Uncle Al helped set a record on the weekend of Aug. 2-4 as he was part of a fleet of 36 W's in the 2002 Danish Nationals held out of Farum Sejlklub on Furesøen just NW of Copenhagen. The 3-day event got light to medium winds and a mix of sun and rain in warm temperatures. Perennial Danish champion, Anders Friis, who was the runner-up in the 1998 Worlds, again dominated the event. Anders and his crew, Sune Sigsgaard, scored a very impressive 6 firsts in the 7-race series.

The next 10 or so crews were very evenly matched, as reflected by the 3-6-2-5-2-6 scores counted by the runners-up, Poul and Irene Ammentorp. The Bronze Medals went to Danish Star Class Olympian, Mogens Just, and his wife, Helle Emsvang, who finished three points up on Per Larsen and Steen Ammentorp. The Larsen/Ammentorp team was at the front of a closely bunched group of 5 crews which included Al Schönborn, the CWA's contribution to the event.

Uncle Al had everything a boat borrower could possibly wish for: an marvellous local crew in Anders Pjetursson, and a superb boat complete with Mike McNamara sails contributed by Regatta Chairman, Jesper Friis, who realized he would be far too busy keeping things running smoothly to also sail in the DM. Unfortunately, this weekend seemed to be Al's turn to be out of synch with the shifts and he spent much of most of the races trying to catch up. 

Still, he was quite pleased with his final placing of 8th in this excellent and very competitive fleet. Besides, Al ended up only 3 points out of 4th place despite a rare OCS when he and Anders apparently lost track of the exact position of the start line in a Saturday downpour. It was a most satisfying series for Uncle Al who enjoyed 3 days of racing with a crew who possesses an amazing combination of wonderful talent, friendly relaxation and a fierce desire to win. Mange tak, Anders! Det var dejligt!!

Also adding to the international flavour of a wonderful DM were England's Paul and Andrew Knowlton (17th) and Ton Jaspers with Giel Bloks (27th) who represented the newly formed Dutch Wayfarer Association, NEDWA. Ton is a driving force behind NEDWA and was - as he was at last year's Worlds - on a mission to soak up more Wayfarer knowledge to share with his fellow W's in Holland.

The Abbott Mark III also made its first DM appearance and looked not only sharp but fast in the hands of Steen Schubert and Keld Forchhammer who placed series 10th!

The high points of our series in W9355 Whistle were races 3 and 7. In race 3, we made a comeback from about 7th at the windward mark to win the race without extreme luck or risky strategy. Of course, becoming the only boat to beat Anders and Sune in this series called for the appropriate celebrations which continued even after the Regatta Chairman cut us off the free beer!

Even more exciting and fun was the light-air race 7 where we had our only early lead of the series, only to have Anders and Sune catch us at the end of beat 2 of a trapezoid course. With only a run plus a short broad reach to go 'til the finish, we began a showdown with the leaders who were two lengths ahead at the start of the run. Despite sailing Whistle beautifully, we could make no inroads on Wassail as both leaders pulled well ahead of the rest of the fleet. Halfway down the run, we began to realize that our only hope would be to try to get buoy room which would virtually guarantee a first-place finish.

Accordingly, we began to sail high of the mark on port tack, forcing Anders to likewise to keep clear air and defend the inside. Both boats held on, each waiting for the other to gybe first. Finally, we reached a position where a gybe for the leeward mark would leave us at 45º to the rhumb line, and Uncle Al blinked first.  Taking the sheets from his crew, Al stood up to initiate the gybe which he hoped would leave him where he could take Anders' wind. But Anders reacted by gybing so quickly that Al and his Anders were able to postpone their gybe until they were right on Anders' wind.

Al was now faced with a problem he had never encountered in his nearly 50 years of racing. Our bow was virtually even with Anders' transom but we couldn't risk sailing a bit higher to blot out Anders' wind entirely since we were so close that if Anders began to slow down, we would certainly "tail end" him. And of course we still needed the leeward overlap to get buoy room. We had about 50 metres in which to stick our nose in but then the 2-length circle arrived and Anders informed us that there was no overlap. We thought we might be overlapped with part of Anders' rudder but were not sure, so we luffed up. We missed Anders' rudder by about 1 cm. It was at that moment that that I remembered that our spinnaker had undoubtedly been overlapped. I should have asked Anders to look up and Anders, being a very good sportsman, might well have agreed that we had obtained an overlap. But it was too late now. In any case, both crews were exhilarated by the wonderfully exciting race we had had - in many ways, the race of a lifetime!

For Uncle Al, this was a whole summer's worth of fun packed into 6 days in Denmark: 3 days of fine racing plus a Thursday evening club race, lots of socializing and great meals with fellow Wayfarers. Then there were the luxury accommodations in the home of Regatta Chairman, Jesper Friis and his wife, Aida, where smoking was not only allowed but encouraged! It was also an eye-opening experience to witness first-hand, the prodigious amount of effort put forth by Jesper who took his regatta responsibilities very seriously. While I was there, Jesper worked virtually every waking minute at making sure that everything possible was done to make this DM a marvellous experience for all of us. In fact, it was all I could do to persuade Jesper to join me in a beer, some Gammel Dansk or some Famous Grouse. Fortunately, I was assisted in this endeavour by our Coach, Jesper's and Poul's childhood friend, Jesper Graves Petersen, who in one instance, held the Regatta Chairman down while I poured The Famous Grouse down his throat - a procedure that kept all three of us up until 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and did serious damage to the Grouse.

Tusind tak, Jesper and Aida, for one of the best weeks in my life! There are others to thank and to remember with joy - but I hope to do that with the picture pages on the Whiffle Web.

A grand finale for my wonderful week was a fine dinner for Jesper, Aida and me at the Ammentorps' on the Monday night, my last evening in Denmark. Having just returned from a 2-month work stint in Greenland, Aida topped off the evening by making us some delicious Greenland coffee - like Irish coffee only with a lot more booze. Everything was just great and I look forward to returning the great Danish hospitality at the 2004 Worlds.