Smith Island is the first race of the 2012 Seattle Yacht Club Tri-Island Series. Smith Island is an 83 mile round trip race from Shilshole to a wreck of an island located at the entrance to Puget Sound off the north end of Whidbey Island. The race presents many challenging conditions including wind, tides, ship traffic, and crew mutinies.

This was Terremoto’s first long distance race under new management. The boat fielded a crew of Canadians and Americans that were divided by a common language. The Canadians were Paul Henderson and Paul Hansen, who will be sailing on Terremoto to Maui, and their close friend and former head of the Vic-Maui race, Greg Harms. The usual suspect Americans, Steve Brockway, Mark Brink, and Bill Weinstein completed the crew. This was the first opportunity for Team Moto to work together on navigation, sail in the dark (literally and figuratively), and learn how devoid of creature comforts Terremoto could be.

Terremoto crossed the line at 9:05 a.m. Saturday, April 28, 2012, with its purple kite on starboard in approximately ten knots of wind. Team Moto promptly demonstrated its boat handling skills by jibing to port, and corkscrewing its spinnaker. After traditional race start pandemonium, Terremoto built speed towards Jefferson Head on the Kitsap Peninsula. Team Moto worked hard at keeping the boat moving and attempting to find advantaged current. While Terremoto initially favored the west side of Puget Sound it became clear that sailing further east was a better choice. The ebb tide was very strong, and Terremoto’s course was dictated by maximizing the ebb tide that it found could be positive by as much as two knots. Terremoto observed that it was rewarded by sailing farther east than most of the other boats. SOG (speed over ground) was checked ever ten minutes and several crew members were always checking tide lines and signs of tidal back-eddies off the many points that jutted into the main Puget Sound channel. The entire fleet moved up Puget Sound quickly dragged by the huge ebb tide that was flushing out of Puget Sound.

As Terremoto passed Port Townsend and Point Wilson around 1:00 p.m., the wind lightened and the race became much more tactical. Reading off the bigger boats in front of Terremoto and the boats around and behind the Terremoto, Terremoto managed an efficient run to the nearly submerged sand spit called Minor Island. It helped that Terremoto was able to identify a little pressure from North Northwest that allowed it to glide in very light and variable wind to the channel between Minor Island and Smith Island. The last twenty minutes Terremoto dropped its kite and beat into and around Minor and Smith Island. We passed the half-way mark at 3:14 p.m. Six boats were ahead of Terremoto, but on a corrected time basis Terremoto appeared to be leading.

When Terremoto cleared Smith Island a major tactical decision arose. The tide was becoming slack, the wind was very light and had shifted to the Northwest, and the four big boats were sailing due East. In these light and variable conditions current became the dominating factor over wind. This explained the tactical decision of why the four leaders were heading to Whidbey Island. However, we noted that Strider and Double Take were sailing due west on starboard pole either hoping that something else would work or they were daydreaming. Team Moto split on national lines between going East or West. They turned to Weinstein, who was daydreaming, and headed West.

This arbitrary decision caused further dissension on the boat and resulted in splitting the difference by sailing directly down the shipping lane between the two separate flotillas. After an hour of very light wind, the westerly arising from the beginning of the flood tidal change started to build and pushed Terremoto into Admiralty Inlet. The wind stayed west but showed signs of veering as Terremoto sailed further into the Sound. To this point Terremoto had managed despite itself to catch the wind shifts and tidal activity, but then its luck changed. Terremoto at this point was ahead of Strider and Tachyon and within a half mile of Double Take when it decided to take destiny in its hands, and again fumble it.

Double Take brilliantly sailed across to the western shore of Whidbey Island and then caught the flood current with a westerly wind shift that launched them. It was extraordinary and incredibly demoralizing to watch them sail so elegantly away from us and actually catch up with the top four boats that were at point nearly two hours ahead of us. Tachyon and Strider decided that Double Take knew what it was doing, ignored Terremoto, and were rewarded by sailing away from the chastened T.

The tide at this point was flooding and pushing everyone rapidly toward home. With both Strider and Tachyon to the right of Terremoto, we all head toward Point-No-Point. Both these boats jibed soon after passing the Point. By this time darkness had descended and Terremoto adopted a stealth mode (in dousing the kite someone knocked out the electronics system, which created an intense discussion as to what happened. If no electronics was not enough,  Brink was seen climbing over the edge of the boat to get a branch wedged between the rudder and hull (something we never did fix in the race).

Terremoto, its steering compromised, stayed more in the middle of the shipping channel. It continued in favorable current on port tack and finally jibed, staying wide of Point-No-Point. dark, Terremoto worked hard at staying in visual and physical contact with Strider and Tachyon. Team Moto felt that being more in the middle was a big advantage as we headed down the Sound towards Shilshole. Strider, sick of having Terremoto bite at its heals, jibed out of Kingston heading toward Edmonds. Strider disappeared and finished twenty minutes ahead of Terremoto.

Terremoto seemed to be gaining on Tachyon. Terremoto jibed often attempting to keep on the favored jibe. As Terremoto and Tachyon approached the mid-channel marker off Jefferson Head, Terremoto had closed to within 200 yards of Tachyon. Terremoto jibed onto port at Jefferson Head, and was rewarded with strong pressure and a huge port header as the wind shifted east. The wind continued going east as Terremoto sailed towards Shilshole and the finish line.

With the increased pressure and easterly direction, Terremoto was able to sail a very fast angle directly to Meadow Point. Team Moto believed it had smoked Tachyon, but the jibe back toward the finish was excruciatingly painful as Tachyon came out of the dark like Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman. Tachyon continued to close on port, but Terremoto managed an ugly  jibe 50 or 100 yards in front heading for the finish. Terremoto lurched across the line at Terremoto lurched across the finish line at 10:57 p. m.PM. It was a relief to finish before midnight thanks to the favorable tides and wind shifts, but Team Moto believed that the many mistakes it made in Admiralty Inlet caused it to lose the race to Double Take and to the bigger boats. The darkness failed to reveal that the other boats had experienced similar difficulties and that Terremoto only finished less than an hour behind most of the other boats. It also helped that the other boats behind Terremoto experienced diminishing favorable current and wind. Stated differently, Terremoto had the worst luck on the Smith Island Race, except perhaps for all the others. Stated differently, Terremoto was more lucky than all of the other lucky boats that sailed in a largely downwind race with favorable currents.

Paul Hansen learned the navigation equipment on board and providing valuable information as Team Moto sailed up and down Puget Sound. Paul Henderson worked the boat speed and perfected the jibes. At one point Bill Weinstein was found on the foredeck, in the dark, solving a staysail problem. Mark Brink wondered loudly if this was a good idea, but when you have only four sailing to Hawaii, it was great to see Bill upfront solving problems. Terremoto looks forward to sailing the Summer Vashon Race and the fact it won’t have to sail Smith Island for two years.