Last spring we had the pleasure of building 3DL cruising marathon sails for Gary Klouda's brand new German built Dehler 44. I asked Gary to share his cruising experience with us.

After shipping over our sailing gear including the North 3DL marathon sails we commissioned our new Dehler 44-“Escapade 2” in late May in Wedel, Germany. Our adventure began by traveling down the Elbe River and up the Kiel canal then we embarked on a 1240 nm cruise. During early June we sailed along the east coast of Denmark up to Grena and then across the Kattegat to Varburg on the west coast of Sweden. On two occasions we were held up three to four days by prolonged NW gales. After experiencing the Midsummer celebration in Gotenburg we sailed north in the Bohuslan archipelago to the Oslo fjord. Along with fantastic winds for sailing we found very scenic anchorages, picturesque villages and wonderful fellow sailors who were willing to share information. The passages between the rocky islands were well marked but required a lot of concentration. Some of our favorite areas were Marstrand, Gullholmen, Smogen and Fjallbacka.

In early July we crossed the Skaggerak to southeast Norway and enjoyed very hot weather and some wonderful swimming at the anchorages. The remainder of the trip we sailed the west coast of Sweden again, across to Anholt Island, then south to Copenhagen for five days at a marina in the center of city. We reentered the western Baltic and returned to Wedel.

The cruise and yacht both exceeded our expectations. The weather was much windier and wetter than normal so we encountered some very confused seas compared to earlier experiences on the west coast of Vancouver Island and the Straits of Georgia and San Juan deFucia. The most challenging part of the cruise was the various types of mooring-from bow-to a dock with stern posts, bow-to with stern bouys, bow-to with stern anchor, bow-to to rock islands with anchoring rings. In many crowded marinas in July rafting is necessary.

The Dehler 44 is a great performance yacht and we were very happy with its handling and German workmanship. I would recommend anyone considering cruising these areas to join the Cruising Association(cruising.org.uk) as they are a valuable source of information regarding regulations, cruising guides, blogs, etc. Please contact me if you would like any further information regarding cruising Northern Europe or the challenges of purchasing a yacht in Europe.

One of the most actively raced boats from Portland is Eric and Kim Rimkus’s Cheetah 30. Not only do they race the Cheetah 2-3 days a week during the summer, but they race all winter long in the South Sound races. The Cheetah is a 30' sport boat weighing in at 2,300lbs with a 9’ carbon fiber sprit allowing for over 1,000 sq. foot asymmetric spinnakers. With the huge asymmetric and light displacement, the Cheetah truly lives up to its name when sailing downwind; however, because it is so light and tender, the boat can struggle upwind.

To help improve upwind performance we built a new powerful 3DL jib. Building a powerful jib is a little counter-intuitive, but since the Cheetah carries non-overlapping headsails, a powerful jib helps the boat perform better in light air. In breeze, you can twist the top off a little and still have shape, allowing the driver to put the bow down and punch through waves.
Since the Cheetah does not have a back stay we wanted to build a large roach main that had plenty of power downwind and could be powered up in light upwind work. However, we also needed the sail to be easily depowered while going upwind. We decided to build a Fat Head style main since we do not have a backstay restricting the roach. North Sails discovered in the America’s Cup that the bigger the head of the main the faster the boats went in breeze, which is not what you would expect. The reason the Fat Head mains work well in the breeze is that the large heads actually will twist off with more wind load and therefore depower the sail.

I had the pleasure of joining Eric and Kim at the Squaxin Island race. The race was a downwind start with the wind starting out in the teens and building to solid white caps. Of course, the Cheetah planed away from the competition while going downwind, but the test of the new sails came while going upwind to see how well we could hold off the heavier and bigger boats. The sails worked as planned, allowing us to finish 1st in class and 2nd overall!

Click on the link below to see how 3DL sails are made.

Six Meter Fokus 3 Finished with an overall win at Whidbey Island Race Week

Sunny skies and moderate winds (4-12) provided splendid conditions at this years WIRW. For a while now, I have been sailing on the classic Six Meter Fokus 3; as we (a team of five) prepare for the Six Meter Worlds in Newport, RI in September. Whidbey provided us with solid racing practice, a crowded start line and time on the water to work on boat handling and tactics. A week of racing challenged us to keep our “focus” on staying fast, and determination to do well against our competitors.

The six was turning heads on the water and at the dock. We received many compliments of her Alaskan yellow cedar deck and gorgeous skinny white hull. The boat has been fully restored by the owner himself, Jim Metteer, and was originally built in 1948. Her home is Port Madison on Bainbridge Island.

