Exciting Cruise Race features squalls, hail and lightning!

The 49th annual Wayfarer National Cruise Race, North America's oldest Wayfarer event, which dates back to 1959, the year after the birth of Ian Proctor's Wayfarer, was again hosted by the North Bay YC this year. Sailed in an unseasonably cool 16°C on Sat. 30 June, the Cruise Race was the opening event of our annual North Bay Wayfarer Weekend, and attracted a healthy fleet of 11 boats from as far away as North East, Maryland and Thunder Bay, Ontario. This year's race tested the whole gamut of conditions that provided ample excitement quite apart from some very competitive racing.


Started by our traditional RC of Fred and Anne McNutt (above) from the North Bay YC dock at 1115 hrs in light winds of 3 to 6 knots, the race turned out to be quite the challenge. Before the last boat finished over four hours and some 15 miles later, we had been tested by a pair of squalls, rain, hail and a monstrous bolt of lightning, not to mention a couple of windless stretches.


In light of forecast winds of 5 to 10 km/h, Regatta Chairman, Dave Hansman opted for the full course which sent us diagonally across to NBYC mark #6 (see chart above) in the NW corner of Callander Bay where we would turn southwest for a mile or so towards the mouth of the Main Channel out to Lake Nipissing. Once out on the lake, we were to sail west along the south shore for about three miles where we would round mark J5 to port and retrace our steps back into Callander Bay. To finish off our Cruise Race, we were to head back across the bay to club mark #2 just north of the club, then a mile or so NW to #1, a mile south to #3 just off the NBYC and then the final quarter-mile or so east to a finish line across the mouth of the club's anchorage.

With winds nearer the shore looking very patchy, much of our fleet opted to start near the pin end away from the land. The NNW wind was giving us a beat with a long starboard tack and Dave Hansman, last year's Canada Day Race Wayfarer champion, got a perfect start at the favoured pin end, a start which enabled him to hold starboard while eventually forcing his nearest challengers, Marc Bennett (2005 Cruise Race winner) and Dwight Aplevich (defending champion) to tack away to clear their air. The latter dug himself an early hole when he tacked away and held port when it was not favoured, a problem that was compounded when Dwight sailed into a large soft spot in the wind. Marc, meanwhile, waited with his tack until he reached a starboard-tack knock, and subsequently gained back most of what he had lost earlier by continuing to sail in Dave's backwind for some time.


Thus, it was Dave and Carol Hansman (W282) who rounded #6 just ahead of Marc Bennett and Uncle Al (above) onto a spinnaker reach southwest towards the Main Channel out into Lake Nipissing. Rounding a close 3rd after risking the right side of the beat, nearer the north shore, were John and Dolores de Boer.


In a backing wind, this close three-way battle battle continued all the way to the channel. Uncle Al, master navigator that he isn't, nearly guided Marc into the Centre Channel by mistake, but lucked in when having gone too high left Marc and Al in slightly better breeze and able to hold their spinnaker (above) while John and Dave (above right) could not. As a result, SHADES rounded first into the Main Channel.


A one-tack beat out through the channel followed in winds that were now a fairly steady 5 to 8 knots from the NW. While Marc and John rolled into the channel 1-2 (above), Dave (far right) was not rewarded for his safety play of rounding well clear of the windward shore: Instead, he and Carol sailed into a major dead spot and lost big time, as you can see above.

After clearing the channel and sailing into a nice hiking breeze on Lake Nipissing, both Marc and John hugged the south shore on starboard tack which allowed them to nearly lay mark J5. With the wind picking up, Marc and Al were able to use their greater weight to advantage against John and Dolores, and extend their lead somewhat.


While pulling away from the fleet, Marc and Al met their first squall. As rain squalls go, this one was relatively mild, but at 20 to 25 knots, it was enough to blow the masthead fly off our mast (above).


Our fleet (above) acquitted itself quite well in these challenging conditions, recording no capsizes during the 15 minutes or so of wind and rain before we got the calm after the storm. Sailing in left-over chop and virtually no wind was frustrating and challenging, but we all eventually made it around J5 and began the long run back towards the North Bay YC.


Marc rounded J5 with a healthy lead over John, while Fred Black with local pick-up crew, Rob Sevigny, played the squall nicely to round a surprising 3rd (above).


With their jib lowered to reduce air disturbance around the spinnaker as SHADES bounced around in the slowly recovering winds, Marc and Al (above) were able to pull away and take a significant lead back into the channel.


