6-Metre Yacht Racing, Norwegian American Style

King Olav V of Norway

The year was 1955. Norway's Crown Prince Olav commissioned a new 6-Metre racing yacht, designed by Bjarne Aas, and named her Hanko III. Olav raced her for a year, then made the boat available for another owner in a lottery.  Olav, an Olympic Gold Medalist in the 6-Metre class, would later become King Olav V of Norway.   Hanko III went on to have a successful racing career for a series of owners and eventually made her home port in Seattle.

Turn the pages of the calendar to 1958.  I was at my great-grandma's house in Ballard, a Scandinavian neighborhood in Seattle, and I was 5 years old.  Grandma Emma Jorgenson asked me if I knew how to fish, and I told her no, I had never fished.  She said "Himmel, you must know how to fish if you are going to grow up."  After all, she moved to Seattle from Norway, and Grandpa Ole sailed his 27-foot trawler to Alaska every year to fish for salmon.  Emma would sit in the upstairs bedroom which had a view of Shilshole Bay and Port Madison and watch for Ole to return home while she spun yarn on a spinning wheel. 


When Grandma Emma learned I could not fish, she took me in the backyard and we dug worms for bait, then she walked me down the hill a few blocks to Ray's Boathouse.  I put the worm on my hook and lowered my line and came up with a flounder.  Grandma Emma cleaned the flounder and cooked it for dinner.  It felt like a Norwegian rite of passage.

The Lipton Cup

Fast forward to 2012.  I sailed our cruising boat, Sublime, across Shilshole Bay to Port Madison Yacht Club, to race in the Lipton Cup aboard Hanko III, King Olav's former yacht, now owned by Norwegian American Ron Keys.  

The Lipton Cup is a perpetual trophy donated by Sir Thomas Lipton to the Seattle Yacht Club in 1913.  The Cup has been contested every year since then on the waters of Puget Sound.  For the first few years, the Cup was raced in R-class yachts, but when 6-Metres became more popular, they became the class to compete for the Lipton Cup.

Hanko III, powered up under spinnaker and digging a hole in the water     
Photo by Dana Olson - Copyright 2012

 There were nine 6-Metre Yachts competing for the 2012 Lipton Cup.  We raced four races on Saturday after waiting for the wind to build.  Boy, did it build.  A rainstorm moved in with gusts of more than 25 knots.  

Hanko making good speed through the water downwind      
Photo by Dana Olson - Copyright 2012

 The wind became so strong that one of the boats, Lulu, owned by Craig Downey, dismasted.  

Lulu ended her regatta early after dismasting in the storm      
Photo by Dana Olson - Copyright 2012

The sun broke through the clouds and after the races we sailed back to Port Madison Yacht Club. The six-metre crews then went on dinghy's to a party on the 101-foot  schooner Ragland, once owned by Neil Young.  Check out Ragland here.

The schooner Ragland, once owned by Neil Young, 
our post-race party venue     
 Photo by Dana Olson - Copyright 2012

Sunday brought moderate wind and blue sky with puffy white clouds.  We did two races and went back to the yacht club for the awards ceremony.  

Hanko III rounding the windward mark, ready to hoist her spinnaker   

Photo by Dana Olson - Copyright 2012

Current 6-Metre class world champion Eric Jesperson from Sidney, B.C., won first place in the Lipton Cup.  We felt pretty good about getting 3rd place in the Classic Division on Hanko III, with a bunch of old sails and a pick-up crew.

Current 6-Metre class world champion Eric Jesperson, 
on his way to a Lipton Cup victory aboard Goose     
Photo by Dana Olson - Copyright 2012

 After the awards ceremony, I sailed back to Shilshole Bay Marina on Sublime, towards Ray's Boathouse, and I could see my Grandma Emma's old house as I entered the breakwater. This had been a very special weekend for this Norwegian American.  Yah sure, you betcha.

Sailors have used the sign at Ray's Boathouse for years 
to find their way back to Shilshole Bay Marina

See more beautiful photos by Dana Olsen of 2012 Lipton Cup here

Sublime’s Maiden Cruise from Shilshole Bay

Sublime sailing downwind making 7.4 knots

Our 27-foot Coronado sailboat, Sublime, had been moored on Seattle’s Lake Union for the past year or so, which definitely had its good points. Our dock had a perfect view of the fireworks on the Fourth of July, and we stayed aboard on New Year’s Eve to watch the fireworks on the Space Needle. We even did a few of the Duck Dodge races on warm Tuesday evenings in the summer and rafted up with the other boats after the race for a floating party with a few hundred other sailors.

My wife, Nola, and I love to go for overnight cruises on our boat, usually accompanied by our Cairn terrier, Ella. When the boat was on Lake Union, to get to the cruising grounds on Puget Sound we had to go through the Lake Washington Ship Canal and wait for the Fremont Bridge to raise, then pass through a set of locks, transitioning from fresh water to salt water. On a good day, the trip to the salt chuck would take an hour and half. On a bad day, it could take four hours. Ella, who had been the perfect boat dog up until these frequent trips through the ship canal, was reduced to a quivering mass because we would blow the loud boat’s horn to signal the bridge tender to raise the bridge. If we got anywhere near a bridge, even without blowing the horn, she would become catatonic. Or should I say dogatonic?


