Some thoughts from a foggy day of day of sailing on Puget Sound
by David Schmidt 4 Mar 2025 08:00 PST
March 4, 2025
New England style pea soup fog, as seen on Puget Sound from the deck of Jonathan and Libby McKee's Riptide 44, Dark Star © David Schmidt
The biennial Marblehead to Halifax Race, which celebrates its 40th edition this summer (July 6), is a 361 nautical mile race that takes crews across the Gulf of Maine and up the coast of Nova Scotia, and it is often characterized by light upwind sailing in fog. At least, this was my experience when I was lucky enough to do this classic race in 2005.
But last Saturday, sailing on Puget Sound—or, to be more exact, waiting to sail on Puget Sound—felt like a bit of a return to this racecourse. Fog isn’t the most common element on Puget Sound, and while we’re no strangers to light airs out here, Saturday was a bit unique.
The fleet has assembled for the Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle’s annual Three Tree Point Race, which is a 30 nautical mile affair that leaves a starting line off of Seattle’s Shilshole Bay Marina, heads south about 15 nautical miles down Puget Sound, rounds a buoy off the race’s namesake destination, and then heads back up north to the finishing line.
At least in theory.
While it wasn’t raining when our crew assembled (always a bonus on Puget Sound in late winter), the water was shrouded in a somewhat uncharacteristic fogbank with zero wind. We motored out to the starting line but then got the news that the RC had wisely called for a postponement, both to let the wind gather and to encourage the fog to burn off.
The next four or five hours gave our crew plenty of time to catch up and to get to know our newest additions, swing the boat's compass, and tidy up some other over-the-winter projects.
A thin northerly started building sometime around 1300 (never mind the fact that the weather models were calling for a southerly), and we hoisted the boat's brand-new mainsail and J1.5 and started sailing a bit.
Call it our anticipation of maybe racing, but it felt great to sail after a few months of listening to raindrops on the roof.
As an East Coaster who relocated to the Seattle area in 2009, it also felt like coming home again to see the classic image of rigs and sheer lines emerging from the fog as we ghosted around. Adding to this ambience was the sound of fog horns blowing aboard nearby ferries, delivering the full sensory experience.
The even better news was that the fog was burning off up top, yielding blue skies above and fog down low. Maybe a half hour later the surrounding walls of fog succumbed to the improving weather and sunshine, yielding visual contact with the gathered crowd of beachgoers at Seattle’s nearby Golden Gardens.
The RC elected to amend the course (we would instead sail to West Point, round a buoy, then sail north to a mark off of Point Wells, then back to the finishing line), and we enjoyed downwind start, a short run, then a long beat in thin winds, followed by a final run home. The water was flat, the scenery—once the residual fog burned off—spectacular, and early-stage sunset colors beautiful.
And, for me, the chance to experience a bit of fog, and to enjoy that classic sight of objects appearing out of the mist, was a nice reminder of DownEast cruising as a kid (minus the lobster pots) and of that Marblehead to Halifax Race so long ago.
Still, some differences are hard to ignore. The views of Mount Rainier to the south, Mount Baker to the north, and the sawtooth ridgelines of the North Cascade mountains to the east and of the Olympic mountains to the west are great examples.
But it was the sound of three Orca whales surfacing for air, and the sight of their distinctive dorsal fins, about a mile from the finishing line, that served as a great reminder that all bodies of water hold their own magic.
Some are just a little easier to see through the fog than others.
May the four winds blow you safely home.
David Schmidt
Sail-World.com North American Editor