The close racing (example above) left us well and truly ready for our post-race refreshments and our fine catered meal (below). With five races now on the books, a drop-race had come into effect. Having sweet-talked Uncle Al out of following through with a windward-mark rule 18.3 protest, Doug Scheibner and Andrew Lockhart were sitting very pretty, counting fours 2nds and dropping a 4th for 8 points. Despite the very closely matched racing, only two other teams were in a threatening position: Dave Moring with Arial Harrington had 11 points from 1-(6)-6-1-3 while Lansing's Marc Bennett and Julie Seraphinoff were at 13 points from (11)-1-2-3-7.

On Sunday, a cold front had moved in with a healthy breeze (above) that prompted Uncle Al to actually cover his feet with the wetsuit booties and thin socks that had been waiting to make themselves useful since he bought them after his memorable frozen bare-feet experience in the 2010 Midwinters  (below).

Two actually quite pleasant races ensued. Team Moring (above) scored a win in race 6 while Team Scheibner placed 4th which left the two leading teams tied at 12 points, setting up a decisive final race. Doug and Andrew crossed first in that finale but 2nd-place Dave and Arial protested an alleged Scheibner foul (18.3 at the windward mark once more). Next thing we heard, Doug had taken a Scoring Penalty which left Dave and Arial as our 2020 Midwinters and Eastern champions, while Doug and Andrew dropped their finale result and easily took series 2nd.

Before I was cut off in an email discussion of this matter, we had determined that the club committees believe that the RRS permit their Protest Committee to let one party to the protest take a scoring penalty after the race which I gather they regularly do in their racing. This does save protest hearing time but Rules 44.1 and 44.3 quite clearly do not permit this. They do provide the option of a Scoring Penalty but details of such a penalty must be specified/announced in the Sailing Instructions. Such was not the case in our SI's this year.

And while we have the Moring name in lights, Dave's dad, Randall, gets credit for the majority of the boat portraits here as he went out with a priority on capturing each team in action for the Whiffle Web.


An 11th in the first-race drifter put Marc Bennett (above) and his wife, Julie Seraphinoff, behind the proverbial eight-ball, but they showed they belonged in the elite-three tier with Moring and Scheibner with 1-2-3 finishes in the following three races. But a pair of 7ths dashed their title hopes and they ended up having to settle for a comfortable series bronze.


Only one point apart in 4th and 5th overall were our two newest additions to the top ranks of North American Wayfarer racing with both teams showing admirable consistency. Sailing one of two wooden Wayfarers built in the mid-60's to series 4th were 7th-seeded Paul Miller (above) and his wife, Dawn, of Mystic, Connecticut, who counted 6-4-1-5-6-5 finishes for 27 points while demonstrating that the pre-Mark 4 Wayfarers can most definitely be very competitive.


One point further back in 5th overall, we had Detroit's Peggy Menzies with her daughter, Maggie Helmen (above), at 3-5-5-6-2-7 and 28 points in one of our newest boats W11158, who in September 2019 had won the U.S. Nationals at Tawas. Not to mention HOT 2019 which Peggy won with her sister, Kathy Sanville, six weeks later on Lake Townsend in North Carolina.


Winners of one North American and two U.S. titles in recent years, David Pugh and wife, Anne, of Oakville, Ontario could do no better than 6th overall in this hotly contested Midwinters. And even that series 6th seemed out of reach for the Pughs (above) after they began their regatta with with 13-3-16. Nice recovery, David and Anne!


North Carolina - Oriental to be precise - first appeared on the leader board in 7th place as 8th-seeded Richard Johnson and wife, Michele, sailed Black Skimmer to a consistent set of results that was highlighted by a pair of 4ths in the final three races. Likely unbeknownst to them, the Black Skimmers got a nice break at the end of race 4 when Al and Frank tacked to starboard onto a likely collision course with the Skimmer coming on port as these two crews were battling to the death over 9th place. Good news for the Skimmers - and for Al as well in a way, as the latter luckily noticed that the starboard shroud had come loose from its chainplate. By the time Al had luffed slowly into a tack that barely allowed him to edge past the RC boat, Richard and Michele were long gone.


 

Rounding out our top ten were Conestogo, Ontario's North American champion couple of Leo and Joanne Van Kampen (in mufti above) who had spectacularly swept the 2019 Wayfarer North Americans at Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club in August with four straight wins. Sailing a new Mark 4, W11149 offered to them by John Cadman, the Van Kampens found the waters of Lake Eustis and the Midwinters fleet a much tougher nut to crack, as they needed a tie-breaker to get the nod over ...


... Lake Townsend's Jim Heffernan who was teaming up with his son, Mike, for a change. These two were very consistent and rolled up single-digit finishes until the winds picked up on the Sunday and they fell to series 11th.


Also out of Lake Townsend, Uwe Heine and wife, Nancy Collins, never really hit their potential in this series as they took a distant 12th behind Jim and Mike.



In our five-boat non-spinnaker fleet, Regatta Co-Chair, Dave Hepting, teamed up successfully once more with Ali Kishbaugh (above) with fine success, winning Gold in White Sail. Their 5th in the finale was just enough to leave them in a points tie at the top with Jim Burns and Mike Tighe (below) and then take the tie-breaker on best finishes: 10th vs. 12th. Jim and Mike thus took Silver among the non-spinnaker teams.



After their non-spinnaker Gold in 2019, Craig Yates and Rob Krentel, tested the spinnaker-fleet waters this year. Looking quite at home under spinnaker (above), the local team took series 16th on a tie-breaker - 12-14 vs. 12-16 - with Lake Townsend's Phil Leonard and Jeannie Allamby (below) who nonetheless took Bronze in the White-Sail Fleet..



The state of Wisconsin was enjoyably represented by W4116 and Dennis Gamble with John Kruse. After starting slowly (21-20), John and Dennis became more competitive in the fleet and ended up series 19th. Welcome to Wayfarers, Dennis and John!