The Gorge Sailing Team’s fourth season is underway and the team had their first of two home races this season last week with a great showing at a regatta down at the Hood River Waterfront.
Sunday saw the beginning of what many hope will become an annual event in Hood River. Supported by the Port of Hood River and Zepher Inc., the Commissioner’s Cup Regatta was the first local youth sailing race to be held in Hood River.
Hood River Yacht Club held its annual Double Damned race Saturday and was met with variable but constant winds, a solid fleet of competitors and only slightly nerve-wracking threats of thunder and lightning boiling in the clouds overhead.
Doug Archbald, commodore of Hood River Yacht Club, writes that Double Damned 2012 went off with great success in the face of “challenging, very un-Gorge-like conditions.”
The Hood River Yacht Club held its annual Double-Damned downwind race Saturday. The downwind, every-boat-for-itself sprint from Cascade Locks to The Dalles has grown in popularity and reputation since its conception in 2008. This year’s field of 27 boats was a record for the event, and as the fleet lined up in Cascade Locks for what has proven to be 40-plus miles of gut checking, crew testing, gear breaking, mast snapping and general mayhem on the water.
