Toliva Shoal Race 2-13-2010

Perseverance! Yes perseverance is what it took to race the Toliva Shoal Race this year. This race is set up as a 37.4 NM race from Olympia south around Anderson Island, around the Toliva Shoal buoy, north around Anderson past the "big house' on McNeil Island and back to Olympia. Unfortunately, history is such that the course is shortened more often then it has been finished. In my 12 times of racing it, only once have we finished the entire race.

Saturday morning was WET! After rain all night, the morning forecast was for more of the same. Plus the winds were predicted to remain light. What a great combination for a sailboat race.

The start was delayed for about an hour when the committee sent us off in light NW winds. After a slow beat down Budd Inlet, we had an equally slow beat through Dana Pass, but now we were against the flooding current. We worked along the right shore and had good success. Boats on the left shore did not appear to be as successful. Some boats sailed past us on the right side and as we moved more to the right, we found a stream heading our way. We stayed in the favorable river and caught Declaration of Independence(DOI)(Express 37) who was leading our class. When the wind died more, they put down an anchor. We did not and slid about a quarter of a mile back toward Olympia before the wind filled in from the NE at about 5 knots.

We noticed a lot of boats motor away. Lack of Perseverance or just cold and wet?

We had a good reach toward Johnson PT. Two power boats boats were hanging out there and we thought that the race would be shortened. But we continued on to Government Mark #3 at the Nisqually Flats where the race was shortened at 11.7 NM

The winds started filling in from behind bringing up our competitors from behind. Something Special(J35) past us on the right and Melange(J35) closed on the left. We stayed ahead of Melange, but they reached up under us and established a overlap and room at the finish mark. The finish sequence is being investigated, but I think that they were ahead of us by three seconds. That would give us 4th. Results are posted at: http://www.ssseries.org/

After finishing, we motored on to Gig Harbor where two cars were prepositioned to take crew back to Olympia. I spent the night and returned to Brownsville Sunday morning. Fortunately the rain quit!

Thanks to the crew of Great White: Peg, Kathleen, Jim, Walter and Kurt. They all showed lots of Perseverance!

Total distance for the weekend: 111.5 NM

Soggy Percival Landing before the boats got underway.

Reaching toward Johnson PT.

Our course for the day.

Video from Toliva Shoal Race, and we did not finish at Johnson Pt, nor did we get second place.