Extreme Sailing in a River

Extreme sailing in a river may seem like an oxymoron but it aptly describes racing an International 14 dinghy in the Columbia River Gorge. This July I took 4 days and competed in the International 14 National Championships sailed out of Cascade Locks, Oregon. This location has long been one of my favorite places to sail a dinghy. A hot, windy, natural environment with beautiful scenery and freshwater combine to make for some excellent sailing.

In this excellent picture from Sean Trew, you will see me in the blue hat with Kris Henderson on the helm. My hat is on backward because it was getting blown off. Here we are going upwind in a 25 knot puff, fully hiked and going about 9 knots. You might take notice of the fact that the crew (forward hand) plays the mainsheet directly from the boom and there is not a mainsheet cleat. The beautiful scenery of the Columbia River Gorge can be seen in the background.

For this National Championship we had 13 boats show up from as far away as Alberta, CA and Southern California. Among the rules for an International 14 National Championship is the requirement of a long distance race. So after 4 good buoy races in the morning, they set us off on a downwind start for a temporary mark 7 miles up river and back. It is a simple course but a seriously difficult challenge when the wind is up. We ended up capsizing at the start because we were a little to aggressive with our full-on, kite up, twin wire, going 17 knots at the line, 5 seconds late start, because there were 5 boats right in front of us going slow as they hoisted their kites. It was one of the more memorable moments of the regatta and was executed exactly as we had planned, except the capsize. We righted the boat and by the time we got to that mark way down the river we were in fourth place, we passed one boat on the way upwind and finished the long distance race in Third Place. Here is some neat video of some friends of mine sailing (and capsizing) their 14 in "The Gorge"! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0R74mpPQKM

Hiram M. Chittenden Locks

The image to the left is down deep in the lock on the puget sound side of the lock. The image to the right is at the top of the lock just prior to the gates opening and letting us into the freshwater of Salmon Bay and Lake Washington.

The "Locks" are an interesting place and I find myself going through them about twice a month. During this transit we had no incidents aboard a beautiful Beneteau 44 Center Cockpit, and none of our lockmates had much trouble either. As I like to say: "The locks are not to be taken lightly, but they are pretty simple and straightforward." My tips include having three people aboard, two 50 foot lines and six fenders, 3 to a side. For recreational traffic, a red and green light will tell whether to enter or not and the lockmaster will tell you where to tie. If you want more tips on locking through, email me at allan@signature-yachts.com and I will be happy to help. Sailboaters need to be careful of the current flowing Westbound and the Railroad Bridge that gives priority to trains, not sailboats. You can learn more about the locks at http://www.nws.usace.army.mil/PublicMenu/Menu.cfm?sitename=lwsc&pagename=mainpage

Beneteau First 36.7 Racing

The Windermere Cup is a great regatta put on by Anacortes Yacht Club and Andy Schwenk. This was my first year that I was able to participate and I recommend the event highly to any sailboat racer who wants to do some fun around the buoys racing.

There was about 40 boats this year and I was fortunate to trim the main on Dave Steffen's brand new Beneteau First 36.7 "Vitesse". This boat has been expertly prepared and sports a beautiful set of Doyle Sails. This was their first regatta and they finished a respectable fourth out of nine boats.

I had an excellent time on the boat and the rest of the crew was fun to sail (and party) with. Everyone on board seemed to have a good time and we had some moments of greatness, like in the picture above where we are just slightly ahead of Carl Freund's "Veloce", another Beneteau First 36.7 that sailed a great regatta and won the event.

You can learn more about these boats at http://beneteaufirst367.org

Sabre 38 Sailing

Today I had the pleasure of sailing a 28 year old Sabre 38. This is a very nice boat that almost all sailors would admire. As we sailed along smartly at 4 knots in 5 knots of wind, I was reminded of the joy that can be had in a nicely crafted sailing vessel. This particular boat is uncommon in the Pacific Northwest, but quite popular on the East Coast, particularly the northern parts as the boats are built in Maine.

I have done some great cruising on a slightly larger Sabre 42 and have sold several Sabre 386s recently. All of the Sabres are superbly crafted and feature nice design elements like wide side decks, a sailor's cockpit and just enough teak to give the boats a higher level of elegance. You can learn more about them athttp://www.sabreyachts.com

Summer Solstice 2009

I figured this was as good a day as any to start a blog about sailing in the Seattle Area. This has always been one of my favorite days of the year, as the sun sets tonight at 9:11pm in the Seattle area and it won't be dark until after 10pm. A great night for sailing, drifting or doing some sort of activity on the water.

This year's solstice happens to fall on Father's Day and what fun for me to have my two boys all excited about the WeedEater they got for me. Admittedly, I'm all excited about it too!

I'm going to attempt to post some things in this blog that I find interested in the sailing and sailboat world in and around Seattle. I will also profile some of the boats for sale and interesting offerings that I see in my work as a broker at Signature Yachts.

Let's see where the wind will take us. -Allan