Here we are into out 18th year of tracking the top racing sailboats here in the Pacific
Northwest and West Coast Canada. Our first item appeared in the March 1987 issue of
48° North - time sure flies when you're having fun!
We're very pleased that Harken has joined 48° North in recognizing the high level of racing in the Northwest represented by these boats by providing handsome trophies for the TOP 25. In the past we've had a Top 5 from Canada to include more boats. But because sailors go both ways across the border to race, we've included two great events, Swiftsure and Southern Straits, in our list of events to count towards a boat's ranking. There's no line in the water so now there's none in the mag. It doesn't change things that much but ups the ante a bit. Now we stretch from Olympia, Washington to Vancouver, B.C.
The following eight major events for sailboat racing were tracked during 2005 in our effort to find our Top 25 Boats: Center Sound Series, Puget Sound Sailing Regatta, Puget Sound Sailing Championship, South Sound Series, Southern Straits Classic, Swiftsure International Yacht Race, Tri-Island Series and Whidbey Island Race Week.
A total of 477 different boats took part in the events used for our scoring. We tracked one boat as one entity; if you've changed boats or boat names, sorry, it's off the radar. Performance of all boats sailing in one of more of those eight events was tracked with a boat's best four event performances being used for calculating her final score. That end number was determined by scoring each boat one point for starting in an event and one point for each boat that she beat in her class. A boat's total points were divided by the total number of boats that started in her class. That number became her score.
When boats were tied in the final scoring, we took a peek at the fleet sizes and listed the boat with the larger fleet ahead of the other. Each boat had to earn her spot in our listing based upon her performance in a number of regattas and varied sailing conditions. No lucky, one time bullets, but consistantly placing at the head of her class.
Our hats are off to all those outstanding skippers and crews sailing in these great racing sailboat events.
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