Round Saltspring Sailing Race 2014,
4:45 pm Trincomali Channel
JAZ, a Beneteau 36.7 First from Glenmore Sailing Club splits tacks with Shuriken, a Flying Tiger 10 from West Vancouver Yacht Club. The Beneteau has a handicap rating of 93 while the Flying Tiger has 45. This means that the Flying Tiger is a faster rated sailboat and, this close to the finish, should be much farther ahead of the Beneteau.
The race distance is 42 nautical miles, but since the boats cannot sail tight along the Island’s shoreline, the actual distance is much farther. And this year’s race seems to be a wonderfully fast ride, at least for the 40 or so boats just ahead and behind the boats pictured above. Completing the course in time for dinner is not often achieved on boats affordable to mere mortals (we only did it once). The abundance of tides and lack of wind makes this an overnight race for many boats most years. Hopefully no one gets left bobbing around on the wrong side of the tideline tonight*.
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* this post was published at 6pm on the 17th
** Information about the race was completely absent this year making it frustrating for people who wanted to watch the race but were unable to get to the Douglas Road club for the start. The new website was no help as it was still saying this afternoon that “registration for the race would be closing soon”. And then was offline with “Error establishing a database connection” this evening.
Hopefully next year the race committee will use the site and/or social media to:
- publish which way the boats were going around, early on, perhaps by 9 am so we can get where we need to be before the boats arrive
- publish the ‘who’s who’ list that’s given to boats in the race (boat name, skipper, sail number, spinnaker colours etc) to help us identify, well, who’s who as the boats travel the course
- update on the website, and social media, the positions of at least the leaders so we can estimate when the boats will be at certain viewpoint on the Island
melissa searcy says
Thanks for this news John ( and the terrific photo). Even though I live right by the sailing club, the only hard fact re the event I had was that on Friday night I could hear the crowd dancing and whooping it up to “Crocodile Rock” and some other prehistoric oldie-but goldie tunes in the early evening. As a friend reported the next day, “We danced all night and went home at 9:40”. Conclusion: lots of senior sailors in the club.
Silk Questo says
Melissa, you would have learned more about the race in advance on our club website, which gave the racing information, weekend schedule, list of boats racing and other details. Check it out next year! And yes, we keep the Friday night festivities on the early side, given that the racers have potentially a 24-hour day of sailing starting the next morning, and out of respect for our neighbours. Thanks for your interest, from one of those “senior” sailors.
John Cameron says
Hey Melissa, were you still up at 9:40?
William Kendall says
Whoever was running the site really messed up.
Excellent shot!
Silk Questo says
That would be me running the site, William. Unfortunately, our website’s host server (a large and usually reliable ISP we have been using for many years) went down around 5:00 last night to our utter frustration. Couldn’t have been at a worse time. We had a crew from the committee boat posting updates on the race prior to it going dark. Sorry. Best laid plans.
John Cameron says
William SISC is a club where members are encouraged (expected) to volunteer for a whole host of things. Including things like the website and the Round the Island race. Used to be about 100 boats racing and about the same number of volunteers!
Re: the photo of the day
Unfortunately that was to be the first photo of many, but tuned out to be the only click as Cameron the Westie had entered a marathon deer chasing event in Channel Ridge. I had to abandon my photographic interests and take on the roll of dog catcher.
Silk Questo says
Great photo John — thanks for publishing! Please note my reply to William Kendall above regarding the error message on the site. For the club (and for me, as I’ve worked very hard on the RSS website to get as much information out as possible as soon as it was available to me), having our website’s host server go down early the night before the race was a frustrating techno-failure at the worst possible time. And the worst of it is that we can do nothing about it until the server company gets us back online.
I’d like to answer your points above, though.
1. Publish the way the boats are going around so people who want to watch from shore can plan where to view … Great idea, one we had already planned to do. As I think you already know, the course decision is never announced to the racers themselves until the Skippers’ Meeting on the morning of the race at 8:30 am. At that point, we had an update ready to post on the website to that effect. But, obviously, the website was down — otherwise, you would easily have been able to find out the course online by 9:00 am.
2. Publish the “who’s who” list of racers. Another good idea. We did that, and I updated it continuously from the first entries right up until the race. It was always on the website under the menu items “Participants”.
