STYC – S/V Kinetics

Race Your House 2019

Another year, another RYH event with Sloop Tavern Yacht Club here in Seattle. We used this year’s race as a practice and warm up for the upcoming Round the County race in the San Juan Islands the following weekend. It was good we did. There is always that familiarization that that needs to take place after not being on the boat for a few months. Conditions were quite nice for November in the Northwest. The course took us across the Sound, and there the wind died, and at that mark and we made a tactical error. I should say, I did, which cost us time and let our competition get by us. The wind went from North to East in that rounding and having an A2 running kite up was not the best plan. We recovered and put the A2 up later in the leg more towards the East side before another upwind leg and final downwind leg to the finish. We managed to eek out a 2nd in class on rating. Fun day, and the competition in our class was good.

RTTS 2018

On a whim I entered the boat into the 2018 Race to the Straits (there is only one Strait) but whatever. It is a NW classic now with a cap at 125 boats. After last week’s rainy, windless bust of a race to Smith Island I figured what the heck. With bowman Tim on as crew the weather was way better but typically PNW being all over the place, not to forecast day one and a near drifter on Sunday. Still we had a great time albeit with some disappointing moments that were all our fault. I think that is what keeps us coming back despite the level of effort required to sail a 44 foot, 24,000 pound boat with just two people.

Jan’s Marine photo from Saturday’s upwind leg to Port Townsend

Day one we managed 4th place in class 11 despite some screw ups on my part. Day two we sailed a hard race downwind in light air with barely enough wind to keep big old Kinetics moving. Sadly I failed to get our halfway time in before the 8pm deadline so instead of a second place in class 11 on Sunday we were dead last! Rules is rules. We really enjoyed trading places with the awesome Sir Issac all day. That boat must be just as much work to sail with two people. Here are a few pics from the two days. Mostly other people’s boats. [results changed Tuesday morning and our 12:59 halfway time would have put us in second not first on Sunday].

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.