There were a total of 30 boats entered in the North Bay YC's annual Canada Day event.  This consisted on 27 keel boats and only three dinghies.  The 1:00 pm race start off the North Bay Government Dock was delayed for half an hour as there was no wind at the scheduled start time, although in the time leading up to the race there had been on-and-off heavy rain showers.  A light and very shifty wind, generally from the west, came up by 1:30, so the race was soon underway.  About 2/3 of the fleet attempted to sail high by going further out into Lake Nipissing.  Others, including the dinghies, stayed closer to shore.  Neither approach proved to be of much benefit in the light and shifty breezes experienced in the first hour.  Eventually, the wind did start to build from the west-south-west and along with it came rain – buckets of rain.  All the boats were sailing a more or less close reach as they progressed toward the south shore of the lake and the turn at Mark J5 where the fleet would head east into Callander Bay to complete the 12-mile course off the North Bay YC.  At short intervals we actually were able to get planing both while on a reach and later, with spinnakers up as we rounded J5 and headed down the channel and on into Callander Bay.  The rain stopped while we were in the channel and, with that occurrence, the wind died down again and the boats were once more crawling along.  Some rain came back as we were crossing the bay, again bringing with it a “sprightly” north-west breeze that helped to add a little excitement to the latter part of the race. Dave and Carol (W282) had been slowly closing on a Mirage 33 while crossing the bay and the extra little boost from the north-west made the Mirage realize that if they didn’t get more serious, the Wayfarer was going to beat them across the line (as it was, they managed to cross the line only seconds ahead).

First across the line in the dinghies were Sue Pilling and Steph Romaniuk (aka “Wayfarer Boy”) in the maiden race for their newly refurbished W397 Chich. 2nd were Dave and Carol Hansman in W282 Banshee who were followed a few minutes later by new North Bay sailor, Christina Baier, in her 12‘ Byte (described by the NBYC racing commodore as “a small boat with a windsurfer sail”).  Given the discretionary powers of dinghy sailors, 2nd place in the dinghy class was awarded to Christina.  It is interesting to note that although there were only 3 dinghies in this year’s event, all three finished well up in the “across the line” position” with more than half of the keel boat fleet behind them.