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Who had the most fun? Was it my family, as the guests of the Meydenbauer Bay Yacht Club, or was it the members' kids, or was it the members themselves, some of whom have been members for more than thirty years. In fact wait til you get to the salmon roast. The exact same three members who roasted that salmon over the wood fire have been doing it for 30 years and that is why the trophies are being awarded by gentlemen in chef's hats. Each trophy was named after one of the three members who have been in charge of roasting the salmon for all these years. It is a science as well as an art. They have taken meticulous notes each year about the weight of the fish, the time the fires have been started, what type of wood has been burned, the temperature and weather conditions, when the coals were ready to start roasting the fish and how long they roasted it. The secret is in the spices that Jack has in his pocket, and nobody knows what goes into those spices. But we better start at the beginning of our story. I met Dedee a number of years ago at the Bellevue Art Show where we had a booth for many years. She bought some of our boats for the ship's store at the Meydenbauer Bay Yacht Club in Bellevue on Lake Washington. Those first boats sold pretty quickly, so she kept ordering more. Dedee owns a T-Class Racing Sloop herself, so she knows how well they sail. She and Del Hoffman came up with a great idea. Why not get a lot of kits for the Memorial Day Cruise? The parents and kids could build the boats and paint or varnish them over the weekend and then on Sunday, there would be a great race. The idea was launched and more than 50 families reserved boat kits for the weekend. I had to work pretty hard to get so many boats ready and almost every boat had a different sail color. There were T12s, T15s and T-Class. Dedee encouraged me to come down for the race, and then I got a call from Del, the sailing master for the cruise, and he invited us all to the salmon roast. I knew the next week I had to ship 100 boats to the Marblehead Festival of the Arts, but with such a warm invitation and an event that sounded so much fun, I couldn't quite refuse. I got out an atlas of Washington State. Port Ludlow was a little farther than I realized, a good 60 miles by sail from Bellingham, but we wouldn't miss this. It was a lot closer than going to Marblehead, Massachusetts, to see our boats being used there! And so here we are sailing down to Port Ludlow. The nearer point behind us is the tip of Guemes Island and in the distance behind us is Lummi Island. Ahead is Lopez Island, where we spent the first night The currents were sometheing amazing with a negative 4 foot low tide happening at about 3 pm. We made sure we were traveling with the current, not against it. It makes a difference with a boat speed of 7 knots and a current of 3-4 knots. Between the islands the wind conditions vary a lot. Here the sailing was quite moderate, but at other times we were at hull speed and ready to reef if the wind picked up any more.

Saturday afternooon we arrived in Port Ludlow and were instantly greeted and welcomed. It was a good feeling. And everywhere there were our boats! Some beautifully finished and some still being built. And what a friendly group. People kept coming up and introducing themselves and telling us how much they liked the boats. It made us feel honored to be there. We played some good bocce ball and enjoyed some very interesting conversations with some very interesting people. The Yacht Club Out Station is beautiful with several small buildings and a large lawn, all overlooking the dock. We met Greg early, he was the designated Admiral in charge of running the races on Sunday. Here he is explaining a rigging detail on the T-Class Sloop.

Boats were everywhere.

And here's Del, gluing in his keel. He must have done a good job since his boat turned out to be fast. There was no lack of design innovation in this fleet, and every boat was unique. The Jessie-Moo was definitely one of the favorites.

See the Boat Races and continue on the Meydenbauer Bay Yacht Club Rendezvous by clicking here.