A New Adventure Begins!

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Statehood, SEAS is sponsoring a race around Admiralty Island.  The longest inland water sailboat race on the west coast just got longer.

Three boats will be gathering at Battleship Island in Auke Bay on Saturday June 20, 2009 at 1000 to begin the race around Admiralty.  The boats are:

• S/V High Noon, a 41' Doug Peterson designed sloop, owned by Mike Rentel and Karen Schmidt 
• S/V Smoke, a Cascade 29 sloop, owned by David Pichard
• S/V Haiku, a Yamaha 33 sloop, owned by Brian Lieb and Liz Agnew

After the start the boats will proceed south down Stephen's passage past the Brother's Island and enter Frederick Sound.  The first leg will continue southwest to Yasha Island, a small island a couple of miles south of the southern tip of Admiralty Island.  The boats will round Yasha Island, keeping the island to their starboard, and enter Chatham Strait.  The 120 nm first leg ends at the entrance to Warm Springs Bay on Baranof Island.

It was a great weekend of sail boat racing in Juneau. The Marmion Island starting line turnout was impressive with 10 boats.  A group of 5 boats from Auke Bay joined the racers in Admiralty Cove bringing the total number of boats to 15, and the 50 or so sailors proceeded to have a lot of fun barbequing and conversing on the beach.  Brand new members of SEAS joined the crew and skippers in ignoring the bugs well into the evening.  

The racing on Saturday was great with a southerly breeze pushing the fleet down the west coast of Douglas to the finish line just off Admiralty Cove.  (Saturday Results)  The return leg of the racing was plagued with light winds and contrary tides which moved most skippers to douse their sails early and motor home. (Sunday Results)

The Seas Cup is off to a great first season of racing. Round 3 June 13-14 will find a group of sailors ready to take on the challenging , fickle air of the south side of Douglas Island to gather in Admiralty Cove. This race often brings out a large number of boats because of the great beach party and skippers have finally got it together with boat repairs and finding a crew. Another notable aspect of this round of the SEAS Cup is the advantage for slower boats to keep up if a south wind develops on leg one.  Take a moment and review the course and race description here and plan on a Skippers meeting Friday June 12^th 5:00 pm at the Squire's Rest.

Well, the weekend was a gigantic success, with two great days of sailing, and three great days of weather. 

The boats left Mayflower Island at 10:15 on Saturday and raced upwind all the way to Graves Point, and had consistent breeze and speed the entire way.  The race marked the racing debut of Cetus, a Columbia 8.3 sloop sailed by Ati Nasiah, one of the newest sailors in the fleet, and she and her all woman crew did fantastic.  To see the results of this race, go here.

The boats tied up at the dock.  The barbeque's fired up, the beer and wine began to flow, and lies were told.  The end of a long day and great day.

Sunday dawned, another glorious sunny day in South East Alaska.  And 5 boats (Lyric, Mess Around, Cetus, Smoke, and Seychelles) braved the sun and light winds for the race to Twin Points and back.  Unfortunately, with Twin Points only a few hundred yards away, the wind died completely and all the boats were forced to fire up their engines and head back for another night of yarns, food, and fun.