Only a few months ago, Wayfarer sailors were praying for Hubert Dauch as the 76-year-old lay near death after complications arising from a hernia operation. This past weekend, Sept. 21-22, Hubert showed just how nicely he has recovered, as he teamed up with his Walled Lake, Michigan neighbour, Joe DeBrincat, to dominate the Wayfarer fleet at the annual Clark Lake YC Fall Regatta.

In an amazing performance, Hubert and Joe - seeded 4th among the 6 crews entered - won all five races and were also our Most Improved crew. Top-seeded Mike and Darlene Codd of Toronto gave Hubert a couple of good races early but generally could not match Hubert's uncanny ability to sniff out shifts and wind patches, and had to be content with a "perfect" five seconds in landing the runner-up trophies.

USWA Skimmer editor, Bob Frick again teamed up with Wayfarer-owner-in-waiting, Deric Jaques, and placed series 3rd ahead of Michiganders, Jerry and Diane King who got their green W1385 out of moth balls and took 4th overall. New W, Diana Clark teamed up with son, Drew, and daughter, Sylvia, to take 5th place sailing their wooden-masted beauty on the Saturday only. And bad luck for Cleveland's Tony Krauss and Mary Abel who had persuaded Armand Niccolai to lend them Berserker. In trying to launch, Tony had the trailer fall off the launching trolley and careen down the short ramp. An attempt to grab the runaway boat ended up with Tony bashing up his shoulder which he gamely tried to ignore in sailing to a 4th in the first race. But after that, the pain was too much and Tony and Mary ended up just enjoying a nice, peaceful weekend in the lovely surroundings of Clark Lake.

The teams for Clark Lake were set over beers at the Wayfarer North Americans in August: Al Schönborn with Marc Bennett as usual - plus a new face, Ottawa's Frank Goulay was finally going to sample the joys of the famous Clark Lake Regatta, with John Weakley as crew. Frank was also hoping to try his hand at sailing in the hottest Clark Lake fleet - Rebels.

When it was confirmed that Al could borrow PRO Tim Dowling's Rebel and Frank would have a Rebel belonging to Neil Robb's son, even John Weakley was bubbling over with excitement. With no need to tow a boat, Frank volunteered his vehicle to transport the whole rowdy bunch of us in speed and style.

After driving through several downpours, we arrived at CLYC near midnight. None of our hosts were still up but they had, as promised, left the beer keg operational! After checking to make sure the keg was working as it should and a brief forage in the (limited) local night life, we pitched our tents and had a fine night's sleep.

The next morning, we checked out our "rides". Both boats were very nicely rigged, requiring none of the rigmarole often associated with borrowed boats. All we had left to do was relax until the 12:30 Skippers' Meeting which announced 3 Saturday races in the warm sunshine and light to medium WSW winds.

Early on, it looked like Al and Frank might be in for more racing than they would have preferred, as both got buried off the start and were struggling to avoid last place near the end of the first beat of a 5-6-1-2-4-3 course in race 1 (see diagram below).
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The next race was - for Al and Frank - one of those races where everything went as one dreams it. Perhaps motivated by the promised beer break after Race 2, Al and Frank scored a runaway 1-2, prompting Tim to remark: "I guess it isn't that my Rebel is slow…"

We should have known it was too good to last! Having re-supplied with beer, Marc and Al went out to await race 3 in winds that were now gusting up to 15 knots. Peacefully hove to, sipping our beers, we were just waving a friendly greeting to a bikini-laden pontoon boat that was also drifting along, when Marc discovered disaster! The bottom of the mast was coming away from its heel plug and splitting wide open with just one screw still holding.

Before heading ashore to drop out of race 3, we informed our owner, Tim, who was just finishing the last stragglers of race 2. Tim insisted that we should try to do a quick repair and gave us directions to his tool box. What followed was one of those heart-warming moments that really shows how fortunate we are in the type of people we race with: Frank, John, Neil Robb and Tim all leapt into action as we hit the dock (metaphorically speaking, of course!!). Our mast was miraculously lowered, repaired, duct-taped and re-stepped just in time for us to make it out to race3! A quick check of the course board revealed a somewhat shorter 6-5-1-3 course (see diagram below).
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But I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't remember much of the early parts of the race except that CLYC Commodore, Dan Hockenberry with Tim's son, Scott, as crew made a fine comeback and rounded #1 to starboard with the rest of us following his example - Frank and Al rounding 2-3. By the time we headed east past Eagle Point, Frank had closed right in on Dan who had to cope with the distraction of John Weakley lullabies to which the rest of us had become immune on the long drive down.

