Challenging Weather at Clark Lake's Tim Dowling Memorial
report by Uncle Al; photos by Rick Belcher, Shannon Donkin and Uncle Al

Close racing and cool weather marked the 2015 Clark Lake YC's annual Fall Regatta Sept. 19-20 near Jackson, Michigan. The few of us who were lucky enough to arrive Friday afternoon, got summery sunshine that was downright hot, but little wind, a disappointment to Dave McCreedy (below) who had arrived early to practice.  The calm weather was no problem to Uncle Al who needed to proof-read his upcoming book KISS Your Dinghy. His only interruption came from PRO, Fritz Marin, who asked if Al wanted to use his hoist. A fine interruption if ever there was one! The second and final break came in the form of supper with Nick Tanis, a Rebel sailing pal, who suggested Poppa's for supper and an outstanding choice it was: good food and lots of it at very reasonable prices!!


Nick also let me share his room upstairs instead of the tent I had brought. Another fine piece of Clark Lake hospitality that looked especially perfect when we woke to cool rain (below) on Saturday morning.
The lunch and ...
... our servers were first-class.

Robin Austerberry has sure grown since we last saw him a couple of years back.
Today he was scheduled to make his racing debut with his dad, Mike.









Uncle Al and crew, Shannon (Shank) Donkin (3854) helped Mike Codd and Kirk Iredale (4600) to by-pass a lost main halyard and then got boxed in by a number of boats hoisting sails. They soon discovered that the race had begun without them five minutes before. With no drops, this was bad news. It was a lovely sailing day but there were big holes in the wind on the lake's west end, and by the time we rounded Eagle Point to begin a run to mark #3 as a prelude to a final beat to the finish off the club, we were challenging Mike Codd for 2nd place. Mike was following the south shore but we were following Marc and Julie Bennett diagonally across to the mark in the NE "corner" of the lake, a mark which we thought was #3. By we I mean Marc, Julie and I. My crew, God bless her and her local knowledge and her ability to convince her skipper. We dove down and rounded the real #3 just a few lengths behind Mike and Kirk. Right near the finish we got the best of a shift and edged Mike by a couple of feet to win the race. Marc recanted in time to take 3rd place.

Race 2 was more of the same but this time the race was mostly a battle between Marc and Al. After a couple of come-backs from behind Al, Marc and Julie seemed to be making a run-away of it on the run past the club to #3 once again. Staying closer to the club shore, Al and Shannon, now getting a lovely ride under spinnaker, brought a gust from astern and visions of first place began to dance in our heads. All kinds of trcky, devious strategy was discarded almost immediately as Marc capsized in a nasty gust. Another strange first for Al and Shannon while Marc and Julie demonstrated the excellent self-rescue talents of the Mark IV and ended up holding off Mike and Kirk, and taking 2nd place.
We were then sent in for a 30-minute break before another planned race or two. Some of the gang had enjoyed the great indoors every bit as much as we did the outdoors. Running to schedule, Fritz and his RC were about to start race 3 when a storm warning came in and racing was abandoned for the day.

So after two races, the lead in the 6-boat Wayfarer class belonged to Al and Shannon (1-1, 2 pts.) while Marc and Mike were tied for 2nd at 5 points from a 2nd and a 3rd each. Also sitting a 1-1 atop the 3-boat Laser Class was Josh Lowrie, ahead of Tom Smith (2-2).

The strong 11-boat Rebel fleet had US champion, Kevin Nickels (2-1) holding a close lead over John and Justin Lowry with their friend, Alyssa (1-3) while Kevin's dad, many times US champion (3-2) was also still very much in the hunt. Among the 5 Buccaneers, it was locals, Larry Schmida and Todd Dowling leading the way with 1-1, ahead of Mr. Meyer (2-2) from Detroit.
We soon had a fine supper followed by various relaxation and family time. The Austerberrys introduced me to ...
... the latest and loveliest Austerberry.
There was music and dancing on the ...
... club veranda for a couple of most enjoyable hours.
The usually chipper Josh Lowry was uncharacteristically subdued. The next day he won
two more Laser races but was sick to his stomach by awards time which he had to miss.
We woke to a gorgeous, if windless, Sunday.
Steam rising off the water, typical on a cool morning above the much warmer water of the lake.
As we were sent out by the RC, the wind did indeed ...
... begin to reach the surface of the lake. The RC posted a windward-leeward 2-4 sausage confined to the east half of the lake. Shannon bemoaned the fact that #4 was located in an absolute no-wind zone in the light NE wind we were getting. Be that as it may, we got off the a fine start, saw wind to the right (east), went for it and rolled into #2 with a substantial lead over Marc. It was only then that I recalled another problem with the windward-leeward: Its configuration does not make it obvious which way to round the marks. It could be to port ro to starboard. Either way would work. Al thought he had seen green numbers boards, so we rounded to starboard. Marc didn't know, either, and followed our lead. I think it was 3rd-place Mike Codd who had the error of our ways pointed out to him and was the first to unwind and re-round the right way, to port. Marc took notice and also went back fairly DQ. But Uncle Al was about 2/3 down the patchy, nerve-wracking spi run whenwe saw the red boards and the horrible truth dawned on us.

We slowly worked our way back upwind, now DFL. Eventually, we unwound our string and then rounded to port and returned to the horrors of sailing away from the little wind there was. There was, however, some good news: The fleet had stopped in the mark 4 no-wind zone and as luck would have it, we brought a little puff all the way in to #4, rounding perhaps 100 feet behind Mike Codd and outside of Marc. Both Marc and I saw better wind in the middle. This was one time it paid to leave the rhumbline and we cruised to 1-2 placings ahead of Mike and Kirk. A great disappointment here for the other three Wayfarers, Robert Mosher, Dave McCreedy and Mike Austerberry with Robin where were either leading the pack or right with the leaders near mark #4 before the roof fell in.

The 4th and final race turned into a three-way battle among Marc, Mike and Al. The latter needed to place at least 2nd if Marc won in order to preserve his series lead. Marc and Al in fact reached the windward mark simultaneously with Al starboarding Marc. But downwind, Marc became unstoppable and had a lead of several boatlengths over Al by the time we began a short beat to the finish. Mike was right there, too, and split tacks with us. We went with Mike until we got a big knock that let us lay the finish line. We tacked only to find that Mike was now looking golden way out to the left, overlaying the mark but in wind. We looked doomed, tacking about 50 yards to leeward of Mike. The Lord then blessed us with a big knock that Mike also got. We tacked  and Mike tried to cross us and didn't make it. We both tacked to avoid the collision, and we found ourselves in a nice breeze and rescued our 2nd place in the race that avoided our falling into a series points tie with Marc (which he would have won on the tei-breaker).