On June 14th and 15th, Laura Farris, Kristin Pierce and I competed in the Area H-East Adams Cup Eliminations at Oak Harbor, in Solings. A total of 6 teams participated: Natalie Pryde and the crew that has won for the previous two years from Seattle, along with Tina Kershaw and a crew from the Olson 30 Surfer Girl. Jillian Heyward, a Canadian Olympic alternate and the 1993 winner represented the Royal Victoria Yacht Club with two gregarious and experienced crew. Two local teams also attended: Molly French represented the Oak Harbor Yacht Club, and Andrea Lemon, an alumna of the Naval College sailing program, skippered a team from the Whidbey Island Naval Sailing Association.
We arrived Friday (yes, the 13th!) to get a little practice on the boats and in the area. We had spent the previous two weeks practicing as much as possible in the Budd Inlet Sailing Club’s Solings, which I think lent us a slight initial advantage. However, none of our team had raced in Penn Cove before, nor had much experience racing either together or on similar boats.
T.K. Wegg, the race manager, had borrowed and delivered six Solings from a sailing club on Orcas
Island, and they were each very different. For example: halyards had different ways of cleating, were led to various spots, and some of the jibs had a fine tune adjustment too. Each crew had a new boat in each race, and between races, we had less than 1/2 hour to learn which of the many little strings did what.
One boat in particular seemed to be jinxed. It was slow, the adjustments weren’t as good, the chute was old and hard to trim, but it was more than that. Bad things just seemed to happen to whoever was on the boat. When it was our turn, we hit the committee boat anchor line and had to do a 720. The Canadians, who got it in the last race, were over early in an aggressive bid to knock Natalie out of first place. As they had sailed past in the pre-start, they made faces: "Yucky boat!"
On Sunday, the incoming southerly system appeared to be warring with the usual flow off the Straits. The committee boat postponed the first race three hours, reset the course several times, and recalled one start, due to changing wind speed and direction. For a while, we weren’t sure if we would race at all. Finally, the wind steadied from the southwest, and we were able to complete the last two races.
In a hard fought battle, Natalie won again with the Canadians in a close second. She and her crew will go to the Nationals in Louisiana in September. We ended up fifth. Teams traded places during each race, with the first four teams winning at least one race each, and usually everyone finished close together.
In my opinion, the weekend was an unqualified success. We had a wonderful time, pushed ourselves to the utmost, and learned a great deal. We had our share of individual frustrations and victories, as each boat and each race presented a different set of challenges. The other teams were friendly and supportive, passing tips on each boat’s traits as we traded off. It was well worth all the effort, and I’m already planning for next year’s attempt!
Susanne Windels, Sky Hi