Spring sailing season sets off

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Minutes before the first class of racing boats were about to cross the starting line during this year’s Shipwrights’ Regatta, the wind shifted.

Out in Port Townsend Bay, the sun began to peek through clouds as 21 sailboats of all different shapes and sizes tacked back and forth, eager to begin the race.

On the committee boat—Carl Chamberlain’s restored 1944 wooden troller “Sockeye”— race organizer Myron Gauger spoke into his radio alerting the mark boat that there had been a 90-degree shift in the wind: they’d need to adjust the windward mark accordingly.

Twenty minutes past noon, the mark was adjusted and the wind had picked up. Gauger raised his horn into the air and with a starting signal, two International 505’s—Zaya and Dooflicker—had pushed their way past the rest of the racing class boats and crossed the starting line.

The Shipwrights’ Regatta is the first race of the year for Port Townsend, opening the sailing season by inviting all the local experts out to race against one another. The event is not for the faint of heart: typically held the last weekend of February, sailors need to don their best cold-weather gear and prepare for some windy conditions.

But the race isn’t exclusive: boats of all sizes are invited to race, as well as sailors of all levels. At the skipper’s meeting held at the Northwest Maritime Center, the captains look for “pick-up crew” to join them on their boats, and many young boatbuilders-in-training from the Northwest School of Boatbuilding get to go out on the water for the first time.

There is even a prize for the most pick-up crew. The “Van Hope Community Award” is given to the skipper of the Norma Mae nearly every year. This year, Norma Mae packed 16 sailors aboard.

After the racing class headed off to make their way two times around the race course, the cruising class began its turn, followed by the Thunderbird class.

Sugar Flanagan and Spencer Snapp took home first place in the racing category for the second year on the 505 “Zaya.” In the cruising class, Leah Kefgen’s crew on Sean Rankins Danish spidsgatter “Cito” took home the first-place prize (as well as winning the award for being the oldest wooden boat in the race), and in the Thunderbird class, “Dorado” came in before seven other T-birds.