Doug and Jack Jorgensen's J/111 Picosa wins the 2025 Islands Race
by San Diego Yacht Club 3 Mar 11:34 PST
February 28 - March 1, 2025
2025 Islands Race © Bruce Crary
The 2025 Islands Race kicked off the west coast offshore racing season with the 15th annual race from Point Fermin around San Clemente and Catalina Islands to the finish in San Diego off of Point Loma. Thirty-one teams racing in six ORR & ORR-EZ classes crossed the start line mid day on Friday.
Michael Sabourin was sailing in his first Islands Race, aboard the Santa Cruz 52 Triumph, a boat that has sailed the Islands Race many times.
"It was fun. We were coming into it with really varying weather forecasts, but we only had maybe 2 hours of drifting. We have a bunch of new sails and a new bow sprit on the boat. We practiced with it for the first time the day before the race. So it was really good seeing it operate and work and actually line up against other boats and see that it was worth all the effort. I always love going around the West End of Catalina. It's always a cool experience.
The big goal for this year is Transpac, and we'll be practicing a bunch between now and then. We are doing the Channel Islands 500 in two weeks, Ensenada Race, SoCal 300 and some local races around Long Beach."
Last week when looking ahead to this year's race, the expected conditions were slower than most years. The first to finish each year for the full 142nm Islands Race course has averaged 15:14:43, with the record being the Volvo 70 Pyewacket in 2021, sailing the course in 10:49:52. The lighter conditions proved better suited for smaller boats in the fleet this year with 4 of the top 5 overall coming from Classes D and E.
NHYC PRO Charlie Welsh managed the starts to the race. "Racers were greeted at the starting area in the vicinity of Pt. Fermin bout with sporty 11-16 knots of breeze with considerable bump. All starts got off on time with the breeze waning as the sun peeked through the clouds. Our most exciting start was the ORR-E and EZ classes as two boats were over early. The RC team acted swiftly and both boats cleared and continued racing. All racers looked as if they'd stay on Starboard tack for the majority of the first leg to the west end of Catalina. It was a great way to kick off the 2025 Islands Race! Thank you SDYC for another great collaborative event with both clubs working seamlessly."
All fleets started on time, making 6 to 8 knots boat speed slightly below rhumbline to West End in a good WNW breeze. After rounding the top of Catalina, the wind trickled out leaving boats slowed down for about 3 hours just after sunset. The race kicked back on through the night with boats speeds back up to 6-10 knots to the virtual waypoint mark beyond San Clemente and the turning point to head east for the 72 mile run to the finish near Point Loma.
On the final leg, the fleet had split either on a rhumbline direction or a more southern direction with a spread of 11+ miles from top to bottom. The Class A and B boats quickly extended their leads over the smaller boats, with GoodEnergy and BadPak dueling for first to finish. At sunrise, GoodEnergy had 41 miles to the finish, about 2 miles ahead of BadPak. BadPak caught them with 4 miles to go, and sailed within a ¼ mile of each other to the finish with BadPak across the line first while sailing 6 more total miles throughout the racecourse with an elapsed time of 19:59:06.
Doug Jorgensen, owner of the J/111 Picosa for the last 7 years, shared his experience on this year's Islands Race. "I've done probably 5 Islands Races. The hospitality of both NHYC on the front end and SDYC on the backend really makes it part of the fun. Seeing your friends and so on.
It was probably the coldest race in memory. It was really freezing. And we knew it was going to be freezing because that's what the forecast was. So we geared up which was fine so we were warm enough. We had a somewhat late finish (13:50:21). The wind shut off in a couple different places, once last night between Catalina and San Clemente. But that lasted for about 3 hours, then we picked up more breeze again.
My favorite part is probably going down the backside of Catalina and then shearing off to go to San Clemente. It's good sailing."
Full Race Results
Lean more about the Picosa team in a recent Transpac article
As Picosa crossed the finish line, they established the top corrected finish time for the race to that point, 30 minutes ahead of Grand Illusion's time. But looking back at the live standings Alli Bell's Cal 40 Restless was projecting to have the best corrected time as possibly the final finisher if they could maintain speed through the afternoon with 40+ miles to go. The wind just wouldn't cooperate as the Cal 40 slowed down in the last few miles of the race and fell short of Picosa's time by about 14 minutes. Picosa also won their class for the 4th time in the Islands Race, finishing one hour ahead of Jeff Shew's Raven in Class E.
