Wayfarers shine in North Bay YC's Canada Day Race!

Winds gusting to well over 20 knots and a cool, cloudy day of well under 20°C greeted a dozen Wayfarers who made their way to the government docks in North Bay on Sunday, the first of July, for the North Bay YC's annual Canada Day Race. The fleet of about 40 boats would again race from the North Bay waterfront to the North Bay YC, 12 n. mi. south and then east in Callander Bay.


Stories of nasty wave action and wicked gusts out on Lake Nipissing abounded as boats arrived by water, including Andrew Haill and Tony Krauss who had chosen to get the complete experience by accepting a tow from one of the kind keelboats (see departure photo above where the tow leaves the sheltered waters off the NBYC to cross Callander Bay and then head about 8 n. mi. north to North Bay where the true conditions - below - became evident).



In the end, 9 of 12 intrepid Wayfarers - including 10 who had come by land (above) - duly headed out and joined in the mass start at 1300 hrs. As we waited for the countdown, several nasty gusts rolled through, which prompted Marc and me to opt for our old, blown out spinnaker to be sacrificed to the day.


Although we fully expected to capsize if we flew the spinnaker on the 6-mile run south to mark J5 in these nasty conditions, Marc and I (2nd from left above) were determined that we would at least go down in a blaze of glory. After all, the water was warm and the Wayfarer honour was at stake! We had decided to start at the extreme port end of the very long start line, right off the rocks and the light standard marking the entrance to the government docks marina. Here we could get a good read on our position relative to the line, be well away from the larger boats and their disturbed air, and have a very marginally closer-winded course to J5 than the boats starting further out.


As soon as we crossed the start line and were thus allowed to pop the chute, we hoisted in a fortuitous lull. We kept waiting for the next of the vicious gusts we had experienced prior to the start to blow through, but none ever came as our run to J5 ended up with pretty benign north winds of 10 to 15 knots most of the way. What did blow through, however, was a pair of Wayfarers: Dwight and Pat Aplevich in Eclairelle, and defending W champions, Dave Hansman with Dave Richardson in Banshee.

Despite our best efforts to surf the waves and go up in the lulls and down with the puffs, Dwight and Dave had soon passed us. Dwight and Pat especially, were just motoring along at depressing speed, and had moved into a big 400-yard lead as J5 hove into view. The leading keelboats, all of whom tack downwind to a greater or lesser degree, had now gybed to port, confirming that we were indeed heading for the right mark. It appeared that only two of the bigger boats were going to reach J5 before us, even though all of them would have been rated considerably faster than us Wayfarers.

And that was not the only cheering news for us aboard SHADES: we finally got our spinnaker pole to stay up at maximum height where we wanted it and began to slowly edge past Dave into 2nd place. Even better, we then got a nice long gust that made Dwight begin to look a little larger off our bow, a gust that I believe never reached Dwight. Still, we must have been a good 300 yards behind Dwight as he and Pat gybed onto the long, long port-tack spinnaker reach back along the south shore of Lake Nipissing (about two nautical miles), through the Main Channel for just under a mile, and a final two miles along the south shore of Callander Bay to the finish at the mouth of the North Bay YC anchorage.


On the leg to the Main Channel, Al and Marc made some inroads on both Dwight and Dave, entering the channel only about 100 yards behind Dwight and perhaps a couple of hundred yards up on Dave. With the two leading keelboats not all that far ahead in the channel, we had pretty good advance notice of any adverse winds that might be coming our way. Unlike the previous day, no big dead spots awaited the unwary this time through the channel, and the three Wayfarer leaders emerged into Callander Bay with their positions pretty much unchanged.

In the bay, the winds were shiftier and gustier, and sailing the rhumb line to the finish soon had us sailing about as high as the spinnakers would allow. Indeed, one of the keelboat leaders doused their chute about half-way across the bay, when hit by a nasty knock/gust combination that did, however, turn out to be brief. With 100 yards of lead to play with, Dwight decided, wisely, to play it safe and take down his spinnaker. Al, on the other hand, had nothing to lose, so he and Marc decided to let it all hang out. When the gust duly arrived, we were well prepared and planed through it with the main largely luffed. We even hiked really hard, thus jeopardizing our status as "master loungers"!

After the gust, the winds backed, and we began to noticeably eat into Dwight's lead. The latter's attempt at a windward rehoist of their spinnaker unfortunately coincided with a rather nasty gust, and by the time Dwight and Pat had decided that the spinnaker would be more trouble than it was worth, Al and Marc had poked their nose into the lead about 100 yards to leeward with perhaps a quarter-mile to go to the finish line.


And a most exciting quarter-mile it turned out to be. Two or three times Dwight was the first to get gusts that saw him and Pat plane into the lead before the same gust would hit Marc and Al, and send them back into the lead, sometimes angling 20 to 30° low of the rhumb line just to stay upright. At the finish, Dwight had his nose ahead of Al along the rhumb line as photographer, Carol Hansman, cheered him on from her position at the port end of the finish line on shore. The finish line was, however, angled significantly to the rhumb line, favouring the leeward end (see Canada flag above) where Al and Marc ended up edging Dwight and Pat across the finish line by one or two boatlengths after just over an hour and fifty minutes of elapsed time. And I believe we finished the race well under ten minutes behind the two leading keelboats, placing 3-4 overall on straight time.  Word is that we Wayfarers opened a lot of eyes this day, regarding the capabilities of our tough little boats.


Finishing with a superb 3rd, just seconds astern of Al and Dwight, were Dave Hansman and Dave Richardson (above). Darren Sullivan, one of the Blue Sky Sailing Club students/members, with Sue Pilling as crew was next across in 4th, beating out Maryland's Tony Krauss and Mary Abel, and Thunder Bay's Andrew Haill who teamed up with Ottawa's Jason Hassard for the heavy airs.

Despite an early capsize, Geoff Edwards and pick-up crew, Jason Orton, recovered to place 7th ahead of fellow Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club Wayfarers, Michael Kachkovsky with Kate Linkova, who also came back to complete the race after dumping.