the 2007 Wayfarer North Americans
Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club * August 18-19
Saturday: race 1.1 pics
by Rob Logan
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John Cawthorne and Thomas Vendely check out the line as the countdown gets underway.
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Fred and Leo
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Seconds after the start: Mike Codd (CAN90) and Mark Taylor (7673) are off to fine starts, but ...
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... John de Boer, the U.S. National champion (7351) and Geoff Edwards (9483) will have to go elsewhere for clear air.
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About one minute after the start: The fleet is off into a nice hiking breeze on the first leg of a double sausage windward/leeward course, wending their way past the gate marks that are to play a major role in the outcome of race 1.   - for full-size pic, click here
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Aboard W8261, kindly loaned to them by Ken Devlin ...
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... Andrew Haill - in all the way from Thunder Bay - and Lori Beehler are in fine form.
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Al and Marc head off on starboard tack, just ...
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... slightly overpowered, as can be seen by ...
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... the slightly eased mainsheet. If Al has to keep fighting weather helm as he is doing here (note tiller angle), he'll need to ease more main and/or add vang. But Al's real problem turned out to be that he insisted on tacking on headers before he got SHADES to the far left side of the beat where, Marc explains, the NW breeze funnelling out of the Humber River creates a juicy port-tack lift that will take you pretty much right to the windward mark. As a result of ignoring Marc's advice, Al rounded 5th onto the first run, behind ...  
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... Heider Funck (l), Mark Taylor, John Cawthorne (2nd and 3rd from left) and Alastair Ryder-Turner (5th from left).
- for full-size pic, click here
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(l to r) Mark, John, Richard Johnson, Alastair, Nick Seraphinoff, Andrew Haill
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The top five approach the gate.   - for full-size pic, click here
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Heider (600) and Al in a boat speed contest. With all of us pretty consistently doing hull speed ...
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... no one was gaining or losing much. Looks like Mark and Paul (7673) are holding a slight lead here
over Alastair and Andrew (r) and John with Thomas (right astern of them).
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As can be seen from the downed spinnakers on the leading boats, the gate is close at hand. The deciding moment of the race is about to occur: The four leaders are so busy fighting each other that they "blindly" go for the ...
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... gate mark nearest the camera. Right about here, Marc and Al (3854) decided that the far gate mark was worth a try. After all, rounding that, would get them out to the favoured left side quicker, and the first beat had certainly proved Marc's left-side Humber River shift to be worth exploring. Meanwhile, from this angle, it appears that Mark has no overlap on ...
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... Heider.
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Mark and Paul have to make a quick decision here. I don't know if they were given room by Heider and Tom, since ...
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... after all, I was busy getting set to gybe and go for the far mark.
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Looks like Heider did end up giving room to Mark who has now moved back into the lead and will be very closely pursued by Heider (600), Alastair (10137) and John (between 600 and 10137). Al (3854), meanwhile, will ...
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... be left on his own, free to gybe well away from the far mark and then round smoothly into clear air on his way left.
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