15 boats enjoy perfect day, exciting racing in 2007 Don Rumble Memorial Series!

Monday, July 2nd was the perfect sailing day for our annual Don Rumble Memorial Series at the North Bay YC on Callander Bay. With temperatures reaching the mid-20's Celsius and west winds of about 8 to 15 knots, RC Chairman, Fred McNutt, got our five-race series completed in under four hours over courses alternating between windward-leewards and modified Olympic triangles with a start-finish line half-way up the beat.


With the short first beat and our competitive 15-boat fleet, there was always excitement galore at the first windward mark, but the series title fight quickly came down to two crews as Dwight and Pat Aplevich (above right) won the first race over SHADES where Marc Bennett and Uncle Al would be alternating at the helm. From our point of view, this first-race result simplified our strategy considerably since we pretty much had to avoid a second straight loss to Dwight, and accordingly sailed the rest of our day's races not to lose to Dwight. After Al and Dwight placed 1-2 in the second race, and no one else had done better than 5-3, it became clear that Dwight and Al would likely be battling head to head for the 2007 rights to the Don Rumble Memorial Trophy.


Race 3 saw Dave and Carol Hansman (above left) move to an early lead and go on to sail a flawless race for their first regatta race win ever. Congratulations, Dave and Carol!! Marc, meanwhile, moved to an early lead over Dwight and more or less sailed to defend against him for the rest of the race. In the end, Dwight banged the left corner up the second beat, overlaid the windward mark and fell to a 7th while Marc snuck past Tony Krauss (2nd from left above) and John de Boer (above right) at the end of the second run to score another 2nd and take over the series lead.


A subsequent 1-2 by Al and Dwight in race 4 still did not settle things, since Al and Marc were now counting a 1-1-2, and Dwight and Pat a 1-2-2. So it came down to the final race where Dwight and Pat could still win the series by winning the race and moving into a tie at 1-1-2-2 with Marc and Al, and then win the tie-breaker by having beaten Al in the last race.

The subsequent finale saw Al and Dwight at their best as they pushed each other well ahead of the other 13 boats before Uncle Al and Marc finally got the nod at the finish line to score a narrow series win over Dwight and Pat.

The battle for the blue 3rd-place pennants also went right to the final race, which began with John and Dolores de Boer, Dave and Carol Hansman, Tony Krauss and Mary Abel, and Sue Pilling with Stephan Romaniuk all virtually tied. In the end, John, Dave and Sue placed 3-4-5 in both the finale and the series while Tony's 10th dropped him to 6th overall.

TSCC's Fred Black teamed up with experienced big boat racer, John Simmonds, for the Don Rumble and the move paid dividends as the 9th-seeded Fred scored a series 7th, making him and John the Don Rumble's Most Improved team for 2007. Well done, John and Fred!

A close battle among four boats resulted in Thunder Bay's Andrew Haill and London's Michele Dicker taking 8th place by only one point ahead of Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club's Geoff Edwards who teamed up local sailor, Jason Orton. Only three points further back was TSCC's Michael Kachkovsky with North Bay's Pat Onions who won a tie-breaker over Ottawa's Lori Beehler and Jason Hassard.

In a battle of North Bay boats, Ross Jamieson and his daughter, Breanne, held on to edge out Dave Richardson and Kim Rainville for series 12th by one point. Meanwhile, the battle to avoid the "basement" ended in a tie between North Bay's Henry van Brussel with Bernie Tempelmans Plat and Ottawa's Wayfarer rookies, Andy Douma and Joan, with Henry taking the tie breaker by finishing ahead of Andy in the final race.