Hobie Division 4

Another fantastic weekend of racing happened again at the Harrison Hot Springs regatta. With 15 boats in attendance, all Hobie 18’s! there was some great racing over the weekend. With winds ranging from 15-20 on Saturday and over 20knts on Sunday, Steve Brunsden and his team managed to get 10 races done over the weekend. Everyone was tired, a few bodies were sore, but everyone was smiling when they came off the water! A big thanks to Bob Combie and Tim Dorwin for their constant efforts in making sure the course was true and fair. Thanks also to Stu Dean, Phil and Jackie Smith from Fleet 214 who helped organized the food Saturday and Sunday nights. Always a treat. And thanks to all the other volunteers both on and off the water who help make these events happen.

J and Eric were dominant in the lead winning 7 out of the 10 races, but the next 5 spots were a hard fought battle between Don, Jere, Phil, Rich and Paul. Well done all!!

Results can be seen here:

Harrison Results

Paul Carter also posted some pictures:
Link Here

Another added bit of excitement this year was the inclusion of the Waszp Class. This is a foiling monohull available to all ages, but you’d better be fairly fit to sail one! They were fun to watch as they maneuvered around the course. They had some of the best sailing they’ve seen all year and were truly grateful to be included in our event. I think we’ll be seeing them again!

Click here for the 2023 Lake Quinault photo and video gallery. These have been made available for download. Click on the three dot ellipsis (…) in the top right of the photo or video for downloading. Some of these may be from the NW Area Championship Regatta held on the preceding Saturday and Sunday, July 29th and 30th. Most are from the North American Championships Tuesday through Friday, August 1st to 4th. Click on the (i) Info link to see the date and time taken.

Thank you to our photographers; Liza Tewell, Hannah Webb, and Andrew Gross
Let me know if I’ve missed someone. Many others took photos and videos during the event for posting on Facebook, the Event page, and Twitter. This gallery does not include all of those. If you would like a higher resolution original from one posted on social media, post a comment request on the site, or contact Division 4.

Thank you to Will Nelson for loaning his camera equipment out so various people could take pictures of our event. Will has spent hours editing over a 1,000 photos and videos for this gallery. Thank you Will!!

Hobie H17/H18 North American Championship Regatta 
Day 3 Recap by Liza Tewell
Tuesday-Friday, August 1-5, 2023
Lake Quinault, WA
Rain Forest Resort Village

Unlike the third race day of the 2023 Hobie H17/H18 North American Championships, which began damp and overcast, the final day of racing opened with clear blue skies. Forecast to be the warmest day of the week, would the wind be true, as it had been the previous three days? Thursday’s racing saw a variety of puffs down the center, north shore thermals, west end lifts, and more. By midmorning, as the sailors enjoyed hot cups of coffee and breakfast outdoors while messing about with their boats, the Spanish moss, hanging like thick green cobwebs from the Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar and Douglas fir trees that embraced the Rain Forest Resort Village RV campground like a reassuring hug, began to waft, hinting at the promise of a sturdy breeze. 
Regardless of the impending conditions, the day’s contests would be a clash of the Titans (with an ample supply of gladiators in training). In the Hobie 18 class, just two points separated the current leaders, John Hoag and Della Hoag, last year’s national champs, from the wonders from down under, John Forbes and Caroline Forbes. At this level of competition, the front runners play the course like a game of chess, combined with golf, merging skill with tactics, at times bordering on the trickery of the Artful Dodger. Though no handicap scoring is involved at one-design racing such as this, the one-score throwout can be a powerful pawn, as evidenced by the Forbes tossing of their double-digit 26 point DSQ. 
Thursday’s racing had a hefty share of Corinthian moments, with most skirmishes settled on the sea with a gentleman’s salute. Good sportsmanship is usually mutually beneficial, such as when John Hoag and Paul Evenden were both approaching the start line on starboard at the committee boat end and each saw the lift to the right. Rather than a scuffle at the line, Hoag granted access to Evenden with both boats tacking to port immediately after starting, hitching a ride on the elevator while the fleet scrambled to catch up. (Hoag was set to round first at the west end of the lake, had he not mistook a random yellow something-er-other offshore for the weather mark.) Evenden and his crew, junior racer Elianna Sutcliffe, pocketed the bullet.
Speaking of the weather mark, a tack just before rounding caused Don Atchley and his crew, Lilah Fitzgerald to flip (one of only two in the fleet the entire day), costing themselves several standings and making contact with Dan Tarleton, who waved it off with a “no worries, mate”. Perhaps hanging onto, rather than jam cleating the mainsheet might prevent a future mishap…
It remains to be seen if the wildfire season will continue to add the unexpected twist as it did on Day 3 when two airtanker firefighting planes made several passes to pick up water from Lake Quinault (though unlike Day 2, no smoke was visible from the racecourse). In the evening, before the fleet settled down to dinners, card games, concertinas, accordions and s’mores, a Navy EA-18G Growler acknowledged the Hobie racers gathered on shore with a high-level flyover against the backdrop of the setting sun. The week’s abundance of (very not-sea-level but nautical nonetheless) aircrafts visiting the lake, prompted one racer to comment, “I went to a Hobie regatta and an air show broke out.”

