Mike Henry's Heavy Weather Report:
HEAVY WEATHER RACE 2009:
What do they know in GH that we don't?
February 14, 2009, saw the 75th running of
Bremerton
Yacht Club's Heavy
Weather Log Race. This year's contest was significant in a couple of
respects with the most important being the significant increase in the
number of contestants entered (35 competitors as compared to a
historical low of 26 last year). The other being the multitude of
relatively less than spectacular scores for a mid-winter day race on
flat water, constantly ebbing tide, no wind and clear visibility -
certainly NOT a heavy weather kind of day. Ya gotta wonder!
Casino customers Mike & Bob are encouraged by Dealer Don
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On the social side (after all, LOG RACING IS A SOCIAL EVENT), Heavy
Weather Weekend kicked off Friday evening with a hosted social hour
followed by dinner and an evening at the "Casino" in the clubhouse.
Saturday morning dawned with that fine Pacific Northwest weather being
greatly appreciated by the contestants during log check-in. The social
side continued Saturday evening with a post race social hour in the
clubhouse again followed by dinner. After dinner, the evening's
entertainment program commenced with a skit contest between yacht clubs
to the theme of "Showboat"; the Tacoma YC thespian effort overcame the
challengers and they walked away with the highly sought after "Rubber
Clam Gun" trophy for their victory.
Photo: Jennifer Hardgrove
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The evening was rounded out with
live music for the crowd's dancing pleasure until the crack of
midnight. Socially speaking, the weekend wound up with Sunday morning
breakfast followed by the awards presentation.
Back to the log racing side on Saturday - After being "logged in" and
receiving their observers (while enjoying a continental breakfast), the
35 contestants returned to their boats and cast off for a day of
"heavy weather" log racing. This year's course was only 18.5 nm long
but included two trips through Port Washington Narrows and a round trip
through Rich Passage where the published ebbing current predictions for
these two stretches of water ranged from 2.5 knots up to 3.9 knots.
Unfortunately for most of us, real life current conditions in some of
the high flow areas did not match the predictions and the scores
certainly showed that. Surprisingly, nobody finished under 1.0% (and
that's with the handicap factor included), only six contestants came in
The Gig Harbor YC contestants who
took First, Second and
Third Places
Overall - Linda Anderson, Jim Anderson, Shirley Downer, Jerry Downer,
Louise Babbitt, George Babbitt.
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under 2.0 %, four were under 3.0% and most of the remaining 25
contestants finished up with scores in the 3.0% and 4.0% ranges.
Taking Overall honors was Jerry Downer on NORWESTER from Gig Harbor YC
with a score of 1.1133% and was followed very closely by 2nd place
Overall finisher Jim Anderson on FIDALGO, also of GHYC with a 1.1348%
score. Rounding out the top three Overall places was the only other
entry from GHYC George Babbitt on GENERAL QUARTERS scoring 1.3354%.
Obviously, the GHYC group did their homework together very well. The
remainder of the contestants were divided into five separate awards
classes, essentially based on race speeds. Trophies were awarded to
the top three finishers in each of these five classes.
Three clubs qualified to compete for the team trophy by having at least
four competitors, Meydenbauer Bay YC with seven, Queen City YC with
five and host Bremerton YC with 15 contestants. The best average of
the top four scores in each club determines the winning team. This
year the Bremerton YC team of Chuck Silvernail, Rob Bruins, Gene Paxton
and John Adair captured the P/C Grady Barrentine Heavy Weather Team
Trophy with an average team score of 1.9469%
With the conclusion of the awards presentation and departure of the
guests, most agreed that the 2009 Heavy Weather Weekend was a
The Bremerton YC team of Rob Bruins,
Gene Paxton, Dan Robinson and Chuck Silvernail receiving
their awards from BYC Commodore Mike Dunn.
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resounding success and certainly worthy of future planning for the 76th
Running in 2010.
Mike Henry
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