With Frank and Dan taking each other high on the starboard tack, Al was left alone in the middle of the lake where he got some nice puffs to take the lead. It was at this time that Al and Marc realized they had no idea whether #3 needed to be left to port or starboard. The possibility of checking by going right near the RC boat which was on station for the finish was discarded since it would require a major course alteration right into the wind shadows of Dan and Frank. Instead, we would see what the Interlakes did. But a shift and puff came along at the wrong time and by the time we could look again, the leading Interlakes had all rounded in a bunch. We would be in great shape (inside) if the mark was to be rounded to port, and we watched eagerly as the remaining pair of Interlakes in front of us prepared to round. Rats! They left #3 to starboard! Now we had to work our way upwind of Dan and Frank to protect the inside at the mark in case they got a last-minute puff. Phew! Made it! Just a short beat to the finish to complete an amazing day! Simply a matter of covering Frank and Dan and holding our 50 m. lead - or so we thought…

Having tacked to port shortly after rounding, we met the last Interlake who hailed: "You rounded the mark the wrong way!" We quickly tacked to go back and unwind the string and re-round correctly but then thought maybe he doesn't know for sure and gybed to continue going upwind on port while asking the Interlake helm: "Are you sure???" "Oh yes, the number 3 was red! We looked very carefully." Rats again! One more tack and back to unwind once more. By this time of course, Frank and Dan - not knowing any more than we did as it turns out - had also rounded the wrong way. Seeing our gyrations, they unthinkingly assumed that we were doing a 360 to exonerate ourselves and began to do likewise. By the time they remembered that 360's are only for hitting the mark, Al had the inside track for the unwinding and re-rounding. This was a good time to know Rule 18, the buoy room rule which still applied among Al, Dan and Frank as well as between them and the 5 or so Rebels that were fast approaching mark #3 while staring in justifiable disbelief!!

With Frank sitting a solid series 2nd, Al tried to cover Frank and failed. A subsequent tacking duel between Frank and Al - while entertaining for the RC - left Dan and Scott to sail into a well-earned lead which they judiciously protected to a jubilant finish ahead of Frank and Al.

A pleasant evening of chatter, free beer and great food ended with a Wayfarer gang trip to the Beach Bar. But even that ended embarrassingly early around 9:30. We were ready for a good rest after Tim had delivered beautifully on his promise to give us as much racing as was humanly possible. By 10 p.m., my crew, Marc had fallen asleep to escape the Weakley lullabies and was snoring in harmony. Not used to such early nights, Uncle Al awoke at 4 a.m. and found Joe DeBrincat on the club verandah, also unable to sleep. An hour of swapping sailing stories left us ready for another try at sleep - which was successful.

Gray skies and cool NW winds of 8 to 15 knots greeted us on the Sunday morning as we headed out for a 10 a.m. start and our final two races. With Frank in series 2nd at 3-2-2 to our 1-1-3, we were in a position to drive a nail into Wayfarer Man's coffin when the latter was buried off the start. Al got greedy however, and while he was busy chasing race leader, Dan Hockenberry, Frank got away and Uncle Al ended up hard pressed to rescue a 3rd behind Dan and Frank in race #4.

It was between races that Al was reminded that there were no drops at Clark Lake. This meant that even though Dan and Scott had those two fine firsts, they were not in such good shape series-wise what with a 5-6 from races 1 and 2 hanging around their necks! In fact, Marc and Al just need a top 5 finish no more than one place behind Frank to clinch the series.

As it turned out, the finale was a bit anti-climactic as both Frank and Dan got buried at the start. The latter recovered amazingly well once more and briefly held the lead on the run before settling for a 3rd behind Neil Robb who sailed an excellent, sound finale with Jeff Stebing to win handily from Uncle Al. Frank meanwhile, had escaped nicely into the middle of the lake after a poor start and was looking good with lots of wind and a nice starboard tack lift inside the leaders when he noticed they were almost without exception leaving mark #6 to starboard. 
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All in all, we had a wonderful time and are already making plans to be at Clark Lake in 2003 when the Fall Regatta will take place on September 20-21! There is even some talk of Tim Dowling borrowing a Wayfarer for next year, which should certainly liven up the proceedings. Let's hope we have more W's next year. One way or another, John, Marc, Frank and Al will expect to be there - without a doubt!!!