Last-race Clark Lake win in very light airs gives Team Menzies Gold over Team Dailey

2023.09.25  A weekend of pleasant weather and light winds was served up to four-boat fleets of both Rebels and Wayfarers but the real news was an impressive ten-boat fleet of Hobie cats making their Clark Lake debut. the fight for the Gold was close in all three fleets. In the Hobies, Bruce Williams needed to beat out Matthew Miller in Sunday's finale to confirm his first place in Hobies. And it was even closer in Rebels where Kevin Nickels and Karolina Carmona (one of our photographers) ended Saturday with a 1-2 while Scott Wright and Matt Fulkerson were a point back at 3-1. So it all came down to Sunday morning when Scott and Matt needed to beat Kevin and Karolina - which they did, moving into a tie at five points with Saturday's leaders: 3-1-1 to 1-2-2 at which point the two firsts gave Scott and Matt the Rebel Gold. It was, I believe, the thespian's first win at this regatta.



In our Wayfarer Fleet, Peggy Menzies and ice-boater, Martha Croasdale (above), broke a tie with Matt Dailey and Nick Burtka by winning Sunday's 3rd and final race of a calm-shortened series to score Peggy's first Clark Lake win of her Wayfarer career. Peggy reported: "My crew was Martha Croasdale, a DN Ice Boater from Gull Lake - she's the new commodore of the Ice Boat Club there.  Many thanks to Dave McCreedy's hospitality and fabulous pizza!!!"


Saturday's pair of races broadened the racing horizons for Detroit's Matt Dailey and Nick Burtka: their victory in race 1 was their first ever regatta-race win and a subsequent Saturday second gave them the enjoyable tie for the series lead and the feeling of pressure overnight as they awaited their Sunday showdown with Peggy and Martha which went to the veteran as it nearly always doesw. Matt and Nick will doubtless learn from this experience and they did reap a ray of glory as the 4th-seeded pair took series second and were our Most Improved team.
 
Tied after the two Saturday races with 3-4 placings were Marc Meyer in his CL16 with Dan Shock (above) and our U.S.-based Double Daves, Dave McCreedy sailing out of near-by Wamplers Lake with Dave Wilpula (below). The former broke the tie with a fine Sunday second just ahead of the Daves.




Our sincere thanks to all the fine volunteers who make this event special, most notably the Race Committee
on the boat as captured by Rick Belcher (l to r) Scott Rosenbeck, Bruce Nowak (PRO) and Hugh O'Harris