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The Lake
Eustis Sailing Club (about an hour northwest of
Orlando) once more rose to the occasion February
1-3. The club and its hard-working, friendly members
continued a tradition begun in 2000 by hosting the
annual Wayfarer Midwinters for a 14th time. This
year, our Midwinters were also the 2013 U.S.
Nationals. Warm, sunny weather and generally fine,
challenging sailing winds blessed a fleet of 15
Wayfarers. Also sailing with the Wayfarers was one
Wanderer, a 14-foot Wayfarer designed for and made
famous by Frank Dye’s wife, Margaret. On the Saturday and the Sunday we
were once more joined by a great fleet of MC Scows -
41 of them!!! - who sailed their annual Train Wreck Regatta.
 New
to the Midwinters from Oakville, Ontario are
Rob Wierdsma and his son, Daniel, seen here
enjoying the warm morning sun in front of
the beautiful and relatively recent LESC
clubhouse, a lovely upgrade over the days of
our early Midwinters - click here
for a bit of pre-clubhouse nostalgia.
Wayfarers sailed and were scored as one group but had awards in both the spinnaker and non-spinnaker fleets. Hard work and lots of practice continue to pay off for Montreal's Peter Rahn and son, Alex. who sailed their new Hartley Mk IV Knights of Mayhem to seven wins in eight races, usually by substantial margins. The Rahns are practising for this summer's Wayfarer world championship to be held near Toronto, Canada where the North American boats will go up against Wayfarers from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands. Thinking ahead to the Worlds where we will be sailing a few triangles at least, USWA Racing Sec. Marc Bennett (below), asked RO, Dave Williams, to give us as many Olympic triangles as he could. And our RC did so in very fine fashion.  Marc and Julie won the Designer Trophy as the top US boat in the Nationals. Much more evenly matched were the next four boats in the series. It took a final-race collapse by Jim and Linda Heffernan of Chapel Hill, NC to open the door for Marc Bennett and his wife, Julie, to take 2nd overall. The East Lansing, MI couple thus captured the Designer's Trophy as the top US-based team in 2013. By placing 6th in the finale while Marc took 2nd, Jim ended up series 3rd, two points behind Marc. Falling to series 4th this year were the feckless twins, Al Schonborn of Oakville, ON and Tony Krauss of Cleveland, Ohio. Sailing Tony's W864 Al and Tony ended up 3 points behind the Heffernans. In the fine competition provided by the top boats, Team Feckless paid for sloppiness caused by a casual attitude and unfamiliarity with the boat. Tony and Al did get an early leg up in the annual competition for the Lansdown-O'Brien Spittoon (most interesting act of seamanship) when they managed to capsize W864 in an attempt at gybing into the heave-to position before the first race. At least they self-rescued without help from the safety boats who were pleasantly surprised. Impressively consistent were Richard Johnson and his wife, Michele, of Charlotte, NC, who placed a distant 5th overall (31 pts) yet were rarely far from the top three as the races progressed. Like the other top teams, Richard and Michele plan to sail this summer's Worlds, and have their new Hartley, Black Skimmer, moving very well.  Sailing in their first Midwinters, Rob Wierdsma and son, Daniel (above), had a fine debut in their Hartley Mk IV as they placed 6th overall despite being seeded 11th. Team Wierdsma's series ended on a most promising note with a 5th and a 4th in the last two races. Beating their seed by five places, Rob and Daniel were thought to be one of three teams tied for Most Improved honours until a scoring error was discovered and Dacve Hepting turned out to be the Most Improved when he and Kevin beat their expected 14th by an amazing six places :) In the non-spinnaker half of the fleet, Jim Lingeman and crew, Pat Kuntz, placed a whopping 11 points ahead of LESC clubmate, Dave Hepting who was introducing our newest Wayfarer racer, Kevin Denley from Maryland to sailboat racing. As mentioned above, Dave and Kevin were also this year's Most Improved crew. Congratulations, guys!!  Tied with Dave and Kevin but losing the tie-breaker and placing 3rd in white sail boats, was the Ottawa team of Andy Douma with Robin Allardyce who were also much improved, beating their seed by four spots!! This year they used Andy's W9477 and it was Robin's turn to crew (above) aboard the boat representing the Lac Deschênes SC. 10th overall and 4th in white sail were LESC's Ted Benedict and Mike Tighe who had at least one moment of glory as they rounded in or near the lead off the first beat of a light-air race. They were in fact right with the top boats for the first triangle before the second beat did them in. Good boat speed though!!   (left) Chip clutches the Lansdown-O'Brien Spittoon with 2012 co-winner, Uncle Al (right) Julie Seraphinoff/Bennett with her baby, Spencer Last year's winner of the CWA's Most Promising New Sailor trophy, Chip Cunningham (above left) of Oxford, Michigan, sailed the NP Boats demo Mark IV, W10862, the former Bubbles solo on the first two days before teaming up with Julie Bennett's son, Spencer Price (above right) on the Sunday. Congratulations also to Jim Lingeman who snapped up W10862 before it could go back up north. Despite three "alphabet" results in the eight-race series, Chip placed 11th overall, beating his seed by a fine four places. An even better indicator of how well Chip (and Spencer) sailed is the fact that Chip moved up over a hundred places in the Wayfarer rankings due to his finishes in this series. Each day, Chip came in, glowing with excitement and marvelling at how much he was learning. Is Chip a good example for all of us or what?!! Chip's helm in this summer's Worlds, 5th-seeded Nick Seraphinoff of Detroit, teamed up with a long-standing keelboats friend, Jim Ross, and took things nice and easy. They completed only three of the eight races and took Saturday off altogther so that Nick and Mary could go "house hunting" in the Eustis area. In addition to placing series 12th, Nick did have the distinction of falling out of his boat in a drifter during some excitement at the windward mark. But Nick and Mary did end up buying a house in Eustis :) where they expect to spend six months of each year.  Mike Murto (l) with crew, Tom Hankard One point behind Nick, was our regatta chair, Mike Murto who was introducing Wayfarer newcomer, Tom Hankard, to Wayfarers and racing. Tom, like Nick, has a home in Traverse City, Michigan. Unfortunately, Mike and Tom's best efforts went unrecorded when they just failed to beat the time-limit in race 5 which became a drifter near the finish. Mike's clubmate and former crew, Izak Kielmovitch, sailed with Bill Hemphill in the 5 races he finished and scored a couple of quite acceptable 10ths on his way to series 14th, one point back of his former mentor.   Tom's wife, the lovely Diane, is not yet retired but did manage time off from her English-teaching duties to join Tom and us for the weekend. The freshly retired Tom Erickson brought his lovely wooden cruising Wayfarer Possum (W275) down from Gardner, Massachusetts, and raced it for the first time in a serious racing event. Sailing solo (above), Tom beat a few boats and plans to take part in more regattas and cruises now that he has retired from his career as a music teacher. One of the more fun moments of our weekend was when Tom and Chip did a drumming version of duelling banjos. Afterwards, Chip who lived in Africa to learn drumming for a year or two, stated that he was quite impressed with Tom's ability to match his every rhythm.   Richard
Watterson and his sister, Mary Ellen Lappin,
sailed Wanderer 1681 with us but were not scored.
The Wanderer was a pleasant surprise in its ability to keep pace fairly well with the Wayfarers... |
Nostalgia 1: the
2009 train derailment for which
the MC regatta is named It was quite an event when, back on a Feb. 2009 Sunday morning, word reached us that a train was actually ...  ... about to come past our level crossing at LESC. Quickly grabbing our cameras ...  ... we rushed out to immortalize the big event. Unlike the ancient-looking tracks, the engine was quite spiffy and new-looking. That contrast was further underscored when the rotten ties under the rails ...  ... gave out and
the train derailed, leaving it perfectly placed to
block vehicular egress from the club. This was
especially annoying to the MC sailors whose remaining
races had been cancelled due to lack of wind, and many
of whom were anticipating a nice early start to a long
trip home. It was a problem of a different kind for
Uncle Al and Nick who had expected that cancellation
of further W racing was also imminent. They were well
into the free beer to celebrate a smashing one-point
win over Frank Goulay with Andrew Haill in what was
also the 2009 US Nationals. Instead, the RC decided to
wait a bit longer since we were stuck on club grounds
anyway. Sure enough, a breeze came up and we had two
more exciting races (in which Nick and I held onto our
single-point edge).
 After the racing, many of us got to play trains with a real, live one.  It was nearly supper time when enough of the train had been removed to allow us to exit ...  ... via a little-used road at the south end of the club. The MCs then cleverly put the "disaster" to good use and we now have the Train Wreck Regatta. |
Nostalgia 2: a
reminder of W Mids days when the LESC was rustic 2001: The tent was great on a sunny day.  2002: And even more appreciated when it was ...  ... cold or rainy.  2003: By Feb. 2003, the building was nearing completion.  I still recall some cool, rainy days that year ...  ... especially the Sunday morning.  Marc, too, remembers that cold, miserable Sunday all too well. |
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