Youngsters shine as Mississauga's Mark and Paul Taylor take 2007 Nationals!

Ladies and gentlemen! Meet the new Canadian Wayfarer champions, Mark (l) and Paul (r) Taylor. The Taylor brothers, who sail out of the Mississauga SC, have dethroned Uncle Al and Marc Bennett in a closely contested series that was shortened to three races when the winds failed to make an appearance on Toronto's horrible Humber Bay Sunday. For this, the 48th Canadian Wayfarer Nationals, we did get in one good day of exciting racing though, on Toronto's Humber Bay off Lake Ontario. Frigid waters and cool temperatures that struggled to break 20°C were however more than offset by blue skies and great southerly sailing winds of 8 to 12 knots.

PRO, Jake Starr (middle above), had us sailing races that consisted of two sausages with a downwind finish. There was even a gate at the end of the first run, an effort that turned out to be overkill in light of the fact that our attendance was a very disappointing 11 boats that matched our all-time low set way back in our first Nationals at Ashbridges Bay YC in 1960. On the bright side, we did have a very competitive fleet that featured four boats seeded in the top one sixth of North American Wayfarers. The races were all well sailed and all the participants enjoyed the excitement provided by the close racing.

In retrospect, we would have been able to avoid a lengthy postponement past our scheduled 1100 hrs start time, and an early abandonment of further Saturday racing, had we moved out another half-mile off shore into the breeze that was blowing pretty much all day out on the lake. The NOOD Regatta boats certainly seemed to be getting better winds.

But eventually, we, too, got fairly steady winds and racing got underway shortly after noon. Still, there were shifts and soft spots in the wind that made the racing a real challenge, a challenge to which the Taylor "boys" rose very well, especially in the opening pair of races which they won convincingly. Avoiding the corners, Mark and Paul combined great pointing in the tricky Humber Bay chop and the best upwind boat speed in the fleet, with smart sailing that saw them keep an eagle eye on the "big picture" so that no one found the best winds for very long before the Taylors were there to share it - from in front!! Downwind, Paul and Mark were as fast as they needed to be, comfortably defending their leads in races 1 and 2. In fact, the top four finishers were so evenly matched in downwind speed all day that only Alastair Ryder-Turner and young son, Andrew, were able to move up on a run - perhaps due to their lighter weight? - as they moved past defending champions, Al Schonborn and Marc Bennett, just before the finish of race 2 to take 2nd place.

With the Taylors sitting on a sparkling 1-1, perennial contenders Heider Funck with Tom Wharton (3-4), and Al with Marc (2-3) had the pressure squarely on them for race 3, since yet another loss to the Taylors would pretty much kill any titles hopes Heider or Al still had.


And things looked bleak indeed for the challengers when the Taylor boys were the first to spot a significant back that changed the favoured end from the RC boat to the pin during the final minute of the countdown. Even a late charge down towards the pin end was not enough for Al, and shortly after the gun, he (3rd from left) found himself sitting squarely in Mark's backwind (Mark can been seen above, just off Al's bow) with three starboard boats off his hip. Quickly, Al and Marc decided to bite the bullet by tacking. We had to bear away for Michael Kachkovsky (W300, 2nd from right) but did safely cross Kit Wallace (1037) and Heider (600) in a breeze that had now become very weak.

Moments later, the Taylors and Heider also tacked to port, but the dying breeze played to Al's strength as he and Marc quickly eased everything, and by the time Mark and Heider had geared down for the lighter winds, Al was a good 300 yards ahead, and sailing into an ever increasing breeze! Aboard SHADES, meanwhile, there was some strategy discussion: Al wanted to tack and put SHADES between the closest pursuers and the windward mark, just in case a huge port lift came along that could leave us on the outside of Heider and Mark. For his part, Marc pointed out that we were getting the best winds where we were, winds that were increasing with every minute we held port tack. In the end, we compromised, holding port for another couple of nervous minutes before Marc announced that he could now tolerate a tack, especially since the wind seemed to be filling in everywhere as far as we could tell by standing up in the boat. After a fine roll tack, we crossed both Heider and Mark comfortably and sailed happily back into Al's comfort zone, the area between the closest threats and the next mark. After that, we kept a loose cover on the Taylors, and rounded onto the last-leg run with a lead that would usually be seen as comfortable.


