Gig Harbor Yacht Club holds LeMans race with safety measures

Following the proper guidelines and procedures outlined by the Washington State Department of Health, the Gig Harbor Yacht Club successfully held its annual LeMans race on Saturday, Nov. 14.

The LeMans race is a sailing event open to members and non-members of the GHYC including neighboring clubs from Seattle and Tacoma. Dating back to 1967, the competition shares its name with the famous auto race held in France every year.

However, instead of jumping into the vehicle and racing for 24 hours like the auto racing teams, the boating version started with crews below deck and lasts a few hours at most.

“The key to the sailboat LeMans race is that the original event in 1967, you would have one of your crew members in a row boat start at the north end of Gig Harbor at the Peninsula Yacht base,” said GHYC Sail Captain Erik Carlson. “The starter would be there with their horn and they would hand each of rowers race instructions.”

As times have moved forward, the GHYC did away with having someone row their way out to the boats to begin the race. But they kept the tradition of having several horns mark the time before the race begins and one for the beginning of the race as well.

The crew still begins beneath the deck but they aren’t raising any sails or pulling up the anchor until the final horn signals that it is time to go.

“As we do today, we set up four orange buoys to create a rectangle, a box, and the boats have to be anchored in there,” Carlson said. “[The LeMans] is pretty much like any other race, except for the uniqueness of sailing out of Gig Harbor and back in to finish.”

Like the races of the past, each boat is tasked with sailing up Colvos Passage and back to Gig Harbor to complete the race. It’s not always an easy task either as tides and currents can throw off a crew and how they get through the tiny passage out of the harbor.

This year, the GHYC was able to field 26 different boats and crews to set up two class races to continue the LeMans tradition. Both classes have their individual winners, but they were also scored for an overall winner as well.

The overall winner was the crew that raced the Olson 30 boat named ‘Sidewinder’ with an adjusted time of three hours, 11 minutes and 58 seconds. As overall winners, they were also the winners of Class 1 in the LeMans race. The Class 2 winner was the Aerodyne 38 boat named ‘Kahuna’, with a time of 3:18:44.

“We had two classes, so we scored each class separately. There was a first, second and third in each class, but overall we also had a first, second and third,” Carlson said. “Of all the races, this is definitely one that we want to keep going. I get thanks yous that this is the most fun race of the year because it is just so different.”

And because it has been a different year to say the least, the GHYC and LeMans race has also been altered due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Where people are expected to follow social distancing rules and keep to small groups, the racers in the LeMans competition followed the Phase 2 rule of Governor Inslee’s Safe Start Plan and limited the participants on the boats to 12.

That was not a problem because most boats kept to seven or eight crew members outdoors in the open air.

“Because of COVID, we could not have a post-race party. When people finish, they come up for taco soup or a bowl of chili and the bar is open,” Carlson said. “Normally we have a skipper’s meeting, so we would have 30 people gathered at Heritage Park. [With the] special instructions, there was no meeting this year.”

To work around not having the skipper’s meeting, Carlson had each individual crew send one person at a time and meet with him at a safe distance. He then would hand out the special instructions about the race until every crew had them.

Another change the racers had to adapt to was not starting below deck, breaking the tradition of years past. They were required to all be above deck in the fresh air and stationed around the boat.

“We stood on a dock, on one of the fishing piers in the harbor, and used that for the starting platform. The people all over the harbor could hear our horn,” Carlson said. “We were there at the finish line. [Me and a volunteer] were outdoors wearing our masks, we were very careful how we went about this. I think we pulled it off just fine, everybody was happy.”

With the 2020 LeMans race in the books, Carlson and the GHYC are looking forward to the 2021 racing season and hoping that it can be enjoyed without all the limitations the coronavirus has brought forth.

This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 6:00 AM.