Foulweather Bluff Race 10-3-09

On Saturday, we raced the Foulweather Bluff Race. This race starts at Edmonds, goes to the Foulweather Bluff Buoy, Scatchet Head Buoy and returns to Edmonds. The total distance for the long course is 26 NM.

I went to Edmonds at 1000 on Friday and got a prime spot on the guest moorage. I played tourist and walked to the downtown area of Edmonds. Toward evening the boats started arriving and the harbor soon became packed with boats. I heard that there were 73 entries.

Saturday we had a 1030 start. The sun was out and the wind was about 10 knots. We selected the heavy No. 1 and had a great beat out to Foulweather Bluff. The winds rose around Point No Point to about 20 knots. We had to make a tack in the shipping lanes to clear a large container ship in the inbound lane. We could have changed to the No.3 jib, but the wind would drop to 14 knots for a while and then increase again to 20. The heavy No.1 was doing the job and I could keep the boat moving in the stronger winds. Most boats seemed to carry their larger jibs.

We rounded the mark, but did not set the spinaker as the wind was forward. After about a mile, we set the 3/4 oz spinaker and had a great reach to the Schatchet Head Buoy. We hit 10 knots a few times and with the flood current, we hit 11.2 knots over the bottom. I got a little low of the Schatchet Head buoy. The current was setting us right and the wind came forward a little, but I managed to head up enough to clear the buoy. We jibed shortly after rounding the mark and had a almost dead downwind run to the finish. Again, the current was setting us right.

We had a great time and the crew work was good. We placed 5th out of 8 boats in our class. The heavier boats did the best. A C&C115 was first and two old 40 ft One Tonners placed second and third. We did place ahead of the other two J35's and a Schock 35.

I stayed around untill after the awards and got underway at 1730. The wind was still blowing 20 knots plus and the sound was large waves with whitecaps. I had a good motor home and arrived at Brownsville by 2000.

Results here:

http://www.cycedmonds.org/fwb2009_prelim_results.html

Photos by Jan(many of them):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75869001@N00/sets/72157622511575612/show/




This is our track for the day. The start area was north of the marina so this chart shows the short tracks to/from the marina to the starting area.