One of our club boats decided it would be a good idea to enter an overnight race this early in the year, and in the year of never-ending winter. Even those of us who warned them of the risk of bad weather had no idea just how bad it could get. Below is the "official" account of the race, as told by SNSYC member Koit Teng. For a sense of the real experience that Vampire encountered that dark and stormy night, speak to one of the crew who was onboard. Fortunately this isn't a tale of tragedy and every one returned safely albeit a little battered, bruised and looking somewhat shell-shocked...

The Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club’s (SNSYC) Patos Island Annual Classic sailboat race was run on Saturday to Sunday, March 28 - 29.  Both long and short courses rounded Patos Island, located just east of Saturna Island.  20 boats competed, including eight from out-of-town.  

The race started off the Sidney wharf with little wind on Saturday morning.  With the help of an ebb current, the 12 long course boats drifted south towards Beaumont Shoals while the eight short course boats headed off towards the U2 Sidney Channel marker.  In early afternoon the skies cleared and the wind picked up giving the boats long spinnaker runs up Haro Strait and along Boundary Pass towards Patos Island.  As the boats were heading back towards Sidney the wind kept building reaching gale force (35 knots) by midnight.  The rough weather caused some gear failure in the fleet resulting in nine boats withdrawing from the race.  One boat was dis-masted, two others lost steerage, and others withdrew as well.  The first short course boat Radio Flyer finished at 12:05 AM, and the first long course boat Marda Gras was back just after 01:25 AM. 

Another race down and a bit more wear and tear on the old ouija board. Here is how it shook out.

Toucan was race committee and wanted to set the standard with a challenging course. Adding a gybe mark and a bit more distance than the norm. The course was 3,2,1 X2 with marks to starboard and separate starts for the two div’s. Wind ranged from 14 app at the start to .01 in the second lap as the wind did its 180deg shift. The current was a light flood.

The start was very interesting with a Stb favoured end. Vampire trying an unorthodox manoeuvre to waste time by throwing one of its floating winch handles over the side and retrieving it in the 5min prestart and managing not to foul Avalanche. Then there was  the sandwich made by Avalanche and Jabiru with Vampire as the filling. All three boats going for the line and trying hard to pinch each other out. There was a huge grudge match today all over the course as Avalanche and Jabiru went at each other again and again. Jabiru was able to pull ahead a bit and get clean air but lost the advantage with a nasty spinnaker wrap at the first down wind leg. Avalanche giving no quarter was on them immediately. This continued like this for the whole race. During this whole time Div 2 was working their race and Toucan wisely shortened their course to a single lap. Many people in Div 1 wondered if we would even finish the race in the time limit as the wind turned off. But for the benefit of all Avalanche finished with 1 minute and 48 seconds left on the clock to extend the finish time by half an hour. Jabiru hot on their heals 16 seconds later. But then comes the two sleeper boats. Amigos missed taking second by 43 seconds! But Vampire was there to take the win correcting 7 minutes over the fleet. Vic in Spellbound enjoyed his day as well picking up a first and Ventana pulled in second. Maybe a Hunter 35.5 will shake things up in this div. I hear she will be racing in race 6/7.

Only two boats have filled out their Jack and Jill entry forms to date. If you are planning on racing please let us know so we can have enough food on hand for the BBQ. The entry form can be found on Mark's post for the race.

See you April 4th.

We had an overwhelming response to the Jack and Jill race poll we recently conducted on the website. In fact, 16 of you said “yes” you would like to participate. This leads us to believe that either we should get this race scheduled, or the vote was rigged. (Did someone vote more than once?)

So…mark your calendars, the race is scheduled for a warm and sunny Saturday, May 2nd.

Newbie’s are more than welcome. If you haven’t raced before, or haven’t raced your own boat before, this is a great opportunity to try it out!

The race rules are similar to our regularly scheduled races, with a few exceptions:

- Each boat is crewed with one Jack and one Jill (not your real names), and no one else.
- There will be two races, Jack must skipper one race, and Jill the other.
- The races are white sails only.

Following the race, there will be a barbeque on E-dock.

Please let Don Millie or Kelly Penney know if you wish to enter your boat, or register online. If you already have a PHRF rating we will use that. If not, let us know what type of boat it is and we will assign a rating for you.

There will be a $10 entry fee for all non-members.

We are looking for a volunteer for committee boat for this race.

Get out your ouija boards! Can any one believe we where seriously debating calling this race on account of too much wind! Fortunately for us the debate lasted long enough for the fearless race Capt to hop on Ventana, who was race committee and properly ready to go on time, to head outside of the breakwater and see what the weather was really like.