But the excitement rose once more as Marc and Al sailed into a dead spot at the end of the channel - just where Dave and Carol had found one going in. Meanwhile, the fleet (above) was bringing up fresh wind from astern.


Much to the delight of the spectators, locals, Dave and Carol Hansman, as well as John de Boer and Andrew Haill moved up to create a four-way fight over the lead as the fleet re-entered Callander Bay on its way to mark #2, just north of the yacht club. Before Marc could edge back into the main stream of the wind, John and Dolores (above right), and Andrew Haill with Michele Dicker (behind red spi) had moved into first and second place. Veterans that they are though, Marc and Al were not overly flustered by this turn of events. Instead, they duly noted that John and Dolores were in a streak of better pressure (see relative spinnaker shapes above), and wasted no time in stealthily putting their board down and diving up across John's transom, taking his wind, and moving back into the lead - albeit a precarious one! Andrew and Michele and the other far windward boats finally began to feel the effects of being far closer to the windward shore and left the three-boat group of Marc, John and Dave to fight over the lead.


The broad reach to #2 saw the leaders stick to the rhumb line as closely as we could manage, insofar as we couldn't see the actual mark until it was about 200 yards away. Having noticed that the wind seemed progressively stronger further to windward, Marc and Al defended that side and gained a fair bit (above) as the leaders approached #2. Just before we reached the mark, Marc warned me of another squall that was quickly coming towards us from the NW. It didn't look like much to me, just a line of wind-whipped black water about 50 yards deep. Still, it was enough for me to suggest that we might take the chute down a few yards early. "Nah," said Marc, "just be ready to let the sheet fly if it hits us. I'll keep us upright!"

In the end, the squall hit us just as I was tucking the last bit of spinnaker into its bag. So we rounded #2 into a good 25 knots of NW wind, hail and one very near and extremely healthy bolt of lightning with its a suitably ear-shattering clap of thunder. While some of our nearest pursuers - most notably Andrew Haill and Dwight Aplevich - held their course past the mark and made for the near-by beach, the three leaders took their chances and kept slogging their way upwind in the general direction of mark #1 which was somewhere off to the NW in the wall of hail. I believe we all were thinking similar thoughts: "Let's keep going until there's at least one more bolt of lightning." In the end, the squall passed without further electric action, but it was amazing how what had seemed like a 50-yard strip of weather, now seemed to cover our whole end of the bay and be a mile wide and more!

As the hail moved on, Dolores de Boer was the first to spot #1, but we had defended by staying between John and Dave, and where we thought the mark was. By the time we rounded #1 about 50 yards ahead of John and Dave, the hail had passed and the wind was a pleasant 10 knots out of the north, ready to speed us south to mark #3 where we would gybe an head east about a quarter-mile to the finish line at the NBYC.

This last bit of the race was relatively uneventful, if you don't count the fact that I once again mis-navigated, sending Marc towards #2 instead of #3. By the time Marc had noticed my error and headed up 45° to get on course to #3, John and Dolores had followed us for long enough that their extra distance sailed lost them Dave and Carol Hansman who took 2nd place about 100 yards behind Marc and Al, and a similar distance ahead of John and Dolores.

Ratty old sails and all, Sue Pilling and Stephan Romaniuk sailed a club Wayfarer belonging to the new Blue Sky Sailing Club to a fine 4th before Dwight and Pat Aplevich returned from their trip to the beach in 5th place. 6th place went to Henry van Brussel with Bernie Tempelmans Plat of Blue Sky SC who edged out Trout Lake's Dave Richardson with Kim Rainville. Both of these teams beat their seed by an impressive four places and were thus the winners of the prestigious green Most Improved flags for the 2007 National Cruise Race. Well done, Kim, Dave, Bernie and Henry!

By the time they abandoned the beach, Thunder Bay's Andrew Haill with pick-up crew, Michele Dicker, had fallen to 8th place, while three teams wisely packed it in when the second squall hit: Ottawa's Lori Beehler with Jason Hassard, Ross Jamieson with daughter, Breanne, of the host North Bay YC, and TSCC's Fred Black with Rob Sevigny who, I believe, capsized as part of the excitement of the final squall.

All in all, the Cruise Race of 2007 has to be the most challenging Cruise Race I have sailed since my first Cruise Race in 1966 on Trout Lake. And we all coped with it very well. Congratulations to all of us! And thanks to Fred and Anne McNutt who were again our shore-based Race Committee and then rode herd on us in the safety boat where Isabel Churcher got us some great action shots of the race.

See you all at next year's race in North Bay!!!