A year or so ago I posted a question about whether any readers knew about an Offshore race that happened around 1959. John Vynne at a Safety at Sea seminar told me that he helped bring a boat down from Seattle to Astoria and then turned around and raced it back up north. I’d never heard of such a race. He didn’t have any other information about the race that he could recall, and so I reached out with no success.
Last week, Nicole Sirois passed on from Tom Tenney a Seattle Daily photo of the “NORPAC” race from Astoria to Port Angeles from 1960 (included below). From the photo it almost looks a bit like a mizzen mast one design fleet. Other than the caption, there was no other information about the race. Filling in the missing pieces, our partners at the Port Angeles Yacht Club, including Commodore Erika Hansen-Dahlin and their club historian, Carla Bamer, were able to dig up the attached article from the Port Angeles Evening News that covered the race. History repeats itself. So, in one sense this race began in 1976 with a race to Newport, Oregon, but in another more significant sense it began in 1960, up the Washington coast and down the strait to finish where we’re going to finish again this year. Pretty cool. Enjoy.
Denny Damore
CYC Commodore, Pacific NW Offshore Race Captain
