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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