But not on this day on Humber Bay where the breeze was once again dying. There would be no relaxation until the finish beep in this one (above) (note also, how Marc and Al have pulled out all the stops by pressing our nearly new Mike Mac chute into service)! Marc and I even resorted to taking down our jib for the light air run, a trick we learned at the first Midwinters from Bill Abbott Jr. This being Humber Bay, Marc and I did not fail to consider the very real possibility that the wind would die and then come in off the bow, but we decided we could - in that eventuality - douse the spinnaker and rehoist the jib while the wind made up its mind.

All of us, except Marc, were now looking forward to race 4. Even though it was not yet 1500 hrs, the latter looked to the NW where cloud cover had moved in over the shore and announced, "Well, that's it for the wind today. Those clouds will kill the thermal." Alas, Marc was right once again. There's no more depressing place I have ever sailed, than Humber Bay with a dying breeze but a chop that remains alive and well. Thus, Jake's three-gun abandonment signal was received with pretty unanimous approval. And wind never did come back. And lucky Marc and me got a tow in with Tom and Heider who had their own support boat (and quite the wild driver!) standing by. We did need the tow, in any case, since Mr. Bennett was to be the chef for the (delicious!) steak and chicken BBQ that was included with our $65 entry fee.

There was lots to talk about as we enjoyed our dinner: stories from the day on the water and plans for beating the nearest rivals in this closely bunched fleet. A bonus was the arrival of Ivan and Suzanne Pedersen (W7350) who had driven in from Pickering just to have dinner with us and exchange child prodigy updates.

And with warmer weather as well as SW winds of 10 to 20 km/h forecast, we all went home full of expectations of doing better the next day: Mark (1-1-3) would be challenged by Al (2-3-1), Heider (3-4-2) and Alastair (4-2-4) for the title. The next five boats were only four points apart, with John Cawthorne and Charles Wakefield lying 5th at 19 pts., one point up on Mike Codd and Kirk Iredale who were salivating at the thought of the stronger winds to come. Two points further back were Geoff Edwards and George Waller who in turn held a slim one-point margin over a pair of teams: our new Wayfarer owners, Michael Kachkovsky and Kate Linkova (having bought W300 from Peter Kozak) and Kit Wallace with Thomas Vendely (who usually helms but got a taste of crewing this weekend). Even the fight to avoid last place was still not decided as Fred Black with new crew, Leo Savitski, was only three points up on Ted Lacelle and his up-and-coming young crew, Colin Schwarz (13).

Alas, the warmer weather did arrive on Sunday, but the wind did not. A good hour before the rest of our series was officially cancelled just after 1300 hrs, Marc - his sense of what the Humber Bay wind will and will not do, still finely tuned - reached across our table and shook hands with Mark and Paul, congratulating them on their fine win. Once the three guns had made things totally official, all that remained was to hand out the awards.

For Mark and Paul Taylor, the Smallcraft of Southampton Trophy that goes to our National champions was their first major win, and a well earned one at that! A five-year winning streak for SHADES thus came to an end when Al and Marc took series 2nd. 3rd place went to Heider Funck, himself a four-time National champion (1974, 1999-2001), and crew, Tom Wharton.

After placing a very competitive series 4th, Alastair Ryder-Turner was praising the new jib he had bought from Heider Saturday morning (made by Heider Funck, Hansa Sails - 416-728-8951) , a sail that is getting rave reviews from all its users. Alastair and his son, Andrew, also repeated as Gillespie Award winners for being the best-placed Parent-Child team, though last year Alastair won the award with Andrew's older brother, David.

Of note among the other finishers mentioned earlier, were Michael Kachkovsky and Kate Linkova who beat their 10th seed by two spots and were thus our Most Improved team. They also won the Sweet Award (best Male-Female team).

Thanks again to Jake Starr and his committee for giving us good racing, and to regatta organizers, Tom Wharton and George Blanchard, for making this weekend enjoyable in every way. Last but most definitely not least, thanks to Jake's son, Ricky, who took great on-the-water shots for us.