The long trip to beautiful Tawas Bay was once again worth it as the host club provided fine winds and great RC work and hospitality for 15 Wayfarers on the weekend after Labour Day, September 7-8. The Saturday brought mostly cloudy but comfortably warm weather with healthy sailing winds of 12-18 knots that gave us three fine races. An interesting side light to the event was the low water level on Lake Huron and the increased presence of weeds across the course. The latter phenomenon became considerably more noticeable on the Sunday when lighter 4-8 knot winds made catching weeds an extremely retarding experience. In the end, we got only one Sunday race when a major squall warning and very threatening skies forced PRO, Judd Lather, and the RC to cancel the final scheduled race. In the end, the squall never materialized but having experienced a Tawas squall the previous evening, none of us were keen to chance being on the water for such an event.

In the racing, defending champs, Al Schönborn and Frank Goulay did themselves proud as they won all three Saturday races in conditions where they rarely beat the Town brothers, Scott and Grant. In Sunday's lighter winds, Frank and Al felt right at home and added another first to end up with three points in the no-drop regatta.

Second place went to 4th-seeded Scott and Grant Town, which almost made them the Most Improved team for the North Americans. This was no mean feat since Scott and Grant had not sailed a Wayfarer event since the Warm Water in May!
The second-seeded father and son team of Peter and Alex Rahn scored a 2nd ahead of the Towns in the finale but it wasn't quite enough as they fell one point short of catching the Towns. Also making the most of one of their rare Wayfarer appearances were Fanshawe's Brian Jeffs and Scott Bamford who took a solid 4th in the series.

A very pleasant surprise was the local team of Matt Princing and John McCree who usually sail Lightnings but who, for this event, borrowed the ancient W1843, and old glass boat that has definitely seen better days. In fact, this was the boat that first got our Tawas Wayfarer host, Nick Seraphinoff (W864) started in the Class way back in the late 60's. Nick saw the old dear lying around one day and has bought it and begun to refurbish it. And it was Matt and John who got to test the first fruits of that refurbishing. In the windier Saturday racing, Matt and John just stepped into the W for the first time and immediately were on a par with our best - placing 4-5-4. The lighter air characteristics of the W were a bit more of a mystery to the lads (10th on the Sunday!), but they still ended up a most impressive 5th!

The fight over series 6th was a close one as four teams ended up within four points. Despite a final-race 9th, Roger and Carl Shepherd held on to edge out George Blanchard by one point. A further couple of points back, in 8th, were 3rd-seeded John and Dolores deBoer who were scratching their heads about their total lack of speed the entire series - until, after the final race unfortunately, the discussion turned to weed flushing. At that point, John realized what the problem must have been as he had never thought to check for weeds.

Our host, Nick Seraphinoff, was thrilled with his excellent new crew, Jennifer Princing, and with his boat's improving performance. In the end, Jennifer and Nick took series 9th but were only 4 points from 6th - which was also their finish position in the finale.

Also saving their best for last were our oldest team in terms of total age (140+ years!), Bob Frick with Peter Every. After the tougher, windier Saturday sailing left them with 12-9-12, Sunday's welcome light airs saw Bob and Peter nail down an excellent 5th!

Joe DeBrincat of Walled Lake, Michigan, continued his Midwinters training programme with Marwhil Gamit. Despite missing race 3, Joe took 11th, edging out Geoff Edwards and his fine rookie crew, Wally Merrill, of TSCC by a couple of points.
Only one point further back, at 52 points, we had Don Thwings numbers 2 and 3, members of the TBYC J-22 Fleet who were trying a Wayfarer for the first time, tied with Hubert Dauch (Joe DeBrincat's next-door neighbour) and Ken Greywall. The tie-breaker went to the Dons.

And congratulations to USWA Commodore, Mike Anspach, who selflessly gave up his seasoned crew, Ken Greywall, so that Hubert could sail. Instead, Mike took out Joe DeBrincat support team member, John Lagman, and introduced John to the joys of sailing in a relaxed and friendly way as Mike and John cruised to a 15th.