Photo Credit: Steve Wolff, Photography (http://www.stevewolffphoto.com)

For the fifth straight year, the San Juan 24 fleet gathered at Oak Harbor to contest its North American Championships. This year, 16 boats from various ports on Puget Sound and British Columbia raced on June 20 and 21 in sunny Penn Cove in primarily westerly winds ranging from 6 to 13 knots – excellent conditions for the venerable one-design fleet.

Oak Harbor Yacht Club was the center of activity, and the Race Committee, headed by Byron Skubi, got off an amazing 13 races over the two days, with 8 races on Saturday and 5 more on Sunday.

After Saturday’s 8 races (which itself matched the highest number of races ever run at the Oak Harbor SJ 24 North Americans), three boats were grouped at the top, with Tumbleweed (skipped by Jon Seestrom) from Bellingham leading Return (skippered by Mark Bradner) from CYC Seattle and Ekono Juan (skippered by Ian Wereham) from Orcas Island by 1 and 3 points respectively. That these boats were on top was no surprise – Ekono Juan was the defending 2014 champion, Return had won the regatta in 2011 and 2013, and Tumbleweed had been a consistent top 5 finisher. After three races on Sunday, Tumbleweed and Ekono Juan had each won a race with Tumbleweed increasing its lead over the other two boats to 3 points. However, as the winds lightened in the afternoon, it was Return that handled the conditions best with clean starts and finding clear lanes to claim a first in the twelfth race to grab the overall lead by four points, and then a solid second in the last race to claim the 2015 Championship.

“You never can relax in this regatta,” noted Mark Bradner. “Last year we had the lead by a couple of point going into the last race, had a bad start and dropped from first to fifth for the regatta. So it was so important this year to get a clean air start, and then we were able to cover the other boats.”

Mark thanked crew John Schwab who handled jib and spinnaker sheets, David Valentine on the main sheet, and Gary Reifel on foredeck.

Tumbleweed took second over Ekono Juan by a tie-breaker. CYC boats took fourth through seventh places: Grauer Geist (Staff Commodore Ken Johnson, skipper) 4th, Snappy Tom (Paul Karas, skipper) 5th, Sweet Jesus (Chris Phoenix, skipper) 6th, and Manhattan Transfer (Mike Irish, skipper) 7th. Fancy, skippered by Jeff Kendall, finished 14th.

The competitiveness of the fleet was evident throughout the regatta. Five different boats won a race and 12 of the 16 entrants had at least one fifth place or higher finish. It was not possible to recover from a bad start, and even the top three boats had throw-outs of an 8th, 10th and 15th place – they were simply more consistent in the remaining races.

Full Results:

1. Return (Seattle), 33 points
2. Tumbleweed (Bellingham), 41 points
3. Ekono Juan (Orcas Island), 41 points
4. Grauer Geist (Seattle), 50 points
5. Snappy Tom (Seattle), 64 points
6. Sweet Jesus (Edmonds), 72 points
7. Manhattan Transfer (Seattle), 91 points
8. Conflict (Bellingham), 95 points
9. Renaissance (Oak Harbor), 99 points
10. Ehu Kai (Oak Harbor), 102 points
11. Slingshot (Vancouver BC), 113.5 points
12. Mayhem (Bellingham), 115 points
13. Bruce (Bellingham), 123 points
14. Fancy (Seattle), 157.5 points
15. Juan Pequeno (Anacortes), 168 points
16. Zoom (Bellingham), 189 points