Dan's Blog: Duwamish Head Race 1-5-2013

The Duwamish Head Race is run the first Saturday of each year(unless it is the New Years Day weekend). It is a 30.7 NM race that starts at Des Moines, sails north around Alki Point and around the Duwamish Head marker at the entrance to Elliot Bay. From there, the race continues across Puget Sound to Blakely Rocks and returns south to the finish at Des Moines. This race is the second race of the four race Southern Sound Series.

For me, this race got underway early Friday morning when I left Brownsville Marina at 0700 for the delivery run to Des Moines. Deliveries are just one of the parts of preparing for a race. It is still fun to be on the water and spend time on the boat. By 1020, I was moored in Des Moines and spent most of the day kibitzing with acquaintances on other boats as they arrived.

After a breakfast sponsored by Three Tree Point Yacht club, we rigged the boat and got underway to the starting area. The winds were predicted to be light all day, but there was enough wind to make the boat move well. The wind was SE and allowed us to get a good start on starboard with the spinnaker set. As we headed north the wind was spotty. Some boats played the right shore, but we seemed to find better wind near the middle of the channel. The current was better in the middle as well.

As we approached Alki Point, the wind had built to about seven knots and was very easterly. This made the reach from Alki to Duwamish Head very tight. We could see some boats having trouble carrying their spinnakers, so when we got close to the mark, we brought ours down and reset it after rounding and setting our course for Blakely Rocks. At this point in our class, we were following "Absolutly"(G&S39), "Grace E"(J35), Tantivy(J109) and "Melange(another J35).

The reach across the sound was a parade although "Jeopardy" (J109) and "First Dance"(Beneteau First 35) took a high lane and passed us too. At the rocks we started a beat back toward the south and soon past "First Dance". We got to the shore near Restoration Pt and the light wind evaporated. We drifted in the current induced chop until we managed to sail into some newer wind coming from the SE. We sailed toward Alki Point where we could see most of our class leaders. "Melange" stayed more toward the middle and we lost track of them. We made one tack into the beach just south of Alki, but when we tacked back out, we found better wind away from the shore. The wind was still light at around 5knots, and was variable between SE and SW.

We started gaining and passing the boats ahead that stayed on the east shore. After Fauntleroy, we had passed "Jeopardy" and "Grace E" with "Absolutely" and "Tantivy" still ahead. The wind seemed to finally settle on a SE direction and we had one long tack to Pulley PT. "Grace E" stayed right behind us and "The Boss" (J35) had moved up with them. "Absolutely" and "Tantivity" were well ahead so we determined that we needed to cover "Grace E" and "The Boss" and try to stay between them and the finish that was about 3 1/2 mile away. As it got dark it became difficult to tell where these boats went.

South of Pulley PT, we saw "Tantivy" appear to tack in toward the beach and we followed them that way for a while. After we tacked back, we seemed to get a bit of a lift, but it was short lived as we headed back off shore to again, better winds. As we headed off shore on port tack, a starboard tack boat boat approached. In the dark it was hard to define who it was. Lets see, tall fractional rig, dark sails, dark hull, Oh my, yellow stripes! It was "Absolutely", the boat that had been way ahead of us! Now we had another boat to cover! And we did! "Grace E" tacked back our way and had gained on us by their long tack offshore. We could not identify "The Boss" anymore. As we stayed ahead of the two boats, another boat approached from the right. Lets see, fractional rig, white hull, three digit sail number. Oh my again! It was "Tantivy"! We passed above them, tacked to starboard, and now we had three boats to cover! Fortunately they stayed in a group. On our last tack to port to the finish line, we were just ahead of this group and then "The Boss" showed up just below "Grace E". We finished first in this group at 18:13:46 with "Grace E" finishing 6 seconds behind us, "The Boss" finishing another 5 seconds later, "Tantivy" 17 seconds behind "The Boss" and finally "Absolutely" 11 seconds behind "Tantivy". That is some close racing! Unfortunately, my computer choked and I do not have any tracks to display.

We knew we placed well by finishing ahead of this group of boats, but how well? There was no gun for first to finish. Sure enough, when we motored into the harbor, "Melange" was already there and had finished about 10 minutes ahead of us. We were still happy with our finish. Combined with our 2nd place finish at Winter Vashon , we are leading the class with 4 points. But, there are still two races to go in the series. Results and pictures should be be found here: Southern Sound Series and here: Three Tree Point Yacht Club.

The banter in the harbor with our competitors was great! Everyone was in a great mood and congratulations were going around amongst all the crews and skippers. This is a fun group of sailors to race with!

After getting the boat cleaned up, I headed straight home and arrived at Brownsville at 2204.

This was a great race! After falling behind early on, we persevered and put our great night racing abilities to work to pass the boats ahead. Thanks to my crew of Jim, Tom, Walter and Ranier for staying focused and working hard.

EDIT: The race committee has been fine tuning the results(they are still preliminary) and the finishing order has now changed. We still finished first of our group at 18:13:46 with "Grace E" finishing 6 seconds behind us, "The Boss" finishing another 5 seconds later, but "Absolutely" actually finished 28 seconds behind "The Boss" and finally "Tantivy" finished 4 minutes 49 seconds behind "Absolutely". In the dark and with us concentrating on finishing, I did not pay much attention to those finishing behind and relied on the results for the times.