Frank “Wayfarer Man” Goulay’s first June Bug Regatta (Fanshawe Lake, June 10-11) turned out to be an interesting and successful one. A veteran of numerous Pumpkin Regattas, Frank had oddly enough never managed to make it from his Ottawa home to the June Bug. And life became “interesting” almost immediately as he and his helm, “Uncle Al” Schönborn managed to capsize SHADES in the second race. With the pressure of an early drop race hanging over their heads, Al and Frank pulled up their proverbial socks and had edged into the series lead when a torrential downpour assisted by thunder and lightning put an end to race #6 and the series.
This left the SHADES crew with a 2-2-1 (and a last-place drop) from 4 Saturday races sailed in ideal summer weather with winds ranging from 6-8 knots in the morning to 10-18 knots in the afternoon. The one medium air Sunday race produced another bullet for Frank and Al as the latter defended his 1999 June Bug title.
Runners-up in the disappointingly small but eminently challenging and capable 9-boat Wayfarer fleet were the Town brothers, Scott and Grant, whose race 5 last-leg come-back from oblivion to 2nd place turned out to be the just the margin they needed to edge out CWA Chairman, Peter Rahn and his son, Alex, by a single point.
Despite the low numbers, the Wayfarer racing was excellent as most of the top racers were in attendance – with the notable exception of Rick Goldt who once again sacrificed a very real shot at the June Bug title to be our Principal Race Officer. But even without Rick, it was a powerful fleet that produced four different winners in Saturday’s races!
One of these was Bob Kennedy who, I believe, won his first big regatta race ever with a spiffy comeback in race #1, ably assisted by veteran Wayfarer racing helm, Steve Carroll, who did an excellent crewing job for Bob.  In the end, Bob and Steve just missed placing in the top three but their 4th-place series finish improved on their seed by four positions and was easily enough to earn this pair the green flags as the event’s Most Improved crew! Congratulations on a super series, guys!
Also much improved (from their previous regatta, the Warm Water) were Fingal’s Roger Shepherd and Joanne Kumpf who counted an impressively consistent 5-5-5-4 to take series 5th by a single point over the 4th-seeded pair of Brian Jeffs and Scott Bamford of Fanshawe YC, and by two points over another Fanshawe team: Jens and Sharon Biskaborn.
Often in contention but just lacking those little touches at crucial moments were our 8th- and 9th-place finishers, Al Nichols with Mike Miethig and John deBoer with his wife, Dolores. A string of five consecutive 8th did not seem to be what Dolores had in mind when the talk turned to consistency. In fact, their 32 points ended up being one more than Al and Mike’s point total. This left the deBoers who are seeded among the top quarter of North American Wayfarer racers, in last place for the June Bug. More proof that we had quality if not quantity!

A big vote of thanks to the Fanshawe Yacht Club
who again put on a superb regatta which sadly and inexplicably was not very well attended by any of the fleets: Darts, Hobies, Lasers, Y-Flyers and a few odds and ends. Among those odds and ends were Wayfarers, Steve and Barb Graff, who were sailing the Flying Dutchman as a warm-up to a big FD regatta in the Finger Lakes the following weekend.