... now I do believe the gun is about to go. Our first leg will be about 8 miles of a very broad starboard tack reach to mark J5 off the south shore of Lake Nipissing, where we will gybe and head to the channel into Callander Bay to a finish off the North Bay YC. Fully expecting the capsize in one of the nastier gusts that have been sweeping down from the north with depressing regularity, Marc and Al have nonetheless decided to go down in a blaze of glory with their spinnaker - the oldest, rattiest one we have - flying. The Wayfarer honour is at stake here! And anyways, the water at least is nice and warm. This not being a Wayfarer race, Marc and Al decided it was not cheating to bring along the hand-held GPS with J5 pre-entered as a waypoint, courtesy of the NBYC web site and Dave Hansman who directed me to it. I think we also had a compass bearing of about 185°, not to mention keelboats who would show us the way.

Al and Marc (2nd from right) had decided to start right near the dock end where they could better judge how close they were to the line on this downwind start. The chute went up right away but Dwight and Pat (r) are off to an even better start. Perhaps Marc and I had gotten too close to the shore over which the angling wind was lifting? Whatever, both Dwight and Dave (4th from right) outmoved us significantly in the early going.

Then it was a gybe onto a reach in a generally easterly direction along Lake Nipissing's south shore, into the Main Channel, across Callander Bay to the finish at the North Bay YC. With about 300 yards of distance to try and make up on Dwight, Al and Marc were pinning their hopes on the expected freaky winds of the Main Channel, where they would be able to see what nasty things happened to Dwight and Pat, learn from these, and hopefully avoid them.

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