LATEST NEWS & UPDATES

Welcome to the revival of the Northwest Shorthanded Sailing Society.  After a hiatus for a few years, the club is being reorganized in an effort to reinvigorate singlehanded and shorthanded sailing with the Northwest.  If you'd like to be involved, please send us an email and we'll put you on our newsletter list so you'll be the first to hear about the latest events.

 

April 28, 2008 - SYC Jack & Jill Results; Initial Championship Standings

We seemed to skip directly from Winter to Summer this past weekend at the Seattle Yacht Club Jack & Jill race.  With sun and clear skies, reasonably warm temps and little wind, we kicked off the shorthanded sailing season with 3 fleets sailing a windward/leeward buoy race in the waters just North of Meadow Point.

With all 21 boats starting together, the starting line was crowded though orderly.  Early leaders included Declaration of Independence, Hooligan, Three Ring Circus and Rock On!.  As the day wore on, lighter boats and those will tall rigs seemed to move up through the fleet and progressively put distance those sporting a bit more furniture - sounds familiar I'm sure.

Winning the Jack & Jill and Double Handed division was Darrin Towe on Wicked Wahine, followed by Scott Burbank's Rock On! and Brian Watkin's Declaration of Independence. 

The Single Handed division was dominated by Lauren Buchholz on Piko as he took the division uncontested.

Women can rejoice in knowing that having a Jill aboard made all the difference as the Jack & Jack's finished 10th, 11th and 20th in a DH class of 20 boats.  That's truly girl power.  One wonders how well a Jill & Jill boat would've done.

Visit SYC's results page for more details on results.

The initial NWSSS Championship Standings are up with Wicked Wahine, Rock On! and Declaration of Independence leading with 20, 19, 18 points respectively.  Piko leads the SH division with 1 point.  More details on the standings and championship here.

With Race To The Straits just days away look for these standings to be shaken up significantly in week's time!

Thanks to Brian Watkins and the Seattle Yacht Club for opening up their event to a few more boats and helping us get off on the right foot for this season!

 

April 10, 2008 - More Schedule Confirmations, Race To The Straits Details

Things are moving quickly now.  We've got confirmations for the following Jack & Jill events:

You can sign up for any of these races directly with the host clubs on their websites (links on the schedule page).  Just add a comment to your registration stating your intent to sail Single Handed or standard Double Handed.

In addition, we've also been warmly welcomed by CYC Tacoma to join them in their Vashon Challenge event on August 16th.

Just a couple more events to make confirmations with and we'll have a final schedule.

Race To The Straits Details
I've been asked to broadcast a couple details about Race To The Straits:

Party Location
The Saturday party this year is going to be held at Port Townsend Yacht Club, which is located at Boat Haven Marina - not Point Hudson.
 
Boat Haven does not take reservations, but I've heard unofficially that they'll be providing the similar service as last year with a welcome boat outside the break water to help direct folks to guest slips and rafts, and that they are going to try to accommodate all the boats they can.
 
Registration
STYC does not have online registration.  You'll need to go their website and download the registration form, then send it by mail or drop it by Sloop Tavern.
 
http://www.slooptavern.org/

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________


April 9, 2008 - SYC's Jack & Jill Race Confirmed - Sign Up Now!

The details are worked out and we are set to go for our first NWSSS event of the year.
 
Seattle Yacht Club's Jack & Jill Race
April 26, 2008
 
I've talked directly with the organizer and there will be 2 starts - a Single Handed start, and a combined start of Jack & Jill and Double Handed boats.  Both starts will sail the same course - and there will be Flying Sail and Non-Flying sail options within each division per the event's sailing instructions.  At the conclusion of the event and it's scoring, I'll be putting together the scores for the NWSSS Championship and posting them on the website.
 
More event details: http://www.seattleyachtclub.org/Sailboat/Sailboat_Racing/racing2008/notice-of-race-syc-jack-jill
 
Sign up directly at SYC's website:  http://www.seattleyachtclub.org/registersail

Don't worry about designating Single or Double Handed on the registration.  The details of crew configuration will be worked out at the event.

 
If you're going to make it to this event, please let me know by email so I can begin to keep track of how many boats the NWSSS group will have at each race.
 
 
So sign up early and use this event for a great shorthanded warm up for Race To The Straits the following weekend.  Don't forget to register for R2S too (http://www.slooptavern.org/).

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

April 5, 2008 - Getting Close To Final 2008 Calendar

I've been working most recently on firming up the details on the 2008 calendar.  Things look positive so far... I've received preliminary approvals from most all the folks hosting the different events on our calendar and I'm hoping to be able to announce a final calendar within the next 10 days.

Look forward shortly to details about the SYC Jack & Jill race on 4/24.

For now, be sure to get your registration in for STYC's Race To The Straits coming up in 4 weeks!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

February 11, 2008 - NWSSS Update & New Question: Singlehander's Sailing In Doublehanded Fleet?

Hello shorthanded sailors.  Well the sailing season is slowing gathering momentum with CYC's Windjammer this past weekend, and Center Sound Series squarely on the horizon.  Most of our events are still a little ways away with the first official Championship event being the SYC Jack & Jill on April 26, 2008.
 
