F


or the second time in f ive ye a r s ,


Michael Clements, Michele White, Charles Brodeur, and Judy Day, won Division C and the Overall trophy in the Round Bowen Island Race in Wicked, a Martin 242, beating 90 other boats. The start of the race


saw drifting conditions acros s the cour se coupled with a mild flood current, which was fairly even at each end of the line. Wicked started at the east end, along with the Melges 32 Mischief and a small catamaran, who all eventually popped their chutes in a very light easterly that developed, hung around for about 90 minutes, varying in direction including a long swing to the north. During this time the critical decision was made to abandon the northeasterly wind-based tactic earlier than planned and start breaking west towards the Bowen side, eventually following Mischief, where a light westerly was seen to be slowly developing. Jeremy Wallace in Clumsy Ninjas,


towards it in the one knot easterly current, aided by occasional puffs of air from various directions. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective. I t was at thi s


Left to right: Overall Winner Team “Wicked,” Charles Brodeur, Michele White, Michael Clements and Judy Day.


Round Bowen Island Race


a Melges 24, had ghosted up the Bowen shore along with 8-10 other boats and once they all hit the initial stronger westerly pulse, they were gone. However, the westerly receded again and a major dead transition zone developed. Wicked deliberately positioned itself about 300 yards offshore to get the next main westerly thrust and once they hooked into it, they left the majority of the fleet behind. A large cluster of boats had gone hard against the Bowen shore hoping for the westerly to fill in again there first, and they got hammered when it filled in offshore instead. On the remainder of the first beat


to the south it became apparent that the Bowen shore was paying off. Once Cowan Point was reached, Wicked made an error in terms of tacking immediately towards the south side of Bowen, and 48° NORTH, AUGUST 2011 PAGE 56


walked right into a mild east-flowing back eddy at the Point. After losing about 100 yards to nearby boats at Cowan, Wicked went offshore about 250 yards to get out of the easterly back eddy, and then hit the shore about a quarter mile later for better current and more wind. The rest of the race up to Roger


Curtis was just tack after tack up the beach, getting as close to shore as possible After ghosting around Roger Curtis at two knots, Wicked hooked into the westerly flow down Collingwood Channel. Once past the north point of Bowen Bay, we gibed constantly down the west and north shores of Bowen. Blowing thru the Hutt Island gap


under spinnaker at a fast clip, it was a relief to see the wind attach itself to the north side of Bowen almost half-way to Hood Point, before it finally petered out due to the light southerly coming down Howe Sound. Based on what we saw ahead of it (many boats had gone wide of a straight line to Hood Point and struggled to beat up to it in the very light wind against the flood), Wicked decided to drop the chute and aim about 100 yards north of Hood Point and drift


moment that Team Wicked decided that beer was in order because nothing more could be done to improve the situation, and after a few cold ones were quaffed, lo and behold: a lovely 200 yard wide carpet of breeze from the south came rolling around the tip of Finisterre Island. You just can’t plan these things in major transition zones like Hood/Finisterre, but you can certainly position yourself to be ready for them if they do appear, as is the case in a number of Round Bowen’s. After hooking into the carpet, left most


of the fleet well astern, quickly passing Il Moro, which had gotten stuck against Hood Point, and unable to tack, had to very slowly gibe 360 degrees around to starboard to get away from it. So up Howe Sound Wicked went, close on the heels of Voila and others. Normally it pays to short-tack up


the beach towards the finish because of stronger wind and lighter current or back eddies, but after a few tacks inshore it became obvious that better breeze existed offshore, coupled with the fact that slack tide was only 20 minutes away, so the flood was clearly on the wane. Wicked was the only boat that punched out as far as it did offshore before taking a very long port tack all the way to the finish line, gaining several minutes on the big boats ahead, some of which were visibly less than pleased to see a little boat rocketing up towards them at the finish. In closing, Team Wicked was


pleasantly surprised to have won the Overall trophy again, and it was nice to share the experience with many other Martin 242 sailors who also placed well overall.


by Michael Clements


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