Ian Lloyd, a veteran sailboat racer and 12-year Swiftsure sailor, will ply a new race course this year.
Instead of the Swiftsure Lightship Classic, he will take his boat, Raven, and its crew of five on a new course designed, winds permitting, to keep the sails filled throughout — the Hein Bank Race.
“It looks like an interesting race,” said Lloyd, in an interview from Vancouver, where he works as land surveyor for Natural Resources Canada.
“It’s a race with some interesting navigation decisions that need to be made when you come round Race Rocks and make the return trip,” said the 55-year-old skipper of the 39-foot Raven.
This is the second year the Hein Bank Race has been offered during the Swiftsure, and it began with some successful lobbying by participating Swiftsure skippers and crews. They were looking for a new experience, one with a challenging distance but, hopefully, all-round faster sailing.
The Hein Bank Race takes the racers from Victoria out to Neah Bay on the U.S. side, just inside the entrance of Juan de Fuca Strait, and back, past Victoria onward to round a marker buoy in the middle of the strait and then return to Victoria, for 118.1 nautical miles, 207.8 km.
The Swiftsure International Yacht Race is still built around the Lightship Classic, the original race from Victoria out to the Swiftsure Bank, just outside the Juan de Fuca Strait and back to Victoria for 138.2 nautical miles, 256 km.
But over the years, shorter races have been added: The Cape Flattery Race, from Victoria to a mark in Neah Bay on the U.S. side and back for 101.9 nautical miles and the even shorter Juan de Fuca Race, Victoria to Clallam Bay on the U.S. side and back for 78.7 nautical miles.
Both those shorter races stand a good chance of offering racers full sails overnight with some interesting challenges of their own.
What they avoid, however, is perhaps one of the Swiftsure Lightship Classic’s biggest challenges, when boats enter upon the Pacific Ocean and head back.
It’s the moment when they leave Juan de Fuca Strait, with its convenient geographic land forms on either side making for a wind-funnel to channel, compress and speed up the winds from the Pacific.
Swiftsure chairman Vern Burkhardt said it’s a moment when sails typically deflate and flutter. At the same time, big swells coming in from the open Pacific will pick up. They lift and lower boats and provide a new challenge for even experienced sailors — seasickness.
“If you’ve got a sail up and you are not moving, the swells can be rather hard on the stomach,” said Burkhardt.
These swells, with the winds that typically slacken, put at a disadvantage the bigger yachts, with hulls that displace a larger volume of water.
Burkhardt said for many Swiftsure sailors, that short, trying sojourn into the Pacific, dealing with slack winds, the change in currents and ocean swells is part of the race’s challenge. But others still wanted a long race, but one that would improve the odds of persistent winds. So the Hein Bank course was designed.
That’s not to say Hein Bank racers are guaranteed nothing but good winds, especially after dark.
Burkhardt said Juan de Fuca Strait is a good spot for thermal winds. The sun will heat up the land, especially on the U.S. side, causing the covering air mass to rise. As that overland air rises, the air from outside can rush in to take its place and cause a wind across the strait.
But when the sun goes down, the ground cools off, the overhead air mass stops rising and the thermal winds across Juan de Fuca Strait will slacken.
So, part of the trick to do well in the Hein Bank Race comes down to navigation decisions made by the skipper to pick up the best winds at night — for example, hugging the American side or sailing farther off shore.
For the rest of the crew, the trick to a good race time is staying on their toes round the clock, in good or poor wind, especially after dark.
“The crews that can stay focused at night and make the best use of the wind they’ve got are the ones that will do well,” said Burkhardt.
He also said adding a new race course, such as Hein Bank, is part of on an ongoing effort to keep the Swiftsure International Yacht Race fresh. Crews can also mix up the challenges from year to year by sailing different courses.
“We don’t just make changes just for the sake of changing,” said Burkhardt. “We still have a good number of boats in the Swiftsure Lightship Classic.
“But last year we had some feedback from the Hein Bank skippers who said: ‘This is a fantastic race course,’” he said. “It just gives some new opportunities for different challenges.”
