14 Wayfarers Participate in North Bay Weekend Events!

The four days of events planned for North Bay, July 1 to 4, attracted 14 Wayfarers from as far away as Fredericton, New Brunswick and Thunder Bay, Ontario.  Six W's from the local area participated, with organizers hoping that this will be the start of a revitalization of the North Bay area fleet.  The “base of operations” for the first three days was the grounds, club house and harbour of the North Bay Yacht Club (NBYC), which proved to be an excellent and hospitable location for a Wayfarer event.

30-knot winds, gusting to 39 knots, led to the cancellation of Wayfarer participation in the annual Canada Day race from North Bay to Callander on Friday.  However, warm temperatures and sunshine provided an ideal situation for the gathering Wayfarers to renew old acquaintances, do some technical work on the boats, and generally sop up the sunshine, suds and good company.

Saturday 2 July, after a satisfying hot breakfast hosted by the NBYC, fair westerly winds and 22-degree temperatures provided a fine setting for the annual National Cruise Race.  This 21.5 km race, benefiting from the favourable 5 to 10 knot winds, got underway just before 11 am.  The eleven W's participating completed the race by 2 pm, well under the 5 hour time limit.  The course included a complete encirclement of Callander Bay, ducking behind two islands in the Bay before heading out the channel to the south shore of Lake Nipissing.  Dancing their way over the larger seas created by the winds over 120 km of open water to the west, the fleet were able to fly their spinnakers for the 9 km run back to the NBYC harbour, making use of the winds to do some interesting surfing on the fronts of waves that accompanied the fleet back to the channel.

Saturday night’s social calendar featured dinner on the deck of Average Joe’s restaurant overlooking Trout Lake, which was site of the original 60s and 70s vintage Wayfarer Association races that regularly attracted over 30 Wayfarers..  This night, there were over 35 Wayfarer enthusiasts enjoying the warm temperatures, excellent food and libations, and views of the lake.  No doubt, there were numerous sailing adventure stories being exchanged around the table.

Sunday 3 July, featured 12 Wayfarers (Kevin Pegler with daughter, Stephanie, joined the fleet) and winds that had shifted to the south south west, then later to the south west.  Starting at around 5 knots in the morning, winds and gusts built over the next few hours to make life interesting on the race course.  After a 9-year hiatus, the Don Rumble Memorial Series was run – all five planned races completed as hoped.  A level of interest was added to the race series both by alternating between windward/leeward courses and triangular courses and by the winds that were building through noon and early afternoon.  A fifteen-minute “on the water” lunch break after the second race allowed everyone a chance to rest and power up for the final three races in the series.  The day provided for some unexpected excitement for a few of the W's, two of which decided an internal washing of their boat was necessary during the races and two others which tried to net fish with their disobedient spinnakers.

True to form, Marc and Uncle Al ran away with both events over the weekend, leaving the rest of us in their wake.  Their biggest threat on of the weekend came from the team of Dwight and Pat who were there to defend their DRM series title held for the last 9 years.  Enough said here, the results (posted) speak for themselves!

Monday, the 4th of July, was celebrated with a "nostalgia" day on Trout Lake, site of many Wayfarer events over the years.  Eight Wayfarers participated in this day’s “Poker Event”, including two that were not able to attend the other weekend events.  Light (or absent winds) winds meant a 45 minute delay to the start, but once underway, all eight Ws managed to harvest what they could from the light airs to do a nearly complete tour of Trout Lake, making their way to five way points to pick up their cards and complete their two poker hands. Great fun being able to finesse your way up to docks, canoes, boats and people standing in the water to pick up the cards!

The Poker Event ended at the McNutt cottage where Anne and Fred hosted a fabulous lunch and barbeque. The nostalgia flowed as fast as the beer and wine, with great interest shown by all in the old newspaper clippings, sailing magazines and other Wayfarer trivia from the 60's and 70's that had been collected by the McNutt family.  As for the Poker Event, the plan had been to use it to even the odds. However, Uncle Al, with wife, Julia as crew, proved to be as successful in Poker as in the rest of the racing, not only being the first to arrive but also having the best combination of Poker hands.  Perhaps Ken Holloway (Waypoint #1)  should have held back cards from Al as he had threatened to do so as a result of all the protests he claims Al had lodged against him in years gone by.

Monday proved to be a fitting and fun end to an extra long weekend of Wayfaring.  The high winds of Friday and sunshine of the first three days finally gave way to light rain and no wind late on Monday afternoon.  Our shepherd boats were called out for a tow back to our “hangar” at the head of Trout Lake, but the sun shone through again as we were loading our W's on our trailers and people headed home to points east, south and west.

Until next year ...