CYC Home
CYC's premier fall regattas for one-design and PHRF racers are being combined into a single, two-weekend event this year, under the banner of the Puget Sound Sailing Championships. North Sails is the title sponsor of the event this year and will hold a weather and tactics seminar the Friday night before the big boats sail.
Uniting the events and calling them PSSC amounts to a marketing strategy and is the brainchild of Fleet Captain/Race Jerry Diercks. Diercks hopes the strategy will raise the profile of what formerly were separately branded events, attracting more sailors and sponsors and adding efficiencies.
The Melges 24 fleet heads for the starting line during the one-design regatta in 2008.
The re-branding will have no impact on this year's scheduling or actual racing. Dinghies and smaller one-design keelboats will race off Shilshole Oct. 3-4 in what was formerly called the Fleet Championships regatta and will now be the One-Design Fleet Championships Weekend segment of PSSC.
PHRF and large-boat one-design fleets, which previously had sole possession of the PSSC name but now will share it, will race the following weekend, Oct. 10-11.
Each regatta will have two courses, ensuring a maximum number of starts.
"The long and short of it is that we realized that there were several opportunities and efficiencies to be had by merging the One Design Fleet Championships and the Puget Sound Sailing Championships," Diercks said.
"We will make this more formalized in the years to come and take even greater advantage of the efficiencies, but already it means that we can leverage more from our title sponsor, save money on trophy orders, and focus our time producing the event by killing two birds with one stone at every turn."
North initially signed up to sponsor the large-boat event but extended its sponsorship to the small boat and dinghy weekend as a result of Dierck's re-branding effort, which combines the two events into a single regatta with more than 160 boats and 750 sailors.
The North Sails seminar will be held on Friday, Oct. 9, with the bar opening and free pizza beginning at 6 p.m. Local expert Bruce Hedrick will lead the seminar and will discuss weather and tactics, including a question-and-answer session after his presentation.
The club will have parties in the Shilshole clubhouse on Saturday and Sunday following racing both weekends. Bill Blodgett is the regatta chairman.
A special event during the Saturday party of the big-boat weekend will be the ceremonial christening of CYC's new mark-set whaler, the James D. The boat actually will enter service beginning with the small-boat weekend.
Register (and other details)—
for the One-Design Fleet Championships Weekend
or for the
Large Boat Weekend