Rich Passage Ramble Race- 4-18-2015

Sailboat racing in the northwest this spring has seen many days of warm, sunny weather and remarkably it has included wind too! The Rich Passage Ramble Race this was no exception. 

The Rich Passage Ramble Race is the third race of the seven race West Sound Sailing Association (WSSA) series. It is a 20 nm race that starts at the Port Orchard Marina, heads out Rich Passage, around Blake Island, around the navigation Buoy "4" and back through Rich Passage to finish at the Port Orchard Marina. With the typical currents through Rich Passage and around Blake Island, this race can be quite challenging.

For the start of the race, we had NW winds near 10 knots. With the winds from the NW, everyone lined up for a port tack start. I was a bit late and on the breakwater end of the line buried under several boats. Most boat soon tacked away and with clear air, we sailed north along the breakwater. By the time we tacked toward Bremerton, the wind was much better on the left. After finally tacking back to port tack, we started passing boats. With long port tacks and short starboard tacks, we reached Rich Passage in four tacks. By now we had passed everyone but one larger boat that owed us time. 

Sailing through Rich Pass, we had the last of the ebb current helping us along. We passed the larger boat just before exiting the pass and set the spinnaker for the long reach around the south side of Blake Island. At the east end of Blake Island, we took in the spinnaker, set the jib and had a fast beat riding the north flowing current from Colvos Pass. We had a fast close reach to Buoy "4" and then headed down the middle of Rich Pass with the now flooding current.

At Point Glover, we set the spinnaker but after just a few minutes, the wind died ahead and we were left with the current pushing us along. We could see a new breeze coming down Port Orchard from the north. We reset the jib and headed toward the north to try to get in the new wind. In the meantime, "Dulcinea" (a J105) headed to the north earlier than us and got in the new wind ahead of us. When we finally got into the new wind, we reset the spinnaker and set off in pursuit of "Dulcinea". We finished 2nd and in the final results, we also corrected out to second in class and overall.

Complete results can be found here: http://wscyc.net/wp-content/uploads/Rich-Passage-Ramble.pdf

This was a great race. A after missing all my races in March due to a family emergency, it was great to get back on the water. Thanks to my crew of Jim, Tim and Tyson for 

Only photo from the race. It does not get much better than this: nice wind, sunny skies and and shirtsleeve temperatures.

Photo taken with my GoPro Hero 2 camera on my Redneck Engineering self leveling mount.

Here is our track for the day. Starting at the Port Orchard Marina, we headed out Rich Passage, around Blake Island, around the navigation Buoy "4" and back through Rich Passage to finish at the Port Orchard Marina.