Ella decked out in her sailing gear, still worried about loud boat horns.

When I got the call from the harbor master at Shilshole Bay Marina on Puget Sound saying that our name had come to the top of the waiting list for a slip, I jumped at the chance. No more waiting for the locks! In the time it had taken us to get from Lake Union to Puget Sound, we could be at a half dozen beautiful overnight destinations from our new slip at Shilshole.


Nola and Ella aboard Sublime at her new slip at Shilshole Bay Marina

The weather forecast for President’s Day weekend promised sunshine and moderate temperatures. After the unusually wet and chilly winter we have been having in Seattle, it seemed like the perfect chance for our maiden cruise on Sublime out of Shilshole. We packed some warm clothes, made a run to the grocery store for provisions and drove the easy ten-minute drive to the boat. We decided to cruise to Kingston the first night. The water was glassy calm and we had a flood current against us, so we motored ninety minutes north to the Port of Kingston Marina. Within a half hour or so, Ella had figured there were no bridges in sight, so she began to relax.


Bundled up in the cockpit on the way to Kingston

Kingston is a small town with lots of character. If you go, do try the take-out Crepes at J’ Aime Les Crepes, or the microbrews and great food at the Main Street Ale House. Nola and I had cocktails at the Ale House and went back to the boat to cook dinner of pasta with Marsala sauce and chicken.


Main Street in Kingston has great restaurants a short walk from the marina

The marina is nestled into well-protected Kingston Cove, which is ringed with cottages and beaches that are exposed when the tide goes out.


Cottages on Kingston Cove

The outer bay at Kingston is called Apple Cove, and is the home to the Washington State Ferry terminal that connects Kingston to Edmonds.


The ferry Klickitat

There is a short trail from the ferry landing to a beautiful, sandy beach that looks out at Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains.


Beach combing on Apple Cove

The waters near Kingston are abundant with marine life. In season, salmon and Dungeness crab are plentiful. We saw a strange creature as we walked down the dock at the marina and it came over to study us. It was a Rat Fish, with large, bulging eyes and a slender, tapered tail reminiscent of its namesake.


A curious Rat Fish swims close to check us out.

After a wonderful night sleeping on the boat as if being rocked gently in a cradle, Ella insisted on going on her morning constitutional at 5:15 a.m. Grrrrr. I walked carefully on the frosty docks to take her ashore. I went back to sleep when I returned to the boat, then awoke to the aroma of fresh coffee brewing in the galley. I cooked pancakes with real maple syrup for breakfast and we prepared for the next leg of our cruise to Port Madison on Bainbridge Island.


Morning light illuminates the Port of Kingston Marina

The conditions were perfect for sailing – a tailwind from the north at about 12 knots and a flood current sweeping us toward Port Madison. We reached a peak speed over the bottom of 7.4 knots! The scenery was so beautiful we were on sensory overload. The chill wind stung our cheeks and whipped the waves into whitecaps that glistened in the sun, Overhead, the sky was a deep, indigo blue. We were flanked on every side by snow-capped peaks. The Olympic Mountains with their rugged peaks and glaciers stood out like a 3D picture on our west side, and to the east the Cascade Range showed a coat of fresh snow down below the tree line. Huge volcanoes stood sentry to the north and south of us; Mount Baker was crystal clear a hundred miles to the north, but Mount Rainier was still waking up, barely visible, wrapped in a blanket of mist.


The Olympic Mountains standing tall as we sailed to Port Madison

Nola had been below in the cozy, heated cabin and chose just the right moment to take a break from reading her novel and come on deck. She looked across the water and saw some seabirds that looked unfamiliar. She grabbed the binoculars and saw that the birds had orange beaks, tufted heads and dark plumage. Nola looked in the bird book we keep on the boat and discovered that these were Tufted Puffins. Think arctic Toucans. We had never seen them before. Hope we see them again. It took only an hour and half to sail to Port Madison, and we only had to do one gybe!


Nola finds a good place to read a book in the sunshine at Port Madison, with Ella by her side.

We were lucky to get one of the last remaining slips at Port Madison, and after we got the boat put away, I made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Port Madison was a town with a large lumber mill before the settlers landed in Seattle. The founders of Port Madison hailed from Cape Cod, so the older houses and many that followed have Cape Cod architecture. The mill is long gone, replaced by charming waterfront homes. You would swear you were in New England when you look around the bay.


Sublime is dwarfed by the yachts surrounding her at Port Madison

Nola made a delicious omelet for breakfast the next morning, and then we sailed back home with a brisk north wind on our beam. An hour and ten minutes later we were back to our slip at Shilshole, glad that we didn’t have to make the trip through the locks and ship canal. Our faces had some color from the sun and the wind, and we were happy that we could cure our cabin fever with a wonderful overnight cruise – the first of many to come from our new homeport.