Our competition included a mixed PHRF fleet of Rocket 22s, a J80, Laser SB3 sport boats, a J29, Humbolt 30 and a modern six meter. The PHRF handicaps ranged from 105 to 136 (Fokus 3). The racing remained tight the whole week, as it was uncertain how we would fare in a regatta with shorter tacking and much maneuvering in lots of traffic. (The sixes tend to do well with lesser of these.) Overall, we seamed to hold our own on the coarse, with our large sail area and waterline down wind. Out of eleven races, we had 5 first place finishes and finished one point ahead of second place J29 Here and Now.



It was great that the sixes received many compliments on their aesthetic attributes and gained respect for their racing performance as well. We look forward to the trip back east, and will do our best with representing the Northwest. They are presumably expecting 50-80 boats - classics and moderns. For more info visit http://www.6metreworldcup.com.

Other top finishers from Portland included Mark McCuddy’s FT10 Tiger Lilly placing 3rd, Rod Buck’s Myst took 2nd in the Melges 24 fleet, and Tony Humpage’s M24 Merlin finished 7th. Great job to all sailors that made the trek up north.

by Anika Caldwell

PYC/SYSCO Gold Rush Report

We enjoyed a wonderful race to St Helens last weekend during the PYC/SYSCO Gold Rush. Some boats headed back upriver Saturday night, but a few of us stayed in St Helens for the night, enjoying the local dining and swimming in the river. The St Helens race committee told us that next year they plan to have a 2-day event with short-course racing in St Helens on Saturday, followed by a race back to Portland on Sunday. It sounds like a great time, and the Poes plan to be there!

Train Bridge Closures

On the way back from the St Helens Gold Rush, The Poe and Penner families slowly cruised up the Multnomah Channel, swimming and playing on Sauvie's Island along the way. The Caldwells (that's Anika and Scott) were bringing the J24 No Worries back up the river, and as we passed their houseboat on the Channel, we gave them a call to see how far along they were. BAD NEWS. The train bridge had closed right before they got there, and would not be re-opening that day due to the heat! Luckily, they were able to go under the bridge with a few inches of clearance. But our mast was too tall, and there was no way we would have made it. They graciously let us tie up to their houseboat so we could come back early in the morning and bring it upriver while it was cooler.

So here's the scoop: when the temperature reaches 94 degrees the train bridge shuts down due to the expansion of the metal. If the weather is hot, you can either radio on channel 13 or call the bridge at 360-418-6320 for an update.

by Amy Poe



Photo by Al Calcagno

Ten boats from the Columbia River travelled north to compete in the 2009 Swifsure International Yacht Race. The race starts off the beach in front of a large spectator crowd in Victoria, B.C. and goes out the straights of Juan de Fuca and back to Victoria harbor. The race started in a flood that was getting stronger as the day went, so the first task at hand was getting to Race Rocks before the flood got too strong. Unfortunately the wind was light and the current through race rocks was going to be between 3-4 knots. I sailed on Scott Campbell's J-46 Riva and we headed for the current relief along the shore before race rocks. We approached race rocks as close as possible next to the North shore. After Race Rocks all of the faster Swiftsure Lightship boats started crossing the straights in the flood heading for the Washington shore. On Riva we had some long discussions about why everybody was crossing in the flood. We decided to tack back to Canada and play the shore for current relief until the tied changed. Since we were the first boat to go for Canada we knew we would either look really stupid or really smart. But our bet paid off, and we rounded Neah Bay in 1st in our class and well ahead of much faster boats that had started 10 minutes before us.

After Neah Bay rounding we set the 2S all-purpose spinnaker and aimed for the best VMG route back up the middle of the Straights. We were careful to keep the boat angles hotter in the lighter air, especially at the west end of the Straights where we had a lot of swells. Once the seas became flatter we set the spinnaker staysail which gave us a couple extra tenths of boatspeed.

We were still in great position going through race rocks but we were approaching Victoria against the current with a dying breeze. We did a spinnaker peel and went with our ½ oz 1S light air reaching spinnaker. The normal route to Victoria is the great circle which keeps you away from the light air in the bay so we headed wide and tried to come in on a tight spinnaker reach to the finish. But with the dying breeze and the ebbing current pushing us away from the finish we had to jibe back out to the straights for wind and try for an even wider approach. Meanwhile, we watched more and more boats catch up to us.

Finally, a little shore breeze developed and allowed us to finish. It was a very tough ending to a great race. We were fortunate to finally slide across the finish line is 1st in division, 4th in class and 18th in race. Other Portland racers Tim and Victoria Lessly finished 3rd in their class with the Cal 40, California Girl; Frank Colistro finished 4th in class with his Cascade 36 Wy’East; Arden Newbrook finished 5th in class with his Farr 30, Mummbo Jummbo, and ended up 15th overall. I am sure Arden is happy to finally get some newer sails on his boat.