Despite the Sunday's racing having to be cancelled due to heavy and rather cold rains, the 2003 Wayfarer Midwinters at Florida's Lake Eustis SC, were a huge success. The 3-day event, held Feb. 7-9, attracted 14 Wayfarers and 17 C-Scows all of whom got in lots of great sailing (6 races) in winds mostly in the 10-12 knot range. And our host club continues to make great strides: their new, almost completed clubhouse looks beautiful while the race management was superb. Unchanged this year was the friendly, helpful hospitality of our hosts.

Despite the sad, untimely death of regatta co-founder, Bob Brown, and Ed Kraft being too ill to sail after going to all the trouble of polishing his W on Thursday afternoon, we got a good, healthy turnout. No overseas boats this year but we'll be working on the Danes and the Dutch and let Ralph Roberts work on the British and Irish for future years. As it was, we got 7 local (LESC) entries and 7 visitors: 2 each from North Carolina, Michigan and Ontario and Butch Minson from Maine! Four helms single-handed and four crews flew spinnakers.

The overall winners for 2003 were Uncle Al and Marc Bennett of Ontario who improved on their 2000 and 2001 wins by winning all six races in pretty convincing form. Perhaps it was the soothing surroundings of their billet in Dotty and Mike Murto's home? Whatever it was, Marc and Al have never sailed better with Uncle Al making it through the whole series without any cuts or bruises that he usually gets from bouncing and falling in the boat.

The intriguing team of Nick Seraphinoff (Detroit and Tawas) and Frank "Wayfarer Man" Goulay (Ottawa, Ontario) got off to a rocky start when they scoffed at the thought of reading the SI's and narrowly escaped a DSQ in this no-drop regatta when they sailed through the forbidden start-finish area while sailing the first run. A kind competitor from the host club pointed out their error to them, and a lenient committee allowed them to re-trace their steps and go around an end, but the damage had been done and they could do no better than 4th in that race.

Another difficulty that Nick and Frank encountered was the Scows. In the 2nd race, they bore away to avoid a starboard Scow on a beat only to have the latter panic and also bear away. As the boats passed each other at a goodly clip, Nick's mast hit the Scow's main and there was the ominous sound of ripping cloth. On Saturday, Nick came in from the racing and had another Scow story to tell. Going up a beat, they were converging with a port-tack Scow. Not wanting the high-pointing Scow and its huge mainsail to backwind them, Nick and Frank frantically waved the Scow helm across, yelling: "Cross! You can cross!" Nick went on with his story: "The Scow then completed a tack right on our lee bow, turned around, smiled, and said: 'There! How's that!!??' "And he was one of the few Scows we hadn't even done anything to," an outraged Nick continued.

In the end, Nick and Frank managed enough consistency with their 4-3-3-2-3-4 series to take the overall runner-up spot at 19 points. A pleasing result for Nick who was seeded 6th in the event and won a share of the Most Improved flags by smashing that prediction by 4 places.

Single-hander, Butch Minson who coaches sailing at Maine Maritime Academy, demonstrated his skills to good effect as he handled his W very nicely, even in breezes that forced both crew members to hike to keep the boat flat upwind. Butch came the closest to beating Uncle Al as he was ahead in races 2 and 3 but lost out from a lack of spinnaker. In the end, Butch took series 3rd with 22 points (6-2-2-5-2-5).

Defending champions, Gale Shoemaker and Don Poosch of LESC had a tougher time of it this year. They started and ended their series with fine second-place finishes but also had to count 5-4-3-8 and ended up with 24 points in 4th overall. Oddly enough, Gale and Don ended up beating Butch on a tie-breaker for the Non-Spinnaker Fleet which was scored as a separate fleet. In that Fleet, both boats ended up with 12 points. Both had three firsts but Gale had two seconds to Butch's one, so the tie-breaker went to Gale.

And who would have thought that Michigan's Hubert Dauch, less than a year after surgery nearly ended his life in his late 70's, would be in such fine form? And he even got his wife, Phyllis, to get back into the boat with him. ("Somebody has to look after him out there!" she was heard to mutter.) No sign of senility in the 9th-seeded Hubert's sailing as he and Phyllis nailed down 5th overall and 3rd among the Non-Spinnakers. Like Nick, Hubert and Phyllis beat their seed by 4 spots and also took home a Midwinters Most Improved pennant.

After placing 9th in his debut last year, LESC's Hank Van Twyver improved significantly and moved up to 6th overall this year. In addition to moving his boat very nicely as a single-hander, Hank, a psychologist, knows how to get attention: At the start of race 2, he tried - in a good hiking breeze - to take a short-cut through the Committee Boat…

Our W enthusiasts from North Carolina, Richard Johnson and his wife, Michele, had a tough time getting Free Range Chickin to move as well as they had in mind this year. After being Spinnaker Fleet winners last year, and working hard since then to improve their racing skills even more, they didn't really get things in gear until the final race in which they were a fine 3rd - and could have been 2nd had they chosen to cover Gale up the short beat to the finish. For the series, Richard and Michele and their yellow Chickin could manage no better than 7th. But they left the regatta as they had arrived, absolutely brimming over with enthusiasm for racing in general and W racing in particular. With people like Richard and Michele coming to Wayfarers, the future of our Class looks good!!

Toronto's Geoff Edwards made the long drive to Florida alone and then picked up a "native guide" in Pat Reardon for the racing. While Geoff is often as fast as the best of the best, he can't seem to find consistent speed down south and managed only an 8th overall this year. What no one beats Geoff at, however, is willingness to travel and support W events. Geoff regularly goes to far-away regattas and is one of the few Wayfarers in North America still happy and able to do this. He is a throw-back to the good old days when our demographics were younger, gas was cheaper, and lots of Wayfarers lived for the opportunity to go to far-off races!

In Jim Higgins and Wayne Ingersoll we have found a second enthusiastic W team from North Carolina. Even knowing they could not stay for the Sunday, Jim and Wayne made the long trip from Charlotte. These W rookies finished only one point behind Geoff Edwards in 9th place and looked very good in a number of races. Well done, Jim and Wayne!!

Despite being unable to sail Friday and having to count a pair of DNS's, Bob Hart moved into the top 10 overall as he and Charlie Williams did some fine racing on the Saturday highlighted by a 4th in race 5.

Ellen Hill, the sister of Butch Minson, was kept on her toes on her way to series 11th. She used no fewer than three different crews over the course of the two days of racing: Charlie Williams on the Friday, young Valerie McDonald on Saturday morning until Valerie took ill between races and had to be taken in to the club. After single-handing race 4, Ellen used the lunch break to find crew #3, Mary. An exciting time was had by all.

In a battle of single-handers, Jim McIntyre almost bit the hand that often feeds him, Mike Murto, when he placed 6th in the finale but still fell a point short of beating Mike out of series 12th. While Marc and I were enjoying the hospitality of Dotty and Mike Murto, we also got to spend some time with Jim. The LESC is indeed fortunate to have fine members like these!

Winning the "After you, Alphonse" award in 2003 was Ted Benedict, a single-hander from LESC who, after the regatta, confided in a whisper to Uncle Al that he was artificially depressing his ranking with this year's results so that he could be Most Improved in 2004. Well, Ted could have done better there - he only came in last in 2 of 6 races!!!

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