the 2007 North Bay
Wayfarer Weekend Sat 30 June: W National Cruise Race - 4 photos by Isabel Churcher ... |
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If you don't count the
masthead fly whose duct-tape job is about to give up the
ghost, Marc and Al have survived the first onslaught of
rain and wind that reached perhaps 25 knots. They are
now motoring along towards mark J5 in 15 to 18 knots
with a nice lead over ...
... |
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... John and Dolores (right) who are lying
a comfortable 2nd. ... |
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The almost inevitable calm
after the storm saw us bouncing around for some time with
lots of wave action but minimal wind. - click here for full-size pic ... |
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Some 20 minutes later, Marc
and Al were at last able to nurse SHADES around J5 and onto the long run back to the Main Channel. ... |
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Luckily, a bit of breeze
was beginning to reappear - just enough to barely fill our
bouncing spinnaker which we ... ... |
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... decided to help out by
lowering the jib as a source of disturbed air. - click here for full-size pic ... |
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John and Dolores rounded
2nd, followed in fairly short order by ... ... |
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... Fred Black and Rob
Sevigny (7379) who had made ... ... |
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... fine gains during the
squall and its aftermath. ... |
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As you can see from the way
Dwight and Pat's spinnaker is chomping at the bit, the
wind has filled in nicely. ... |
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With their jib out of the
way as well, John and Dolores are zipping along through
the Main Channel not too much later. ... |
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Having encountered a large
dead spot near the bay-end of the Channel, Marc and Al (right) now have the whole fleet bringing wind from astern and breathing on their necks again. - click here for full-size pic ... |
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Before they finally
managed to get SHADES
up to speed again, John and Dolores (r) and Andrew
with Michele (white
spi) had moved past to take over the top two
spots. Veterans that they are, though, Marc and Al (red spi) quickly
assessed the situation and decided that there was more
wind to be had further to windward. Here, they are about
to quietly lower their board prior to rapidly driving up
across John's transom (and wind!), on their way to
passing John to windward. When the island to windward
above finally cut off some of Andrew's wind and he fell
back, all that was left for Marc to do on his way to
mark #2 across Callander Bay just north of the club, was
to defend his wind (and buoy room at #2) from John de
Boer and Dave Hansman.
... |
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Staying
to windward gave Marc and Al extra wind and they had moved
into a nice 100-yard lead (above) when the
second squall hit. This one was deceptive, appearing
as nothing more than a strip of black, wind-whipped
water about 50 yards wide and moving in from the
north. The squall hit us just as Al was tucking away
the corners of our spinnaker and Marc was rounding #2
to start a short beat NW to #1. Once more, there was a
blast of 25+ knots from the NW, but this squall was
accompanied by hail and a lone but immensely loud bolt
of lightning and thunder that seemed to hit quite
close to us. This development caused a capsize or two
and motivated several other boats to hold their course
past #2 towards the beckoning beach a couple of
hundred yards away. When no further lightning seemed
to be forthcoming, Marc, John and Dave continued their
race to complete short legs to #1, #3 and to the
finish where we had started at the North Bay YC. -
click here for full-size
pic ...
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