Bishop Rock Race
August 15-17, 2009
By Jeff Johnson
So if you remember two things from this article to talk about with your sailing friends and crew, it should be that the Bishop Rock Race starts in Catalina and is 150 miles of off-wind sailing (minus the beat to SB and miscellaneous miles in light air).
For the first few years, the Bishop Rock race, as it was conceived, was an out and back course from San Diego and usually featured some mark prior to Bishop Rock – like La Jolla weather buoy or North Coronado Island. On the typical year, only the biggest boats could get offshore far enough to avoid the dying breeze near the coast at night. The others languished in that ‘dead zone’ and usually had to retire.
2008 marked the fifth year that the Bishop Rock race (189 nm overall) has started in CATALINA! After a competitor’s meeting in Two Harbors Friday morning, 15 boats checked in at the starting area near Ship Rock just outside Two Harbors. Competitors were split into two fleets with the B fleet (PH rating of 54 or higher) starting first and the A fleet (PH rating of 51 or lower) starting five minutes after that .
Getting away from the start line proved to be a key strategic moment. There is usually wind funneling through Two Harbors from the windward side of the island. This gives boats about a half mile push.
From there, they have three options:
1. Stay in the middle, and perish between coastal and offshore winds
2. Short tack up the island coast to the West End, connecting the wind gusts from cove to cove
3. Tack shortly after the start and head toward the mainland, trying to get offshore and out from under the lee of the island.
This last strategy often involves sailing crazy angles that seem like you’re headed back home rather than around West End.
The offshore boats mostly got the breeze first, but were several miles to leeward of the West End of Catalina as they rounded it. For the better part of 30 to 45 minutes, competitors could see the first boat to break into the breeze, Tom Holthus’ Bad Pak, a J-145, heeled over in a 12 – 15 knot breeze powering up the rhumbline to Santa Barbara while they sat, or just barely crept along. At least there was promise of better things to come. The first couple of boats that were working the short tack up the shore option rounded West End and also headed off to Santa Barbara. Looking at their angles, they were about 2 or 3 miles behind the leading offshore boats, but were also two or three miles to windward. Within about 60 minutes, everyone was around West End and sailing in a fresh breeze upwind to Santa Barbara island 35 nm away. At Santa Barbara island, boats were still well grouped with everyone getting around within 2 hours of one another. Tad Walicki’s well sailed Santana 35 “Alinka” was last around about 1900, still well before sundown, and in the hunt.
The fleet spent Friday night beam reaching along in 15+ knots of breeze and a mostly full moon. This third leg (SB to BR), approximately 65 nm long is where the big separation begins. The Andrews 70’ Alchemy, with new owners (Peterson and Braun out of Oceanside) and Bad Pak were able to really accelerate down the course and rounded BR about midnight. The smaller displacement boats all pretty much stuck together with 8 boats within sight of each other near the Bishop Rock buoy around sunrise Saturday morning. The final leg, Bishop Rock to the finish at SD Channel entrance buoy, is 98 miles long. For the fast boats, it was about a 15 hour sail with good breeze. While it never reached the 20 knot hallmark folks come out here looking for, it also, for the leaders, never really shut off either. The smaller boats spent 24 hours, give or take a couple of hours, to cover this same stretch. As the smaller boats got within about 20 miles of the finish, the wind shut down and the fun meter sagged a bit. But a light northerly breeze came up with the sun and soon competitors were beam reaching the final dozen miles to the finish with all boats reporting by 9 am Sunday morning. That’s a little shy of 48 hours of great blue water ocean sailing.
At the awards presentation, nice wooden picture frames were filled with the winning boats picture as seen from the Race Committee boat some time shortly after the start. A big thanks goes out to member Matt Smith for his assistance and boat (23’ Mako) which served as the RC boat. There might have been a fishing line trailing from the RC boat sometime after the start, but I couldn’t be certain….I was focused on the racers. Unfortunately, I do know there were never any fish in the boat. And thanks also to Stan Jorgenson on m/v Pikake, and to John Rogers on s/v Legacy for their hospitality extended to this RC.
All the competitors agreed that it although it was not the fastest race on record, it was still one of the best blue water courses to sail. To borrow a phrase from the crew shirts of Shockwave – “Two Rocks, Two Islands, Two Parties – Where do I sign up?”
Answer – online at www.sdyc.org/raceinfo – make it a date and dare to go the distance – Port Captain’s Race Around Bishop Rock, August 14 – 16, 2009. Just remember the two things…
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