the Wayfarer 2019 North Americans

(190820)  Meet Leo and Joanne Van Kampen, your new 2019 North American Wayfarer champions. The 9th-seeded Leo and Joanne astonished everyone by winning all four races over a tough fleet in tricky conditions on Humber Bay off the Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club on the weekend of August 17-18. The Van Kampens' victory thus returned the Henry Croce Trophy to the Conestoga SC for the first time since the legendary Peter and Maggie Bassin (W421) took back-to-back titles in 1967-1968. Our Race Officer, John O'Dwyer, and his Committee coped well with warm, changeable light-to-medium winds, completing two and a half double-sausage races on the Saturday (below) before threatening thunderstorms forced abandonment of race 3 after one sausage.


Saturday afternoon's early end to racing due to the approaching squall was timed perfectly by our Race Committee. The whole fleet had their boats bedded down for the night before the brief rain squall (above) hit. Thereafter sunshine and a fine dinner of steak or chicken made for a lovely evening of social time.


Sunday morning brought us similar winds which died in the early afternoon just after the RC shortened race 4 at the end of the first of its two scheduled sausages (windward-leewards). Unfortunately, that meant that there would be no drop races. No sweat for the 9th-seeded Van Kampens (below) who seemed magically in tune with the patchy winds once more and completed their perfect 1-1-1-1 series. Congratulations, Leo and Joanne, on a spectacular series!!

A testament to how puzzling the rest of us found the conditions was the 2-4-6-5 series sailed by Parry Sound's 4th-seeded Sue Pilling and Steph Romaniuk who placed a comfortable series second, four points up on the top-seeds, Marc Bennett and Julie Seraphinoff of East Lansing, Michigan.

Top finishers from the host Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club were John Cawthorne with Robert MacDonald who placed 4th and improved on their seed by three places, while Al Schonborn got doctor's clearance after a mini-stroke just in time to borrow Tom Wharton and his W600 and take series 5th. Both Tom and Al hit an all-time low in their lengthy and usually high-quality sailing careers as they sailed to their first-ever bona-fide DFL (16th of 16 boats)  without "aid" from capsize or gear failure.

Eastern Michigan was well represented with two teams in the top ten. Second-seeded Peggy Menzies and her daughter, Maggie (16, almost 17) took series 6th as they discovered why the late Dr. Stuart Walker called our sailing venue "Toronto's horrible Humber Bay". No doubt more pleased than the Menzies with their performance were Dave McCreedy and Weiling Wong who had been seeded 14th but placed a very nice series 7th, and thus snagged the Wayfarer North Americans Most Improved water bottles (below). Congratulations, Dave and Weiling!


A beautiful surprise to us was the arrival of Frank Goulay and Kim Bergevin (above) with W648 from Ottawa. Team KGB took a while to get into their sailing rhythm in this, their first event of 2019, but finally got things together with a fine 4th in the finale.