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The Short Series #2 course on 8/1/24 was E-D-D-E over 4.22 miles all inside the harbor. The wind was light out of the East at 9 knots. We were all very happy to see Kevin Millet’s Olson 30 back on the race course, this time with Jim Saylor as crew. Jim had been over in Kaneohe Bay checking out the 2 Olson 30’s that had just finished the Pacific Cup Race from San Francisco and he did buy the Olson 30 “Fiasco” to replace Fast Company. Jim planned to race the boat in the Kauai Channel Race on 8/9/24 to deliver it to Kauai. Siren, a Santa Cruz 33 belonging to the Kauai Sailing Association, was another boat on the race course. Although they were not officially in the race, it was nice to have a 5th boat out there and this was a good experience for the young KSA team (and their old Uncle Carl Andersson!).

The pin end of the start line was the G-7 buoy way down towards the mountain. This favored a port tack start at the race committee end on the mole. Ozone and Bonjolea II on port tack had to duck Kato coming down the starting line quickly on starboard tack. Speedy was also on port tack and just a little behind Bonjolea II. And Speedy subsequently tacked early onto starboard towards Kalapaki. A little later Ozone and Bonjolea II tacked at about the same time to head towards the Kalapaki buoy. Kato had to duck both of them before tacking back onto starboard towards Kalapaki. The very fast Bonjolea II quickly overtook Ozone to weather, giving Ozone bad air. Ozone barely made it around the Kalapaki buoy with Kato right on their stern. Speedy and Siren followed.

Downwind Bonjolea II had Doug Tiffany in the unusual position of doing foredeck for the spinnaker. The things that guy won’t do for his wife Bonnie Tiffany, the skipper on the helm! Kato caught up to Ozone after the Kalapaki rounding until Ozone put up their spinnaker and Ozone gained some.

And the boat positions stayed about the same for all 4 laps around the Kalapaki buoy with Bonjolea II gaining on every lap. And at the finish line near the race committee it was Bonjolea II taking line honors and first place. And even with their handicap on corrected time they had Ozone way back 4 minutes behind them. Ozone finished at the G-7 buoy rather than at the mole. Kato subsequently took third place. And it was a horse race to the finish between Speedy and Siren and if I am not mistaken it looked to me like Siren finished just a little bit ahead.

There is no race Thursday 8/8/24 as the Kauai Channel Race from Kaneohe Bay to Nawiliwili is on Friday 8/9/24. The 4 boats representing Nawiliwili are Bonjolea II the Sydney 36 which will be missing their regular skipper Bonnie Tiffany; Dragonfly which is Jude’s 40 foot catamaran rocket ship which should be the first boat to finish; Fiasco, Jim Saylor’s newly purchased Olson 30; and a lot of the Kauai Sailing Association crew will be on Swan Fun, Joe’s large 55 foot Swan. It should be a great race with 15 boats and we expect to show the Oahu crowd what Kauai boats can do!

-Chris