The Restless crew were sailing with 4 of their planned Transpac roster, on the first distance race for the Cal 40 under Alli's ownership. "We were very happy with how the boat and crew performed through challenging conditions, trying to avoid holes from San Clemente to San Diego.
We were aware of our estimated standing in first place around San Clemente, but didn't know until Saturday morning that we had a chance to win, with about 40 miles to go. The wind was holding at about 8 knots and were feeling really good about our chance. But within the last 6 miles we slowed to under 2 knots and realized we probably couldn't win. The atmosphere seemed like it hadn't totally glassed off and we continued to search for wind to make it to the finish. Picosa is a well deserving winner, the Jorgensens sail that boat really well.
Since getting back to SDYC, people have been telling us they were watching the tracker and rooting for us, and we really appreciate all the support and the 25+ people that met us at the dock Saturday night. Thanks to NHYC and SDYC for putting on a great race."
With 2025 being a Transpac Race year, more than half of the Islands Race fleet (17 boats) are on schedule to race to Hawaii this summer, including all 9 boats from Classes A and B.
Class A was narrowly won by the TP52 Favonius 2, just 7 corrected minutes ahead of Fast Exit II, both sailing a total of 162nm on the course.
Second place Fast Exit II's owner John Raymont, while recounting their race, shared that at one point they had a big reduction in speed, and spent several minutes working on trim adjustments until they got to the "check the blades" level of investigation, whereupon they discovered they had a porpoise pinned on their keel. With a quick back down, the crew saw the young porpoise swim away and a commensurate improvement in boat speed. That was one of several "minutes" left on the race course that figured into Fast Exit II's elapsed time.
Greg Dorn, Favonius 2, TP52 taking 1st in Class A: "This was our first Islands Race. We've done a lot of other offshore races, but this was the first Islands Race. I think it's a great race, a nice distance. It's a mix of upwind and downwind. I think there's some good complexity in how you sail the race which is real interesting. For us it was a good race in that there were a variety of conditions which helped us manage and improve our program in the boat.
It was very light on the backside of Catalina, and it took a lot of discipline to keep the boat on track for that part of the race. Ultimately that helped us down the road. That transition from medium to light and back to breeze. It created a lot of opportunities for sail changes and managing the boat optimally. I think it's a really good preparation because of the way the race is designed to learn or optimize a program.
We have the Channel Islands 500, Newport to Ensenada and the SoCal 300 coming up. And obviously we're doing all of this in preparation for the Transpac Race."
A unique consideration this year was access to La Playa Basin after the finish. On February 12th, a Navy EA-18 Growler Jet suffered engine failure and crashed in the approach channel immediately outside the La Playa Basin, and adjacent to the main San Diego Harbor channel, in spectacular fashion just moments after the two-man crew jettisoned safely. More than two weeks later, the Navy was still combing the harbor waters recovering the wreckage. With an escort, most boats with 10' or less draft were able to skirt the recovery barge and containment booms and traverse the "Shelter Island Cut" along the south end of Shelter Island. Deeper draft boats chose to berth in other facilities around San Diego Bay or just head back north.
Jeff Johnson, Waterfront Director for San Diego Yacht Club and one of the Race Officials for the event commented afterwards about a particular aspect of offshore racing and this race. "The Islands Race runs early in the year, and is always a bit challenging as rating rules change for the "new season" such as it is perceived by a more seasonal east coast. And every four years, the racing rules change as well. New for 2025-2028 rules quad is Rule 56.3 which requires "...when a boat is to be equipped with an Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder or any other tracking device, it shall not be turned off or its effectiveness intentionally reduced."
Johnson continued "Our race documents, and race committees need to evolve to better administer this new rule. Like some other notable ocean races and our own race to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, now even relatively short coastal races with Safety Equipment Regulations should require on-the-water check-in for sailors to demonstrate their capability to transmit and receive AIS signals and be acknowledged by the Race Committee. This provides a real time audit of compliance. Thereafter, if their signal is not seen, other competitors should have the ability to protest. It is also important to understand the limitations of AIS-B signals, their propagation, and constraints of publicly available data through fee-for-service sites like Marine Traffic. The only modification the R/C needs to add is the ability to administer a Discretionary Penalty (DP) in the event the AIS signal is diminished or not visible. Those two things did not happen in this race and should have. Our apologies to competitors that may have been affected, and heads up for other offshore race events!
Race fans can check the YB Tracker to view a replay of the race: yb.tl/ir2025
Thank you to Helly Hansen for their continued support of the Islands Race and regattas at San Diego Yacht Club.