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the Tim Dowling Memorial Regatta
Clark Lake YC * Sept. 23-24, 2006
Regatta Report by Uncle Al
Uncertain weather cuts into attendance
at Clark Lake's  inaugural Tim Dowling Memorial Regatta

September 23-24 provided beautifully varied sailing at the Clark Lake YC's Tim Dowling Memorial Regatta near Jackson, Michigan. An unpromising weather forecast cut into the attendance, and only the Interlakes (see photo above) had a big fleet, while Rebels, Buccaneers, Wayfarers and Sunfish attendance suffered.



Wayfarer attendance was up a bit to three entries, all from Michigan, with the veteran team of Bob Frick and Peter Every outlasting the crewless Joe DeBrincat, and our newest Wayfarer, Harold Whitcomb, whose young son, Mitchell, made his regatta crewing debut a good one (photo above). Wayfarers (and Canada) were further represented by Uncle Al who crewed for Clark Lake's Dan Hockenberry in his Rebel. Dan and Al placed a solid 2nd of 8 boats behind National champions, Dave Nickels and Emilia Oslund of Fenton, Michigan.



Saturday brought unseasonably warm weather with the threat of rain in the air. After two light-air races (above), that threat finally materialized just after the start of Saturday's third and final race. During the final seconds of the Rebel countdown, a heavy rain squall swept up from the south, and we had the strange experience of watching all 15 Interlakes suddenly disappear into a wall of rain. The rain soon stopped but what did remain was a lovely hiking breeze for the rest of the race. The winds, blowing across the east-west oriented lake (see chart below) as they were, tended to be shifty and gusty and more than one  usually stable boat capsized (photo below).



Thanks and congratulations to the Clark Lake YC whose members once again pitched in and gave us a wonderful weekend in every respect: fine sailing, great food and top notch socializing opportunities! In the face of very tricky conditions, our Race Committee coped extremely well under the direction of Neil Robb, a top Rebel sailor who sacrificed his one "home" event of the year so that the rest of us could have racing. Thanks, Neil!!! My own thanks to Peggy Quiniff who got us tons of great action shots so that we can suitable recall Clark Lake 2006 as a marvellous regatta!

 


On Sunday we got cooler weather that remained unsettled as another small front with rain came though just before the 5th and final race of the series. The winds were good hiking breezes once more and in a couple of the 20-knot gusts, we actually saw some Rebels planing (below - too late! Dave and Emilia have just stopped planing).





The weather coming in from the SW looked truly nasty and caused a number of crews to pack it in, but those of us who stuck it out were rewarded with a great race: the mini squall passed through quickly and left us with actual blue skies and great hiking breezes (above) for the finale.

Complete results can be accessed by clicking here. But no report could be complete without a few results comments. The Interlakes had our biggest fleet (15) as they were racing for their Founder's Trophy which was a competition for Fleet supremacy. But it was the individual racing that was wonderfully exciting and close, as the top five series finishers were separated by only four points in an extremely exciting series. Winning the series was Steve Aspery with his son, David, and Connor Smith who scored 2-8-1-6-1 and beat out Tom Marriott and Mike Judd (6-3-5-1-4) by a single point. A final-race 9th cost Ron Gall and Mike Horvath dearly in this no-drop series as the fell all the way from first to third overall. Only one further point back were two more crews at 22 points: Bob and Betsy Bradley took the tie-breaker for series 4th over Brook Smith and Colleen Hughes.

In the Rebel fleet, National Champions, Dave Nickels and Emilia Oslund, got five first to hang up on their score card, and won convincingly. But the racing was exciting nonetheless, as Emilia and Dave needed comebacks on the final short quarter-mile beat, three time to edge out Dan and Al, and once to edge out the talented young Chicago team of Jim Quiniff and Theresa Stoodley who sailed Neil Robb's Rebel to a solid series 3rd.

Dan Norton dominated the 6-boat Sunfish fleet with five convincing wins while Tom Katterheinrich took an easy runner-up prize with four 2nds and a 3rd.  The fight for series third came down to a tie-break as Don Jones edged out Matt Heywood. In the 3-boat Wayfarer fleet, Bob Frick and Peter Every, both over 80 years old, outlasted Joe DeBrincat who sailed solo and won the only two races in which he sailed. Harold Whitcomb and young Mitchell made it through a challenging weekend without capsizing which was a victory in itself!

Clark Lake's Larry Schmida and his son, Todd, outdistanced two other Buccaneers in five straight races while the brother team of Mike and David Smith took 2nd place ahead of Steve Chaikin and Patty Schmida who only sailed race 4.
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