Gem "wins" Div 1 in the 2010 Saturna Island Racing Rules Sailing Race

The annual Saturna Island Racing Rules (SIRR) sailing race is an event I've come to mark my year by.

It's a race that lays low on the local sailing community's radar, but in my mind stands out as not only fun in and of itself, but as an event to be modeled, emulated and propagated.

Just passing its twelfth incarnation, the event promotes a valuable mix of components. In order of priority: Fun, Inclusive Sailing, Fun and Wry Oratory.

This was my third outing in as many years, and this year stands out as being the one with plentiful hot air, from both Mother Nature and the participants. We got to go 'round the course twice, where in the previous two years the trailing parts of the fleet might not ever cross the finish line, if that was at all important.

In the world of competitive racing, when boats of many varieties sail together, the handicapping system becomes central. But the common handicapping systems are only a single number offset for each boat type, and such systems can't account for all types of weather. This leaves any "serious" race with a certain arbitrary feel that causes a dry taste in the mouth of the competitors.

What the Saturna race gets very right is its own brand of naming the winners. After the "racing" is done, the skippers and their crews head to the beach for the all important BBQ. Each skipper gets their chance to explain to the assembled competitors why it was that their boat won. There is a vote by informally measuring the crowd support, and the race director has the final say in declaring the winner, in much the same way that a high court gets to overturn anything unconstitutional.

One of the great pleasures of this year's race for me personally, was having three gung-ho and relatively novice sailors along, all of them Geeks in their own right; web savy, internet friendly remote-worker types. All three are relative newcomers to Galiano but the whole "racing" experience was, for us, something that strengthened our bond to the island and Gulf Island living in general. Since the adventure involved leaving and coming back home, we felt like Galiano's representatives in a world as wide as the slow-boat-travel-time between Montague and Lyall Harbours.

The crew was made up of Karen Stankunas of http://jamjar.ca (creator of websites like the one for the new animal rescue shelter), Stephen Akins http://twitter.com/hardlynoticable (a former Mayne Island resident, now a Galiano native with an opinion or two to share) and fresh-off-the-boat newcomer Ella Cooper (a force behind Canada's Emerging Art Professionals online social network http://www.eapnetwork.ca/ with 3500 members from across Canada... she also teaches Yoga at the pavilion at Market on Sundays... see Active Galiano for times).

The "race" afforded us not only the opportunity to learn sailing skills as individuals, but also to gel as a team. There was another boat in the race of the exact same variety as ours (skippered by Saturna's Pub owner!) and they were hot on our heels the whole time. We got a very rare chance to try out several strategies and see the results of such strategies immediately. In the end, we had newbie sailors keeping the competition at bay right up to the finish line.

In the end, it was one person from Saturna who tipped the scales in our favor. They spoke highly of our attitude toward the event and the fact that we'd come from so far away (again, in terms of slow boat travel time). Their witnessing resulted in a tide of good will thrown our way, and we were granted "Div 1 Race Winners". You see, it's the slowest boats that are called Div 1, where Div 2 is for the larger, faster set... a naming convention tipped on its head compared with the more competitive races.

The last part of this year's story, and an appropriate segue to next year's, is that we weren't able to bring our rightful trophy home with us because the previous year's winner had left it on their mantel. Instead, we bartered to be the caretaker of the "Overall Best Race" trophy. The captain and crew of Saturna's "Reverie" were gracious enough to give us something physical to show the folks at home. Reverie has agreed to retrieve and take care of our trophy for Div 1 winners on the understanding that it would be easier to bring additional boats from Galiano back to the race next year when you've got an actual trophy as temptation.

So if you're at all a sea-faring pirate or a party-soldier, please consider mounting or joining a campaign to bring a boat to the Saturna Race next year. My crew this year have shown that it takes more heart than experience to pull it off. You'd be doing yourself a good turn, and would also be helping to strengthen a cultural event that lives and breathes on-the-water life in a way that we islanders are well placed enjoy.

For photos from the event see: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sirr_2010/

p.s. Thanks also go out to Richard Vincent, for helping repack Gem's winches and Larry McInerney for diving on and scraping Gem's undersides.