Salt Spring Photographer John Cameron
Salt Spring Island sinks a bit lower each year on ‘May Long’. One hundred sail boats with crews upwards of 20 plus the huge invitational soccer tournament, plus art show openings, plus the Saturday Market, plus the great weather…well, you get the picture—it’s fun busy. But not fun parking in Ganges ;-)
So here’s the thing. The first boat to cross the finish line doesn’t necessarily win a sailing race. Round Saltspring 2015 was scored using the Time on Distance formula and the distance used was 42.0 nautical miles.
Each boat has an assigned handicap. In the photo above the little boat, a ‘Left Coast Dart’ with 5 sailors on deck (Ogopogo) has a handicap of 114 seconds per mile. The big boat, a ‘Santa Cruz 52’ with a million sailors on deck (Marda Gras) has a handicap of -9 sec per mile.
What this means is that for every mile of the race, Marda Gras needs to be about 2 minutes ahead of Ogopogo. Marda Gras needs to finish about 84 minutes ahead of Ogopogo.
In the photo above, about a third of the way into the race, Marda Gras needs to be far ahead of Ogopogo.
Marda‘s elapsed time on the Round Saltspring course was 8:28:18. Ogopogo‘s elapsed time was 9:16:02.
Which boat finished ahead on corrected time?
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By the way baaad kitty!’s elapsed time was 08:28:43, her corrected time (based on her handicap over 42 miles) was 07:48:09. And that was the fastest time overall.
1:35 pm Round Saltspring Island Sailing racers approach Southey Point. (curiously positioned at the north end of the Island)
The event has attracted about 100 boats for many years. The course is about 42 miles around Salt Spring Island (for a crow); sailboats of course go much farther than that depending on wind direction, wind strength and even the tides and currents.
This year, the super-fast catamaran Dragonfly flashed across the finish line at 6:14 pm. An hour or so later many of the faster boats were also back for dinner on the docks.
Early morning fisherman in the shallows on the north end of St. Mary Lake.
From the aft deck of the Skeena Queen as we swing into Fulford Harbour on the 1pm sailing from Swartz Bay.