Bremerton Heavy Weather Predicted Log Race

This news from last month’s Bremerton Heavy Weather Race is a little old now, but predicted log racers, and predicted log racer wannabes, will still be interested in this comprehensive report from the race organizers. For anyone interested in predicted log racing, go to ipbalogracing.org for more information.

By John Burwell

Heavy Weather Predicted Log Race

The Bremerton Heavy Weather Log Race took place on the Saturday of President’s weekend. The race took us from a start off of Annapolis, out through Rich Passage, around Blakely Rock, and then back through Rich Passage and Port Washington Narrows for a finish off of Bremerton Yacht Club. We had splendid weather for the weekend (nothing heavy about it) with blue skies, plenty of sunshine, and only a light breeze out of the north. The tides even appeared friendly with few strong currents. However, Mother Nature still played her hand by delaying the slack tide that was to occur early in the race for about an hour, throwing most everybody off on their predicted times. Nothing like planning for an ebb current and going out and finding a flood current! So, despite what looked like excellent conditions, we had only two racers finish with a net error of less than 1%.

We had a pretty good turnout with 27 boats participating, ten from the host Bremerton Yacht Club and the rest visiting from the other clubs. Six of the racers competed in the novice category which is encouraging for future competition. We had a great turnout for the Friday night and Saturday night events. We shook up our traditions a bit by presenting the race awards Saturday night after the skits instead of Sunday morning, and that was well received by the visiting racers. And I must say that Tacoma Yacht Club put on a fantastic skit performance around the theme of “Running Aground,” which, fortunately, was not a theme during the race.

Mike Henry, Chuck Silvernail, Commodore Norton, John Burwell and Rob Bruins.

The top three finishes went to racers that each have had very successful log racing careers. Chuck Silvernail from BYC took third place with a score of 1.057%, Bob Lindall from QCYC came in at 0.898%, and Fred Cole from Port Orchard and Gig Harbor Yacht Clubs came in first overall with a great score of 0.524% error. Fred notably also came in with less than 10 second errors in five of the six legs of the race. Only in the leg from Point White to Point Herron did he seem somewhat mortal.

Fred and Linda Cole with VC Mike Murray and John Burwell

First place in the five speed classes were: Class 1 – John Burwell (BYC), Class 2 – Lee Anne Derror (BYC), Class 3 – Mike Henry (BYC), Class 4 – Jim Korzetz (PYC), and Class 5 – Rob Bruins (BYC). Lee Anne also took first place among six boats in the Novice category. And with the scores of the top four BYC finishers (Silvernail, Bruins, Henry and Burwell), BYC brought back home the team trophy, beating out Gig Harbor and Meydenbauer Bay Yacht Clubs. Well Done!

Now we have a pretty heavy spring ahead of us as the spring and summer races have all been pushed forward to be able to commence the 2015 Alaska contest that will begin out of Eagle Harbor on 20 May and end in Wrangell, Alaska on the first of July. Then, we can put the spreadsheets away for a while and enjoy some nice cruising up north.