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Fewer
than
20 seconds to the start, and interesting
collection of approaches!
From left to right: Peter Rahn's bow, Hazel
Hewitt (4107), Randy Park
(3613),
Kit Wallace (1037), Heider Funck (black mast),
Peter Ayres (gold mast),
Stefan Larson (16), Keith Haill (long
extension tiller), Ryan Mahaffey
(7380), Frank Goulay (now helming 3854 with
Uncle Al as crew) and Fred
Black (7379) where he always starts.
An
interesting
lesson
to be learned here: 16, 7380 and 49 hung
back from the line and then
got
up to full speed in the final few seconds
to get great starts, whereas
3854 sat too close to the line and had
Keith (49) go right through to
leeward
before 3854 was up to speed. As a result,
Keith got a terrific start
while
Frank got rather buried before he finally
found a hole into which he
could
tack without fouling any starboard
tackers!
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They're
off
in the final race of the 2000 North
Americans! Peter Rahn (5631)
looks
to be in the best shape while Kit Wallace
(1037) is OK for now but
Heider
(6) is already outpointing Kit and may soon
force Kit to take evasive
action.
Peter Ayres is to leeward of Heider. Not off
to their best starts ever
are Roger (7700) and Hazel (4107).
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About one
minute
into the race: Hans Gottschling (938)
follows Peter Rahn off the
RC
boat end while John deBoer (7351) appears to
have a nice lane of clear
air. I suspect that's Heider's mast we see
sticking out in front of
John
while Kit (1037) is just visible behind John's
main. Roger (7700) is
pointing
well as is Peter Ayres to leeward of Hazel
(4107). To Hazel's left,
Frank
(3854) is busy being gassed by Keith (not
visible) while Ryan at the
far
leeward end at least has clear air!!!!
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Not too
long
thereafter: It
looks like Roger has sailed up under John (7351)
since Kit (1037) is
having
to lean in to keep the boat from heeling to
windward. Peter Ayres
(1191)
is in good trim while Keith Haill, using Sam's
great hiking to good
advantage
is pinching off Frank who in turn is gassing
Stefan who is passing it
on
to Randy who is affecting Hazel (4107). Al
envies Ryan who is down
lower
but has clear air.
Not too many photos of this race. As I recall, Heider rounded first and he and Tom extended their lead throughout the race. Keith, Ryan and Peter Rahn were all up there around the windward mark while Frank was chasing Peter Ayres and 5th place down the first couple of reaches - without success. The second beat brought few changes. Heider well out in front while Keith, Ryan, Peter Rahn and Peter Ayres were all at times looking good for second. Most of my race recollections end just after the windward mark where we rounded 2-3 lengths behind Peter Ayres and were prepared to get SHADES to make Peter work to keep his 5th! But first, a little gybe to port. before hoisting the spi! And I did it all the way you're supposed to! Honest!! Frank started the turn and I grabbed the vang. I waited 'til most of the pressure came off the main, helped the boom across and then pulled against the vang after it crossed the centre line of the boat to cushion the gybe. There was an odd clunk in the middle though. But I didn't have time to think about that really because Frank was obviously going to need extra help in spelling. He was not doing a S-gybe but rather a U-gybe!! Well!!! You can imagine that the grammar teacher in me was outraged. I turned to apprise Frank of his faux pas but the back of the boat was empty. Just then came a call from 20 feet or so to leeward of the rapidly swamping boat where Frank had landed after the spi pole caught his life jacket on the way across! When SHADES finally returned to an even keel with water level just under the main thwart, I raised the board all the way up and let us drift down to where I could grab Wayfarer Man and help him back aboard. John Weakley eventually had the best comment of the day when he later suggested to Uncle Al that when we were going to have a throw-out race, this was not what was intended! At this point,
we
decided we'd had enough racing for the day. When
we could stop laughing
long enough, we bailed the boat with that lovely
old bucket from W116 Snoopy
and sailed back to TS&CC.
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At the finish,
Heider
and Tom took a comfortable and impressive first
over Keith Haill with
Sam
Hodder and Ryan Mahaffey with Alan Laderoute.
Peter and Alex Rahn took
4th while Peter and Jon Ayres did even better in
the finale, placing
5th!
Next across the line were John and Dolores
deBoer who in turn were
chased
by Kit Wallace with Marcel Plug who crossed in
7th place - not bad for
a crew ranked 17th in the regatta!!! Well
done, guys!
Despite being
in the
unfavourable spot shown in the photo above,
Roger and Carl Shepherd
came
back to sneak into 8th ahead of Stefan Larson
with Brody Wight, while
Randy
Park and Joanne Kumpf reached new heights of
consistency with their
third
consecutive 10th of the day!
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