The 78th Swiftsure Lightship Classic race got off to a spinnaker start Saturday morning under sunny skies, southeast winds and lumpy progressing to whitecap waves as crowds gathered on Clover Point off Dallas Road to cheer on the sailors.
“This is shaping up to be a great Swiftsure,” said race chair Randy Diamond.
Southeast winds at the start line changed to westerly towards Race Passage requiring spinnakers to come down “and they just had a great sail through” putting them on their way to turning marks in Juan de Fuca Strait.
“Everything was quite smooth,” said Diamond. “It was a great start for everybody and I think it’s going to be a fantastic race.” Environment Canada forecast winds would strengthen through the afternoon and evening making the race anything but a Driftsure (the mock name for the race when there is next to no wind).
There may even be gale force winds overnight, said Diamond.
The races started with the Lightship Classic at 9 a.m. Saturday with the remaining four races crossing the start line in 10-minute increments.
The five races include the Swiftsure Lightship Classic which is a 138-nautical mile course, the Hein Bank Race at 118.1 nautical miles, Cape Flattery at 101.9 nautical miles, the Juan de Fuca at 78.7 nautical miles and the Swiftsure Inshore Classic, which ends at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club.
All five races included Vancouver Island boats with about 70 per cent of the approximate 119 entries coming from the United States. The race has yet to regain the pre-pandemic level of 140 entries in 2019.
The Swiftsure Lightship Classic — named for a lightship, an aid to navigation serving as a kind of lighthouse — is the longest race. Boats in the race sail around the “lightship” before returning to Victoria.
These days, racing yachts go around a virtual mark. The real Swiftsure lightship was stationed at Swiftsure Bank, near the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait, west of Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park off the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Ned Baess, who took media out on his boat The Bird on Saturday, took in all the races up close and was keenly interested to see Hay Tor, skippered by Stephanie Bacon of the Victoria Yacht Club, in the inshore racing division. That local boat was rebuilt by the yacht club after the keel was sheered off after running onto rocks close to Chatham Island about five months ago. “It launched two days ago,” said Baess.
Tents are set up on the Inner Harbour’s lower causeway for Swiftsure Centre, where the public can ask questions of event ambassadors. Close to 200 volunteers make the event happen.
While the Lightship Classic is the longest race, the Cape Flattery race is the most popular. That’s because waters are calmer in the Cape Flattery than in the Lightship, where boats can face open ocean swells.
Boats from the Juan de Fuca race typically start returning about 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. on Sunday morning. Victoria Harbour will be filled with boats Sunday returning from their various races, Diamond said.
The finish point is Ogden Point breakwater. Boats then go into Victoria Harbour for a check by safety inspectors.
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