 
Growing, Growing, Growing...
Our news list continues to grow and now stands at 45 with plenty more lurkers on SailingAnarchy forum posts.
 
 
Potential Participants
The responses to the potential participant email was great and it looks like we've got more than 10 boats showing strong interest.  As expected Race To Straits is most popular with 8 folks stating their intention to race, the Vashon Challenge and Double Time races are in second with 5 on the books right now and we're averaging 3 boats with 2 maybes for each of the Jack & Jill races in the schedule.  This isn't bad for our first year and with the first race nearly 2-3 months away.
 
Please keep emailing me with your expectations/intentions on which races you're going to compete in.  I'm trying to keep an up to date list so we can help promote ourselves to the host clubs.  Don't be afraid to update your intentions if you've already emailed me.
 
 
Championship Sign Up/Membership
We're working on this.  Trying to keep things informal and sailing focused.  I hope to have this done by the first race in April.  My gut feeling is this is going to be more of a sign up to compete for the championship rather than an actual club membership.  Thanks to Andy Schwenk at Northwest Rigging for offering to sponsor a portion of the trophy cost, and the the Northwest Multihull Association for agreeing to put up the money for the multihull trophies!  Thanks to Gary Stuntz at Clear Ahead Sailmakers & Productions for offering his support to get the technicalities worked out.
  
 
Question For Email List:  Will We Allow Singlehander's To Compete In A Doublehanded Fleet In Order To Complete Enough Race For The Championship?
A few weeks ago, a question came up about the eligibility of a Skipper who was sailing for the Doublehanded Championship needing to sail Singlehanded for a race or two due to lack of crew.  It was asked if we'd allow someone to compete in a Doublehanded race as a Singlehander in order to complete their necessary scores.
 
I talked to a couple of people about it and we seemed to think that it was fair since sailing Singlehanded certainly isn't an advantage to sailing Doublehanded.  However we figured there needed to be some guidelines:
* To qualify for Singlehanded Championship all scored races must be sailed alone by the same Skipper.
 
* To qualify for Doublehanded championship all scored races must be sailed by no more than two competitors, at least one of which shall be aboard for all races - this person will be designated as 'Skipper' in the NWSSS Championship entry.  (For example, Skipper must be the same for all races, but crew may be different.)
 

* When competing for the Doublehanded Championship, up to 50% of scored races may be sailed Singlehanded so long as:

        1.  They are sailed by the designated Skipper.

        2.  If there is a separate start for Singlehanded and Doublehanded, the competitor starts with the Doublehanded fleet.  (This is the cost of not having crew for a race - if there is a separate start for Singlehanded and Doublehanded boats, you must start with Doublehanded boats and give up your opportunity to win the Singlehanded trophy from the host club for that race.  We simply don't want to complicate scoring - nor deal with the potential lack of fairness caused by starting in fleet 5 minutes ahead/behind your Championship scoring fleet)

 
 * A competitor may compete for both the Singlehanded and Doublehanded Championship.  However, in this case Singlehanded scores may not count toward Doublehanded Championship.

* Singlehanded sailors will not be allowed to compete in either of the endurance races (Northern Century or Doubletime).  (There simply isn't enough room on the course for sailors to safely take a nap without safety concerns for themselves and other traffic).
 

So what do you think about this idea?  Is it a good idea that allows for flexibility and helps make sure we can have larger fleets?  Or is it unnecessarily complicated and potentially unfair to those who have a full doublehanded crew for each race.  Personally, I can be swung either way on this issue.  So have at it.  Send me your feedback and I'll post it in the next update along with a decision from the masses on this issue.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

January 14, 2008 - Championship Format - Poll Results & Plans for 2008

The results of the Championship format and schedule poll are in:
CONCLUSION:
Based on the poll results, as well as feedback during the meeting and since via email, here's how I think the 2008 NWSSS Schedule is going to look:
 
Schedule
Total scheduled scored races: 10 to 11.
 
A competitors top 5 scores will added to create their NWSSS Championship score and top score wins each division (Singlehanded, Doublehanded and Jack & Jill)
 
Race score is equal to number of boats beat in division.
 
There a no minimum number of races needed to be scored - if a competitor races in fewer than 5 races they'll receive a no score (0) for the remaining races.
 
All competitors in scheduled races will be scored for NWSSS Championship regardless of their membership in NWSSS until July 31, 2008.  Competitors must be a member for NWSSS by this deadline to be eligible to win the Championship.

 

Please feel free to send me any feedback or thoughts you might have on the poll, the results or the current format of the NWSSS Championship.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________


More News & Updates

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

NWSSA & Other Shorthanded Sailing Discussions on Sailing Anarchy:

Here's a link to the newest discussion:

Northwest Shorthanded Sailing Society

Here are links to previous discussions:

Northwest Shorthanded Sailing

Doublehanded All Night Long

Doublehanded Division For Center Sound Series

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Interested in Shorthanded Sailing?  Have an event we should add to our calendar?  Want to be part of our newsletter list?  Have feedback?
Email us