Story and photos are by Roy Montgomery and were published in the June 1979 issue of the magazine Sailing vol 13 no. 10. They are used here by permission of Sailing.
The text is bellow. It is short as this is primarily a pictorial. The photos follow.
Rain is to the great Northwest what sunshine is to Florida. When in doubt, expect it to rain. Sailors of the northwest savor the rare sunny days, but not quite as much as the windy days. The rains came as expected during the Toliva Shoal race on Puget Sound, but in the company of a fresh breeze. So it was great weather for the visitors from the north end of the sound and the hosts of the south end. The race, held in February, was sponsored by the South Sound Sailing Society and Olympia Yacht Club. SAILING photographer Roy Montgomery recorded the event with camera and pen.
Whitecaps were rising and the sky seemed to be lowering, center, when boats powered toward the starting line in front of the skyline of Olympia, Washington. The annual Toliva Shoal race, held in February, has, sampled most of the varieties of weather available in the northwest, including fog, calms and snow. So it was that this year’s participants, tucking in a hearty breakfast at the Olympia Yacht Club, glanced out over a cold, grey, rainswept, windswept stretch of water and thought only, “Good, there’s wind.” Rain? More or less inevitable, and what racing sailor would swap a knot of wind for a blink of sunshine?
First and foremost, give us a good stiff breeze. Stiff it was, out of the south, blowing right up Budd Inlet from Olympia’s capitol as some 130 boats from 22 to 67 feet ran out to the starting line for the 1979 race. This is the last of a series run by the South Sound Sailing Society with facilities, for this race, provided by the Olympia Yacht Club. It is also thought of, by many sailors from the more northerly reaches of Puget Sound, as the first major race of the season. Hence it is usually well attended.
The course covers a total distance of 38 miles, heading out of Budd Inlet, ’round Dofflemyer Point, with its inevitable crowd of spectators apparently quite oblivious to the weather. Thence along Dana Passage, past Anderson Island to the Toliva Shoal buoy between McNeill and Fox islands, and return. In this part of the sound winds and tides are tricky. What was a good steady 20 knots can suddenly become maybe 35 for a few exciting minutes as the wind funnels through a valley on the nearby hilly land. Tides do run in complicated directions and a foul one can cause beach-crawling and navigation by depthsounder.
There were two starts for IOR boats, Division 1 and 2 (half ton), six PHRF starts and the San Juan 28s and 24s each raced as classes. WEATHERLY, Alan Buchan and Lynn Sommer’s 12- Meter from Tacoma, looked like this was her kind of day as she passed swiftly by us on her way to the start. So it proved to be, very convincingly, as she came in first to finish, first IOR (47.6 rating), and broke the course record. Her average speed was 8.4 knots. The previous record, also set by WEATHERLY was 8.2 knots. CHIRON, a Frers 47 owned by Archer, also of Tacoma, took second place and first place among the half tonners went to Alan Holt’s LADYBUG, skippered by Linrothe.
The fact that this Southern Sound is a delightful cruise, with its many islands and inlets, was a little hard to remember as I regarded the competing boats, without envy, through a rain and spray splattered lens. It was obvious though that everyone was enjoying the exciting salting and the keen competition particularly among the smaller boats. There was one crew on a tiny Tanzer 22. Oilskin clad figures, perched high on the weather rail they were going to windward in 20 knots, their lee deck permanently buried and EVERY wave coming over. At times it was hard to separate boat from water. They grinned and waved as we passed. It was a good race. Fresh winds, fast times and a minimum of gear failure — and that’s really all that matters, isn’t it?
Roy Montgomery
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White shapes moved against gunmetal skies as yachts rated without spinnakers went downwind under wung out genoas.
A Tanzer 22 worked to windward with a horseshoe buoy conveniently mounted on an outboard.
HARPOON, a Swan 44, above and at left, punched through the gloom. Her crew, bundled in foul weather gear — official uniform of Puget Sound sailors — seemed happy to see the SAILING photographer.
DRIFTER, left, a Catalina 27, was not aptly named for the brisk conditions encountered in the Toliva Shoal race.
Her normally modest sail area reduced even further by a reef, the Aphrodite 101 BLUE WING, left, showed her pretty sailing tines through rain and spray.
Sailing in smooth water at far left was a Zap 26, one of the fast new one-designs by Bruce King.
Wet, cold weather did not keep spectators from gathering at Dofflemyer Point, near left, as the race started.
Whitecaps were rising and the sky seemed to be lowering, center, when boats powered toward the starting line in front of the skyline of Olympia, Washington.
