The venerable San Juan 24 one-design class held its 2013 North Americans in July in Oak Harbor as part of the Whidbey Island Dinghy Weekend Regatta. Twenty-one SJ 24s were on the start line, the largest turn-out in many years, with boats from Seattle, Orcas Island, Bellingham, Vancouver BC and points between joining the strong Oak Harbor Fleet.

The racing, and results, were close, and after 8 races (one throw-out) only one point separated the top three boats. CYC’s Mark Bradner skippered Return, the 2011 Champion, to a come-from-behind win to edge out two Oak Harbor boats, Magic Juan (skippered by Shannon Buys) and Skamokawa (skippered by Mitch Rinella), the defending champion from 2012.

Return had to overcome a 7th in the first race on Saturday and a 14th in the third race (penalty turns in lighter air cost her dearly) but bounced back with bullets in the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th races. The sixth race allowed her to throw-out the 14th place result and put her just one point behind Skamokawa. In the seventh race, going into the last beat to the finish towards the west end of Penn Cove, Return was a length or two behind both Magic Juan and Skamokawa . Half-way up the beat Return tacked to the north but was not covered – she caught a favorable wind shift and perhaps some current to finish at the boat end ahead of Skamokawa and Magic Juan who had sailed towards the un-favored pin end.

Going into the eighth and last race, Return and Skamokawa were tied with 13 points each with Magic Juan just two points behind. Magic Juan rounded the weather mark on the first beat in first with Return and Skamokawa (on the inside) rounding together a length behind. Bradner gives full credit to his crew on the tight reach to the jibe mark, especially David Fukuhara trimming of the spinnaker, and Return slowly edged a boat length ahead so they could jibe on the inside at the mark ahead of Skamokawa, and they covered the rest of the race to take second place in the race and to win the regatta.

Other CYC sailors finished well, with Ken Johnson (Grauer Geist) in 4th place, Chris Phoenix (Sweet Jesus) in 9th, Gil Lund (Snappy Tom) in 10th, Peter Lorimer (T-Bone) in 12th, Mike Irish (Manhattan Transfer) in 14th and Jeff Kendall (Fancy) in 17th.