the WAC to Kirkland record.Julia Ruthford is a long time member of the club, and was the 2002 Catamaran Fleet Captain who, along with Paul Shipley, set the all time fastest record in the WAC to Kirkland Challenge on December 17th, 1998. Their time was 21 minutes and 7 seconds.
The story is that NOAA sent her to D.C. to receive the Department of Commerce's
Gold Medal for h-e-r-o-i-s-m. No, not for breaking the WAC to Kirkland record.
She had gone windsurfing (surprise!) in the South Sound and noticed a Hobie Wave leaving the beach. The Cat and crew made it out to the middle of the water for a time before it capsized. She watched it between reaches and realized that once righted from a capsize, they weren't able to keep the boat upright long enough to get back on. One or more capsizes saw all but one sailor still had 'possession' of the boat; the other two scattered upwind.
Water temp ~50', air temp 40-50', wind 30-35 knots and three teenagers on a 14' cat in those conditions in jeans and t-shirts.
Julia drove down, abandoned her board (gasp), helped right the Wave, sailed upwind to collect the other two and sailed them to shore.
Upon reaching shore she didn't get away in time to escape the Seattle news crews and found herself on the 11pm news and I suspect the newspapers. All three cat sailors were fine (having received treatment for moderate hypothermia) and Julia found her board (whew!!). The news made it to Alaska where someone from NOAA recognized Julia's name (or somehow put it together) and her name was submitted for the award.
Congratulations Julie.
Randy Eakin contributed to this article.