Fair share of silverware for J/Teams in the Swiftsure Yacht Race

Swiftsure Yacht Race © Jan Pix

Over one hundred fifteen yachts entered the 2022 Swiftsure International Yacht Race that started on Saturday, May 28th.

It was a reasonably fast race this year, unlike in years past. J/Teams across the board won plenty of their fair share of silverware in all four events that take place simultaneously - the classic Swiftsure, the Cape Flattery Race, the Juan de Fuca Race, and the Inshores Race. In the Pacific Northwest, offshore J/Teams continue to grow in numbers and that's reflected in the number of boats occupying the top spots on the podiums. From J/80s to a J/160, virtually every size J managed to win some kind of silver in all four races. Below are the courses and the J/Teams that managed to finish at the top of the leaderboard in each race.

Swiftsure Lightship Classic

Just one J/crew sailed the Swiftsure Lightship Classic and they made the J/World proud of their amazing efforts in the 132.8nm race out to the opening of the Juan de Fuca Strait and back to the finish. Chad Stenwick's J/35 THE BOSS managed to hop onto the podium taking the bronze medal Overall as one of only four finishers in the entire division!

Cape Flattery Race

It was a stunning performance overall and in each Division/ Class for dozens of J/Teams in the 101.0nm Cape Flattery Race. The course went from the Clover Point start, left the mark at Neah Bay to port, and crossed the finish line across Victoria Harbour. Overall, J/Teams took 11 of the top 15 places! Taking the silver was John Polgase's J/109 DOUBLE TIME. They were followed by Chris Phoenix's J/105 JADED in 4th, Kirk Palmer's J/120 LIGHT SCOUT in 5th, Doug Pihlaja's J/105 ABSTRACT 6th, Jim Prentice's J/109 DIVA 7th, Tom Sitar's J/109 SERENDIPITY 8th, and Don Leighton's J/35 TAHLEQUAH in 9th.

On a class basis, the results were equally as impressive. In the CFR L1 Class, Scott Campbell's J/121 RIVA was 4th and Ron Holbrook's J/133 CONSTELLATION took 5th. Similarly, in CFR L2 Class, Mike Fagundo's J/33 MINVERVA took 4th, while David Miller's J/99 ONE LIFE placed 5th. In CFR L3 Class, it was a sweep of the top five by J/105s. Winning was Chris Phoenix's JADED, followed in second by Doug Pihlaja's ABSTRACT, Vincent Townrow's KINETIC third, John Aitchison's MOOSE UNKNOWN fourth, and Doug Schenk's FREE BOWL OF SOUP in fifth place.

In the CFR H1 Class, it was a near sweep of the podium. Winning was Kirk Palmer's J/120 LIGHT SCOUT, followed by Cody Pinion's J/120 MAGDALENA in second, and Jim Calnon's J/120 PATHFINDER in fourth place. In CFR H2 Class, it was a sweep by J/Crews. Winning was John Polglase's J/109 DOUBLE TIME, second went to Jim Prentice's J/109 DIVA, third to Tom Sitar's J/109 SERENDIPITY, and fourth to Don Leighton's J/35 TAHLEQUAH. Just off the pace was Ron MacKenzie's J/37 FUTURE PRIMITIVE in sixth.

Juan de Fuca Race

Perhaps the most shocking and most stunning performance took place in the 78.7nm Juan de Fuca Race. In one of the largest fleets in the entire event, it was Phil Dean's J/80 RUSH from Sloop Tavern Yacht Club that won the whole enchilada overall, winning on corrected time by over 21 minutes! Good on ya gang, impressive! All of their competition was over 30 feet, most of them 35-42 footers! On elapsed time, they were the fourth boat to finish in a fleet of 35+ boats!

On a class basis, quite obviously, Dean's J/80 RUSH won JDF L2 Class by a 3 hours 2 minutes corrected time margin! LOL! Then, in JDF L3 Class, Jim Bottles' J/30 CELEBRATION took home the silver.

Sailing the Inshore Fleet was Tom Kerr's J/105 CORVO CV, taking the silver in the INF 1 Division and missing the gold by a mere four minutes after a 26.0nm race.

More information at swiftsure.org