STYC held their single-handed race Saturday, Aug. 28th with 24 boats on the water. It was a delightful day starting with light building to medium shifty northerlies. The pursuit start began with Aquavit at 10:50:31 and finished with Flying Colors at 11:34:33. All the boats headed to Spring Beach, downwind to West Point buoy and returned to Shilshole. There were huge wind shifts and holes all over the 11 mile course but particularly at the Spring Beach buoy and between West Point and the Ship Canal. At Spring Beach, several boats thought the buoy might be on the beach because they were confused by the strange courses of some of the boats nearest to the mark. Trent Piepho on Rock Lobster and Dan Randolph on Nefarious seemed to figure out how to round Spring Beach best. Boats with flying sails seemed to have a big advantage getting away from the hole after rounding. Creative and More Jubilee along with Three Ring Circus took the lead. Jubilee went to the north more and extended a lead and Flying Colors, a Jeanneau Sunfast 3600, caught up midway on the run south. Some of the boats who sailed more of the rhumb line course to West Point, including One Life, Rush and Underdog, were looking pretty good when the wind went way east. Eventually though the wind went back to the north and Creative led Jubilee around West Point. Another hole developed on the beat back to the finish. Creative crossed the finish line first, followed by Jubilee and Rush, who just nipped Nefarious, to round out the podium.
