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as John & Dolores deBoer’s consistency overcomes three ‘bullets’ by Roger Shepherd and Joanne Kumpf! ..... A
marvellously
summer-like weekend blessed 12 Wayfarer crews who
joined about 15
Sunfish,
15 Rebels and half a dozen Interlakes for Clark
Lake YC’s 39th Annual
Invitational
Regatta September 25-26 on Clark Lake south of
Jackson, Michigan. The
winds
of 5-15 knots which swung back and forth between S
and SE brought sunny
temperatures in the mid- to upper 20s (Celsius!)
but also brought very
shifty conditions on Clark Lake which runs
east-west! This summer’s low
water levels added an additional challenge as the
weed beds were
considerably
closer to the surface than usual.
 ..... All
of this
made for a most challenging series – particularly
as the Sailing
Instructions
specified that all races would be counted. In
these very tricky
conditions,
John and Dolores deBoer sailed W7351 SILVERFOX
(disguised as W6090)
with
consistent excellence to 2-2-1-3-3 finishes and
first overall. Being
seeded
only 4th in the event, John and Dolores also
earned a share of Most
Improved
honours as they beat their seed by three places!
Also doing an excellent job – three firsts in 5 races! – but not as consistent – their other two races were 4-7 – were runners-up Roger Shepherd and Joanne Kumph, also of Fanshawe. Not only are these two adding some excellent sailing ability to our fleet, but their cheerful personalities are a real bonus to the rest of us as well! Third place went to Walled Lake’s Joe DeBrincat and Ken Greywall who recorded a nicely consistent 5-3-2-5-5 to beat their seed by a pair of places. And while Joe was out wrestling with windshifts, his wife, Vickie and their lovely young daughter, Noelle, enjoyed the lovely facilities of the club. Michigan’s wily veterans, Bob Frick and Peter Every were next, in 4th place where they too, ranked as Most Improved, having been seeded 7th! Bob and Peter beat out the hard luck duo of Mike and Darlene Codd by a mere ¾ point. The defending champion Codd team, started the series on a bright note when they eked out an amazing win over John and Dolores who were winning by about 200 metres with only 200 metres to go to the finish. But things went downhill after that: In race 2, SUNKISSED broke a halyard and had to be beached for repairs before finishing 11th, and it wasn’t until the finale that Mike and Darlene got into stride again with a 2nd. Hubert and Phyllis Dauch of Walled Lake finally made their first, long-awaited appearance on the ’99 Wayfarer circuit at Clark Lake. Sailing with Jerry Brauer, Hubert won a 6th-place tie-breaker over George Blanchard and Dennis Platt of TSCC on the strength of a pair of 4ths. TSCC’s John and Joan Goldi had been on a real roll and were the top-seeded entry for the first time in their Wayfarer career. But this was their first time at Clark Lake and they got to see the place at its shiftiest right away. By the time they had developed a bit of a feel for the shifts and taken a 4th in the final race, they had amassed enough points to place 8th overall. After getting their best finish ever, a 3rd in the final Saturday race, Cleveland’s Bob Emans and Tom Reed were stymied by Sunday’s different set of shifts even after rounding the windward mark of race 4 in excellent shape. They ended up with a pair of Sunday 9ths to place 9th in the series which was still a respectable improvement over their 11th seed. A tie
for 10th between another pair of Wayfarers from
Cleveland’s Bay Village
SC was resolved in favour of master cruisers Dick
Harrington and Margie
Cervenik over Armand Niccolai and Tony Krauss. The
latter did not
finish
last in any of the 5 races but ended up in the
caboose position for the
series. A frustrating series for Tony and Armand
for whom very little
went
right. What kind of a weekend was it aboard
BERSERKER? Well, it was a
weekend
on which, in the final race, Armand changed sides
for a tack only to
find
that the toggle on his self-inflating life jacket
had caught between
the
boards of the seat. Armand promptly self-inflated
– something that
undoubtedly
ruins the best of tacks!
Uncle Al and Marc Bennett take 2nd in 15-boat Rebel fleet! Having launched SHADES, Al Schönborn and Marc Bennett were all set to make it a 12-boat Wayfarer fleet when they were offered the use of a Rebel (same length as a Wayfarer, but twice the weight and no spinnaker) by Bruce Nowak who was Chief Judge aboard the RC for this event. Marc and Al decided to try the challenge of the always very strong Rebel fleet in this lovely new green hull with brand new sails. Things regularly looked good as Marc and Al won the first race and rounded the windward mark with the lead or very close to it in all four of the remaining races. But in the end, they were unable to hold off Chicago’s Mark Quiniff and family who always seemed to manage to find enough shifts near the finish to win. Word is that Mark had sailed the Rebel Nationals on Clark Lake earlier in the summer and had been totally unable to get untracked and I gather he was due to get a few breaks. When the dust had settled, Mark was counting 4-1-1-1-1 while Al and Marc had 1-4-3-2-2 for a solid series second. Again,
the Clark Lake YC had the volunteers and the
welcome mat out in force,
and we had a wonderful weekend! Special thanks to
regatta organizers,
Laureen
and Tim Dowling, who did a super job as always.
And from the soon to be
posted action shots, you will see that Tim not
only worked on the
safety
boat, but also took great pictures of the racing!
Thanks, Tim!!! |