Hobie H17/H18 North American Championship Regatta 
Day 2 Recap, by Liza Tewell
Tuesday-Friday, August 1-5, 2023
Lake Quinault, WA
Rain Forest Resort Village

Two days down, two to go. Eight races so far and what seem to be the boats to beat are bubbling to the top of the reader board. With that said, top finishes have reached deep into the fleet. 
In the Hobie 17 class, Ron Holm from Kansas, home of the 2022 North American Championships, stood in 6^th place going into Thursday’s racing. But he has a 1,2 and 3 in his pocket and is only 20 points from the frontrunner, Phil Collins from Oklahoma, who was happy to throw out a 14^th place finish then rack up four consecutive firsts. In a class of 25 boats, 20 points is a relatively slim margin, especially with the potential to run eight more races. 
In the Hobie 18 class, David Peltier and Marcos McGee are down in 10^th after Wednesday’s racing but not out with a strong 2^nd place finish in Race 6. Just 9 points separate the top four places.

Summer in The Great Pacific Northwest is notoriously short. Only about 8 weeks separate what the locals call grey, damp and cold “June-uary” and the early dog days of September. Puget Sounders cram in as many outdoor activities as possible into this small window of days filled with warm weather, sunshine and up to 19 hours of daylight lasting from the bright dawns to the end of the long dusks. 
Blue skies are part of the equation as well, as long as smoke from the increasingly familiar wildfires don’t blow in from the north, west, or south. 
Often the haze arrives in August. It’s the color of mustard and creeps through sealed windows, setting off smoke alarms in the middle of the night. 
Midday through Wednesday’s racing, a plume began rising over the western hillsof the lake. White, not yellow, though the shape and density were familiar to those with firsthand experience and did not identify as a marine layer. 
Awhile later, the gusty breeze that began building on the race course helped to dispel the rising smoke in the west. But the threat wasn’t over. 
During the Wednesday evening fleet dinner of tacos and frivolity hosted at the Rain Forest Resort Village Salmon House restaurant, sailors, alerted by an increasing loud low rumble, clamored out to the back deck to watch as two white and orange air tanker fire-fighting planes descended from the east to scoop up bellies full of water from the lake’s surface, then rise and head west to help quell the flames creeping through a remote area between Quinault and the coast. 
Barrel chested, powerful, with wide stubby wings, the air tankers made several scoop-and-drop waterbombing trips. By Thursday morning, the danger was deemed under control, a relief to the race committee which would not have to contend with incomings during Thursday’s races. If conditions do flare up, the DNR will notify the race committee prior to initiating their flights. (Though not often seen, the sound of freedom can be heard periodically—the mountains and hills surrounding Lake Quinault back up against the perimeter of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island’s EA-18G Growler training area.)
The weekend following this year’s Hobie North American Championships is the traditional final weekend of Seattle’s 73-year-old Seafair Festival. Weeks of parades and parties culminate with the running of the Seafair Hydro Races on Lake Washington. 
The action isn’t only on the water. One of the most anticipated and crowd-pleasing spectacles (or not, depending on one’s ilk) of the weekend is the midday Boeing Air Show over Lake Washington featuring the visiting Blue Angels. Hobie racers were treated to a solo Blue Angel flyover while practicing its air acrobats over the lake.

This link will provide the most recent published results.
Most recent results