It’s one of those years when the Penn Cove conditions are slow to come through. On Monday just enough breeze came through to get a race started, which was later abandoned. Yesterday, Penn Cove delivered a teasing breeze, but the massive flooding current made a start unthinkable.
Rafting at the Coupeville dock.
However, PRO Charley Rathkopf kept his eyes open and, after a sojourn at the Coupeville dock, took the show out to Saratoga Passage where he managed to get one race in the books. Results here. Hopefully we’ll have a lot more races to report on in the next couple of days. If you’re racing and want to provide your perspective, email it to me and I’ll work it in!
Charley and Schelleen Rathkopf are taking the helm of Race Week beginning next year, and have some interesting changes in the works. More on this later.
Charley’s report:
After setting up in the normal westerly in Penn Cove today, the wind died while in sequence for the first start and the RC postponed for several hours, with the majority of the fleet heading in to the Coupeville dock and descending on the local ice cream parlor. At about 1500 a light breeze developed out in Saratoga Passage. The RC picked up the course and moved 5 miles east and reset the course. Fifty minutes after leaving the Coupeville dock the course was reset and all fleets stated racing in light and shifty breeze. The breeze shifted 90 and then 180 degrees and all races were shortened, putting one in the bank on what looks to be the toughest week of wind at WIRW in over a decade. The competitors were all happy to finally be racing even in the trying conditions.
