CYC Boats Place High at the 2016 San Juan 24 North American Championships

Posted in: Today At CYC ♦ Tuesday, July 5th, 2016, 2:22 PM ♦ No Comments

For the sixth straight year, the San Juan 24 fleet gathered at Oak Harbor to contest its North American Championships. This year, 12 boats from various ports on Puget Sound raced on June 25 and 26 in sunny Penn Cove in primarily westerly winds , with occasional northerly shifts, ranging from 7 to 13 knots – excellent conditions for the venerable one-design fleet that placed a high premium on good starts and handling the first weather leg in the varying Penn Cove currents.

Oak Harbor Yacht Club was the center of activity, and the Race Committee, headed by Byron Skubi of Oak Harbor got off 11 well-run races over the two days, with 6 races on Saturday and 5 more on Sunday. The volunteers of the Oak Harbor Yacht Club committee were assisted by Chuck Skewes and Bryan Paine of Ullman Sails, prime sponsor of the regatta.

After Saturday’s races, three boats were grouped at the top, with Grauer Geist (skippered by CYC Staff Commodore Ken Johnson) of Seattle leading Ekono Juan, owned by Ryan Forbes and skippered by Ian Warenham, from Orcas Island, and Return (skippered by CYC’s Mark Bradner) from Seattle by 2 and 8.5 points respectively. That these boats were on top was no surprise – Ekono Juan was the 2014 champion, Return won the regatta in 2011, 2013 and 2015, and Grauer Geist has been a consistent top 4 finisher. Saturday ended with a rare tie for first in the last race, with Ekono Juan catching Grauer Geist on the downwind line – even a video of the finish could not break the tie.

After three races on Sunday, Grauer and Ekono Juan were tied, and Return with 2 firsts and a second was charging hard. However, Ekono Juan put together a first and second in the last two races to clinch the championships by 2.5 points over Return and 4 points over Grauer.

Other CYC boats took 7^th through 9^th: Manhattan Transfer, skippered by Mike Irish, which lost 6^th on a tie-breaker; Snappy Tom, skippered by Gil Lund, and Fancy, skippered by Jeff Kendal, respectively. Zachary Warren, in his first SJ 24 North Americans, took 11^th on his boat Wiki Wiki.

The competitiveness of the fleet was evident throughout the regatta, with a premium on good starts and handling the first weather leg in the varying Penn Cove currents. Although the top 3 boats won 10 of the 11 races, another 6 boats had top 3 or better finishes, and often several boats were overlapped at the finish, especially the downwind finishes. The old adage that “consistency wins regattas” proved true again. Not only were the top three boats’ one throw-out a 5th^th for Ekono Juan and 6ths for both Return and Grauer Geist but, while Grauer won Saturday’s racing and Return won Sunday’s, Ekono Juan was a close second both days and a deserving champion.