From Trish McDermott's months of preparatory work to the Johnsons, Richard and Michele (above), taking overall honours in W10873 Black Skimmer in the hotly contested Hallowe'en on the Townsend (HOT) Regatta, Wayfarers took centre stage October 27-29 on Greensboro's Lake Townsend. This year's HOT Regatta attracted 24 entries on a cool Fall weekend, only 13 of which ventured out into a doom and gloom forecast on the Sunday. The racing was once again superbly handled by Jerry Thompson of the Carolina SC and his very capable committee (pics below).
The set-up was the usual format: a five-race series, no drops, elapsed times adjusted as per the various US Portsmouth Numbers. Winds for Saturday's three races - two windward-leewards and one triangle - were patchy and shifty, while steadier breezes followed some downpours for the two Sunday races.

Congratulations to Richard Johnson and Michele Parish now sailing out of the Blackbeard SC near their new home in Oriental. They showed a fine combination of skill, boat speed and sane strategy that resulted in 2-6-1-3-1 finishes to end up with 13 points, well ahead of the three teams from the host club in the close fight for the runner-up spot.

That eventually went to Alan Taylor and his wife, Stephanie, in their Windmill (above), who ended up only half a point ahead of defending champions, Bart Streb and wife, Janet, in their Buccaneer (below).


Only 3.5 points behind the three "medallists" were another Wayfarer couple, Uwe Heine and Nancy Collins, who could not quite overcome the 9-7 hole they found themselves in after the first two races.


The Godfather of North America's most active Wayfarer Fleet, Lake Townsend YC, Jim Heffernan with wife, Linda (above), also had two disappointing finishes to start their series and ended up 5th overall and 3rd among the 12 Wayfarers.

And speaking of disappointing, the Flying Scots, usually the biggest fleet here, had only five answer the call and only four sailing. Two crewless helms teamed up to place 6th overall as our beloved auctioneer, Tom Bews, partnered Wendell Grundlach (above), and managed to edge out the excellent Scot team of Robert Bouknight and Nancy Torkewicz (below) by three points.


Finishing in between those two at were Eastern Wayfarer champions, AnnMarie Covington and Bob Williams (above), who sailed better than their 7th overall would imply. But for a race 4 DSQ from a port-starboard incident, AnnMarie and Bob would have been in the thick of the fight for series 2nd.


Two points behind Robert and Nancy was the lone Laser, Luke Hayes, while another pair of helms rounded out the top ten: Ken Butler sailed his beautifully rebuilt W449 with Pete Thorn who is still bringing his recently acquired W6066 up to snuff. By finishing 5th among the Wayfarers, the 9th-seeded Ken was the Most Improved Wayfarer of the event and he and Pete (below) won a pair of the beautiful 2018 wall calendars that mark the 60th anniversary of the Wayfarer Class.



Also making the mistake of giving up too soon was Canadian visitor, Al Schonborn, who had banged up his left big toe by falling off the ramp on Saturday morning while supposedly helping Trish McDermott move W1392 from the ramp past some rocks to the docks. Having self-medicated with beer and Dark and Stormies but no bandages, Al spent a restless night in his sleeping bag at the Bogue/McDermott ancestral manse as the toe alarmed Al each time anything touched it. When the day then dawned cold and very wet, Al was quick to decide his "injury" was the perfect excuse to wimp out. Al's crew, Jeannie Allamby, who had had her first real chance to fly the spinnaker and done very well in difficult conditions, agreed readily to take the day off. Many thanks to Dr. Michele Parish who inspected the damaged appendage and sounded concerned  about blood poisoning while bandaging the toe but promised to keep an eye on it while our North Carolina Week continued with a cruise based on the Oriental, NC homes of Richard and Michele and Uwe and Nancy.


Jeannie and I placed 10-5-12 in the Saturday races. From a racing perspective, I recall two things  painfully. In the opener, we got the classic wind direction that - as I had learned the hard way - meant you had to go hard left towards the golf course on the beat. I failed to do this and wasted much of Jeannie's fine work in the first race. In the Saturday finale, a triangle-sausage configuration, we did things right and rounded onto the first reach close behind Bart and Janet in their speedy Buccaneer in a battle for the Wayfarer lead with AnnMarie and Bob. Turns out that instead of watching each other, and our crews' spinnaker attempts in dying winds, we should have watched the fleet which got better zephyrs further from shore and nearer the rhumb line. Most of the fleet ended up drifting around the mark inside us (above) before reaching better wind first. Live and learn.

The next three boats also took the Sunday off. 14th overall were the Rasmussens, Eric and Joleen, plus a 3rd crew member who wanted to experience sailing. Despite the killer of the extra weight in their Tanzer 16, they edged out Jim Cook and daughter, Nora (11), who came up from Charlotte and sailed a borrowed Wayfarer (below) instead of their own W7372, and did finish their spinnaker-less series with a fine 5th in Saturday's finale.




Also calling it quits after Saturday were Jim Schwartz and John Russell in Jim's Lightning (above) who ended up 16th, just one and two points ahead of their nearest series pursuers. Placing series 17th and getting lots of excitement on both days were Christoph Fahr and his son, Simon, who sail their high-performance RS500 (below) out of the Carolina SC.


New Wayfarers, Kim Durack and Ryan Collins (very nicely trimmed above) of the Carolina SC finished 18th overall one point further back than their clubmates in the RS500.

19th place went to John Hemphill and  Mark Wilson in their Flying Scot (above) while, just to keep busy, Regatta Chair Trish McDermott raced with with Ali Kishbaugh (below left) and placed 20th of the 24 entries.


Series 21st went to David Duff and Jack Clodfelter in their venerable Scot #1939 (above) while in 22nd place we had yet another incarnation of my brother Michael's classic wooden Wayfarer #276 (below) this time sailed by enthusiastic newcomer, Annette Grefe with DeDe Richardson.

Team Grefe edged out another Wayfarer classic a composite, owned by Steve Freyaldenhoven out of Smith Mountain Lake. I believe that Steve and Mitch Krasowski took turns at the helm.

Many many thanks to Regatta Chair, Trish McDermott, and to her many hard-working volunteers which included but are not limited to

• Jerry Thompson, Mike Sigmund, Scott Bogue et al on our Race Committee
• W864 Phil and Cathy Leonard who gave up their racing to slave away wherever help was required
• Ali Kishbaugh et al on Protest Committee
• Tom Bews, our unbeatable auctioneer