After weeks of waiting, we finally got perfect summer sailing at the 2001 June Bug Regatta on London's Fanshawe Lake June 9-10. Wayfarer ace, Rick Goldt, again gave up his sailing to be the June Bug Principal Race Officer. Ably assisted by his wife, Sue, and son, Aaron, as well as Kevin Biskaborn and Ian Hill, Rick served us up six exciting races over the two warm sunny days.

With 13 boats, Wayfarers were easily the biggest fleet in a group that also included Darts & Hobies, 5 Optis, 3 Lasers and a couple of Y-Flyers. All of us enjoyed the warm weather, fairly nice winds of 5-15 knots on Saturday and 4-8 knots on the Sunday. The club caterers again served up a delicious roast beef and chicken dinner in the chalet on Saturday night, and all in all it was a weekend well spent for those of us fortunate enough to be there!

SHADES team in top form as Al and David Schönborn sweep series with bullets

With 13-year-old David doing superb crew work, Uncle Al had everything click into place on this particular weekend. Even a 720 and a virtually last-place start could not keep SHADES down as she romped to an amazing six consecutive first-place finishes in the shifty Fanshawe winds.

The new Wayfarer generation also made itself felt aboard the runner-up, Shadow, where Peter Rahn and his young son, Alex, counted five 2nds to take a very clear series second.

Series 3rd was another matter however, as three crews were within one point of each other. A tie-breaker was needed between Grant Town with Hazel Hewitt and Brian Jeffs with Scott Bamford while Conestoga's Dwight and Pat Aplevich were only one point behind in series 5th.

The tie-breaker went to Brian and Scott who started out with a 9th and then improved continually throughout the series. Brian and Scott made a great comeback in the final race where they took the lead from Uncle Al a mere 50 yards from the finish, only to sail into a hole and have to settle for 2nd. That 2nd was good enough to beat Grant and Hazel (whose best finish was a 3rd) in the tie-breaker.

Dwight and Pat meanwhile counted four 3rds but had a couple of blemishes (9ths) in an otherwise beautifully sailed series and ended up with 21 points. Having been seeded 8th, Pat and Dwight's 5th was still a good finish.

Disasters in the first two Sunday races consigned 5th-seeded Jens and Sharon Biskaborn to a series 6th, just ahead of another Conestoga team, Al Nichols with Mike Miethig. The latter were seeded 13th in this classy field but handled the sometimes weird conditions with calm confidence and ended up counting a very steady 8-6-7-8-7 to easily take the Most Improved honours for the 2001 June Bug. Congratulations, Mike and Al!!

Toronto's John and Joan Goldi were welcomed back with open arms and did well in their first event of 2001. Considering that they've always found the vagaries of the Fanshawe winds most frustrating, John and Joan coped quite well in sailing to a series 8th. Joan and John also deserve some kind of spirit award as they participated in the June Bug even though they had to go back to Toronto on Saturday night to attend a 60th birthday party… No, guys! It wasn't John's!!!

Only one point behind the Goldis was Fanshawe's Robert Kennedy with his son, Scott. Despite missing Saturday's last race, Scott and Robert were in line for a 6th or 7th in the series until a pair of 10ths in the patchy winds of the final two races made them settle for series 9th - which was still a three-place improvement over their seed. Well done, gentlemen!

Rounding out the top ten, only two points back of the Kennedys, were TSCC's George Blanchard and Mike Codd. A first-race 5th turned out to be their series high point but Mike and George were competitive in each race and had lots of fun.

One of our two Michigan crews, Bob Frick with Ken Greywall, also started the series very well, scoring a superb 4th in the opener. Things unfortunately deteriorated a bit after that and it took a final-race 8th just ahead of Fanshawe's Len Macdougall and Peter Wilkins to secure series 11th by that one point over Len and Peter.

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