3. Update on the website and in social media the positions of the leaders (throughout the race) so the public can estimate where they will be at a given time. This would be great for race-watchers, if the club had the resources to undertake this kind of ambitious function. As a small, self-help club of under 200 members, we put out a huge volunteer effort every year to stage the Round Saltspring race. But our resources, both human and financial, have limits. To provide the service you suggest, we would need either GPS transponders aboard every boat (some well-funded races do this), or perhaps a dedicated chase boat. Neither would be easy or cheap to do. I also wonder how many islanders are keen race-watchers like yourself and would really appreciate — or perhaps be prepared to assist with — such an effort?
John, I take your comments to heart and would love to discuss further — over a coffee maybe? We are always open to good ideas that make the race better for members, participants and followers!
Best regards, Silk Questo
John Cameron says
Hi Silk,
Yes, unfortunate timing and out of your control. Though I’m guessing you are going to have a hard look at alternatives. My experience has been that even superb hosting companies become less than superb over time, I’ve had to switch my sites a few times over the last 10 yrs and currently use the speedy SSD servers at A2 Hosting.
re: 1, 2 3
1. I do know; I was part of many RSI races, the first website and TellTales. Might I also suggest Twitter and (perhaps) Facebook as a widget on the SISC site for timely information and as a standalone backup.
2. Unfortunately “Participants” does not have the hull colour, sail # and Spinnaker info. The ‘Who’s Who’ list that we used to use does, here’s one from 2011. A PDF posted during or after the Skipper’s Meeting would do the trick. In the unlikely event the site goes down at the last minute, files like this could be loaded in a minute to a free space somewhere and the link provided via social media (like Twitter).
3. We used to do this years ago in a modest way, even phoning the info back to the clubhouse. You don’t need a Swiftsure style system. Just a few folks who are driving around the island anyway trying to get a glimpse of the race progress. They probably have a cell phone and can phone, text, or email someone at the club. Just knowing where the leaders are (or were an hour ago) is a help.
My ideas aren’t new ones. They were in use when I took my turn as Fleet Captain Racing at SISC. That was a while ago as you can see on the trophies in the clubhouse. (kudos to Kevin Vine for teaching me sailing basics—though there must have been something amiss with the spinnaker hoisting lesson; never got that right. At least not on his boat :) I bet there are people more recently qualified than I am, to touch base with.
Anyway, all that aside. Looked like a fine race with surprisingly good weather.
Silk Questo says
Thanks for this input John. Maybe it’s time to revive some old “good ideas” and add some new ones. We did have someone keen on social media for a while, but currently need to find a volunteer to manage that side of communications. On the other hand, we’ve greatly improved our website over the years so there’s been some progress! Wish we could lure you back as a member John …
Dan Dickmeyer says
So glad to see everyone talking to each other. Productive input.
John Cameron says
For sure. The magnitude of pulling off a successful RSI race combined with the wrinkles of technology call for teamwork.
Colin Silkstone says
John, always love your photos and subscribe to your site.
Sail #21 is the Beneteau 36.7 JAZ with an all Calgary crew, Jamie on the helm, Colin trimming the main, with Rowena and Ian on the rail behind the sail, although you can probable hear Rowena screaming with excitement!!!! that we have just crossed tacks with the Flying Tiger again.
Just loved the picture you took of the fleet coming up Trincomali Channel last year with all the spinnakers flying, it’s a classic shot to all sailors I’ve shown it to. And yes JAZ with Calgary crew were in that shot too, flying our red and blue spinnaker.
We keep JAZ at Tsehum Harour on the Saanich Peninsula.
Thanks for so many great photos.
Colin Silkstone
John Cameron says
Thanks for the info Colin (corrections made I think). Some great racing this year, congrats to JAZ.
*Colin’s referring to the photo on this page from RSI 2013 where the race took the direction less travelled.
Pierre Martin says
Hi John
Great picture! I was on Shuriken, trying to keep it flat. Just for your information however, we beat Jazz on both elapsed and corrected time. You forget that we did not start at the same time, and that we we playing catch up.
Pierre
John Cameron says
Pierre you are right of course and congratulations. Unfortunately, without access to the Who’s Who list, I didn’t/don’t have that information. I may have missed it on the RSI 2014 site, but I could not see who was in which start and what the start times were.
It must have been a great ride, one of the best.
One ride I remember well is from year’s ago. After slogging up the west side against wind and waves (from Maple Bay to Southey Point), we turned the corner, popped the chute and had a 10 mile, one hour ride on the Martin 242 Oscar. (doubled our hull speed for an hour).