This article first appeared in the September 2018 issue of Freshwater News.  Right about the time that the West Coast was basically burning just about everywhere.  And we were just trying to identify the windward mark through the smoke…

(Cough, cough. Wheeze.)

If you’ve been sailing this summer just about anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, be it racing or cruising, then you’re likely familiar with the braille-like conditions on the water since wildfires broke out…well…just about everywhere on the West Coast.  Lately, racing on the Columbia River (and I assume up in Puget Sound as well) has been sort of like sailing through the crowd at a Grateful Dead concert.  Without the sweet scent of patchouli.

As I write this, the air quality in the Portland/Vancouver area has cleared up significantly in the last day or two.  However, about 72 hours ago things came to a smoky head in the SYSCO Summer Twilight Series out on the Columbia River.  With California basically in flames and strong southerlies exporting their smoke up to us, to say nothing of what’s been going on to the east and north of us, seeing Mt. Hood while we were out on the water was out of the question.  Spotting the leeward mark?  Well skipper, I THINK it’s that yellow dot over there.

(Sneeze. Wheeze. Cough.)

Okay, maybe it’s not QUITE that bad, but truth be told, our Tuesday evening race on board Mike Pitarresi’s Yeah Baby reminded me why I stopped smoking when I got out of college.

Anyway, the crew arrived at the dock and, while we readied the boat for whatever winds we anticipated getting, the discussion turned to the wisdom of breathing this stuff.  One crew member opined that what we were experiencing (hot and smoky) was more or less what Southern California sailors deal with pretty much every day of the year, and explained the continuous migration north from the Golden State to the Pacific Northwest.  Welcome to Oregon, folks.  Just trying to make you feel at home.

(Hack. Cough. Wheeze.)

Maybe if Yeah Baby hadn’t been in the thick of things in the Twilight Series, we might have opted out of breathing air that people in Mexico City wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.  Seeing as how we were having a pretty good series however, there was no serious way we were going to miss out on this race, smoke or no smoke.  So we headed out.

Thankfully, there was actual wind out on the course, which didn’t necessarily help with air quality, but it at least cooled things down a little, and provided more than enough pressure to make for some fairly decent sailing.  We raised sails, felt our way up to the committee boat to get the course, and then got the boat and crew warmed up (yeah I know, poor choice of words).

We worked our way up to where we were pretty sure the start line was, took the starting horn and headed for the windward mark.  No question there were some scratchy throats and watering eyes on board, but the air was manageable.  On the other hand, I had a few friends who were watching the race from the outdoor seating at one of the restaurants on the Washington side of the course, and I honestly can’t imagine that they had any idea which yacht-shaped blob out on the river was us.  Hopefully they just ordered another round of Visine and pale ale to go with their respirators and enjoyed the show.  But I digress.

We turned the mark and had an absolutely lovely spinnaker hoist.  The boats behind us also popped their chutes, and we were forced to deal with their dirty air.  Actually, when you think about it, every one of us was dealing with dirty air of a sort.  The ironies of the sailing lexicon.

(Hack. Hack. Wheeze.)

And now it was time to find that yellow leeward mark.  Yep.  That’s it right there.  I’m pretty sure.

Actually, we were sure.  We were even right.  In winds about as fluky as a pod of whales, we worked our way east to the turn, raised the genoa, doused the kite and then absolutely SMOKED it to the second windward mark.

(Sorry about that, but be honest: you’ve been patiently waiting for your author to work in a phrase like “SMOKED it.”  And it’s about time he got around to it).

(Cough. Hack. Cough.)

Once more around the mark, and then up went the spinnaker again.  And once again, we trimmed to deal with more dirty air.  Dirty air that insisted on blowing from any number of directions.  Good times.  Since finding the leeward mark wasn’t a problem this time (hey, we’d already been there once), we worked the shifting winds as best we could and through watering eyes rounded the mark and headed for home.  That last windward leg to the finish was pretty darned welcome, since the breeze cooled us off and at least gave the perception that we weren’t breathing anything more dangerous than French perfume.  We crossed the line, waved in the general direction of the race committee, and headed back to the dock.

Cold beers after any sail are awfully good, but when you’ve just consumed more smoke than Keith Richards gets in an average afternoon, those coldies are especially tasty.  They even relieve sore throats and make you forget about your watering eyes.  More or less.  Hey, can anyone see Washington from here?

(Cough. Cough. Wheeze.)