visit to Canada. Amazingly, the cross border people did OK and for the boat Sir Issac, it was a brilliant move putting them way out front. That boat has a lot of sail area!
The next few hours of the day were spent struggling to stay out of wind holes that seemed to land on us from out of nowhere. A lot of boats went south after Waldron Island and others stayed out in the channel. There was current in the channel and without enough wind to keep us moving we fell behind. Soon it was looking bleak for us. We went from good to awful. But maybe not as bad as the ones that got 5 horns from the container ship!
However, never give up in a sailboat race as you never know what the winds have in store. As we approached the turn around the east end of Orcas Island the wind started to build and we were soon gybing downwind with the A2 at a decent pace. We picked off a few boats in the process. The big surprise was when we passed the Peapods and saw the majority of the fleet parked up short of the finish in zero wind! Kinetics was riding a wall of wind, at times 15 knots or more, right down to them. It was hard to believe. I had trouble figuring out what they were all doing as boats were trying to get to the finish line from the north and the south but almost no one was going right at the line. Time Bandit came up to us from astern and was soon really the only boat close. Time Bandit being a very successful team from many previous races was probably wondering why we were in their way!
We hooked up with them, letting them go below to lead the gybe in (although I grumbled a bit about the timing). The two of us rode the wind right up to about 100 feet short of the line where the wind died. Our momentum carried us across the line in front of what I suspect were some very surprised crews. Unbelievable finish. Lucky? I guess so but we worked hard to get to that spot that got us over the line and we had our own bad luck on the way there. Some days it goes your way.
Many thanks to my crew this year who persevered and helped make this RTC one of the most memorable. Thanks, Ann, Dave, Jeff, Jenn, Mike, Sara and Tim. Below are links to more photos.
A fun new addition to my post is Jeff’s YouTube 360 video with our start and finish. Use your mouse to view the action in any direction!
Dave’s photos: https://lase.smugmug.com/2018-RTC-on-Kinetics
My photos from Sunday: https://adobe.ly/2FuhgLE