Hi All,

Last weekend we held the second running of the prestigious Portlandia Cup Regatta out on the Columbia river. The regatta was a bit more keelboat focused than last years event with many of the winter youth sailors getting out on j/105s and Island Sailing Club joined us with their Capri 22s. Saturday was the first day of the event and we were greeted with a nice easterly wind in the mid to high teens. We were able to get six races completed with the strong breeze, one of the competitors commented that it was probably the most amount of tacks, gybes and spinnaker sets they have done all season. The evolving tradition of this event has been to put big boats on small courses which has the effect of rewarding the boat that has the most competent crew, quite a few times I was able to witness passes at a mark rounding where one boat would shrimp the kite only to make a comeback on the next leg by taking advantage of another boats botched tack.

Sunday was much less windy than Saturday was and we were only able to complete one race for both classes. The light winds and stronger current made for challenging conditions as there wasn’t one correct way up the course. The left side would put sailors in the barge channel which had slightly more current but a bit more pressure where as going right would get you some relief from the current but wind would get lighter, and going way to far right would put you by the marina where the current will really rip through from time to time. Congratulations to John Weil and the troublemaker team for winning the j/105 fleet and Paul Lewis for winning the Capri 22 fleet. Also thank you to Riley and Haines for doing safety and mark set both days and keeping the course square through out both days.

We will be back to 420s and 29ers next week and high school sailing is starting soon, see you on the water!