Oysterville Regatta 2017 – Photo by Mark Petersen

Sailing.  It’s a delicate balance in more ways than one.  No wind and you are dead in the water.  Too much wind and bad things happen.  Like at yesterday’s Oysterville Regatta.  Two broken tillers, two ripped sails, a broken boom and more dumps than we could keep track of.  Everyone agreed that the 2017 Regatta will be talked about for years to come.

I don’t really like the wind.  It’s unsettling to me.  So, living here on the beach where we have wind every day of the year is a little bit challenging.  On the other hand, I love the recreational activities associated with wind.  As a spectator, only, I hasten to point out.

I love to watch the kites flying at the ocean beach and remind myself that it’s not an accident that The International Kite Festival was born here and has been a huge success, year after year. And where else but on Willapa Bay could there be a regatta – dated (intermittently, to be sure) from the 1870s?  And where but Oysterville would you find a whole family of sailors whose great, great-great, and three-times-great grandfather participated in some of those early regattas of 140 years ago?

2017 Oysterville Regatta Invitation

But, during yesterday’s regatta, I was very happy to be enjoying the spectacle from dry land.  Oysterville’s event is pretty bare bones – no microphones or fancy visual enhancement aids at the seashore.  We walk to the end of the lane laden down with chairs, binoculars, something to eat and/or drink and buoyed up by high anticipation.  Tucker, who is Admiral of the Fleet, supplies a list of sailors, boats, and sail numbers by which to identify who is where.

Yesterday, with boats going out of commission and ripped sails being replaced by spares, sailors were often unidentifiable from our vantage point and we had to ‘guess’ who was in which boat and who was ahead, behind, or in the water.  It was great sport all the way around.  We kept a close eye on Doug Knutzen, the rescue volunteer who was zooming hither and thither on his jet ski.  When he didn’t pause for long at his destination, but went whizzing off in another direction, we breathed a sigh of relief.  All was well…

Spectators – Oysterville Regatta 2017

Periodically, Tucker would leave his post at the waterside and come and tell us what was going on.   But it wasn’t until the Awards Ceremony last night that we learned that only one boat has finished the first relay race!  One out of six starters.  And… he had to be towed into the bank once he crossed the finish line because of … wind damage!  All agreed that Chris Fuller more than earned his trophy!

What a day!  It’ll go down in history!  I’m sure of it.