This year's Trout Lake Poker Race, our 5th, was held for the first time before the more serious weekend events, the Long Distance Race and the Don Rumble Memorial Series, a change that went over very well, as the event attracted 10 entries, a far larger group than ever before. As we again gathered at our traditional staging area, Bob Brown's float plane base in the NW "corner of Trout Lake just after 0900 hrs, temperatures were fairly cool but pleasant for early July, about 20°C. As can be seen above, winds were relatively light and skies somewhat overcast.

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At the 1030 hrs Skippers' Meeting, Dave Hansman, unveiled this year's course (above) to the five waypoints where we would each pick up a plastic baggie with two playing cards in it. Going to these pick-up points would once more have us zig and zag back and forth between the north and south shores of Trout Lake as we headed generally eastward towards our finish at the McNutts' cottage. The staggered starts of the past couple of years were supplemented this year by an actual starting line just off our usual launch site. The whole set-up worked very well with the entire fleet being competitively bunched at the first three of our five waypoints.

All ten boats were given pre-assigned start times at one-minute intervals, based on past performance and/or the whims of the Race Chairman. The latter can be seen above left in W2178 just over eight minutes after Don Paine who was sailing with the disadvantage of three in the boat had started the proceedings.

Nine minutes after the Paine crew had started, Uncle Al and Julia Schonborn (above) completed the starting sequence by heading SW towards waypoint #1. This was manned, for the fifth straight year, by former W851, Ken Holloway, sitting as always in his red canoe off his home, waiting to hand out baggies by means of a split bamboo stick - but only to those who rounded him and his canoe to port! Another relatively short leg followed to last year's finish point and picnic site, the Richardson cottage on Pilot Point where Dave Richardson's daughter, Sarah, and Dave's dad, John, were on card duty at waypoint #2. Note Sarah wearing her summer job bright orange Home Depot shirt below to make #2 more easily visible.

At this point Don Paine with son, Richard, and  Max Mantha (1556) were still leading the way but close behind were defending champion, Dave Richardson, with Kim Rainville (4782 upper photo) and a half-dozen other boats after some dead spots near #1 had allowed most of the later starters to close the gap on the leaders.

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The next leg brought us a couple of new wrinkles: The traditional waypoint #3 on the southern and usually windless shores of Dugas Bay had been moved east to the Browns' (W3567) cottage SW of Dunn Island. Secondly,

Murdoch Island (above) was to be left to port, i.e. no shortcuts near Hemlock Island and no temptations for Uncle Al to try the sand bar distance saver off the SE end of Hemlock! In the photo above, Dave and Kim had just moved past Uncle Al and Julia into first place, the Paine boat having found doldrums as far north as Trout Lake! A number of boats risked the spinnaker in this shifty, island-strewn passage. Roger Shepherd and Raewyn Perry (2nd from left above) were among those who gained big, as were Sue Pilling and Steph Romaniuk who can be seen below as they deal very well with increasing winds that were a dead run one second and a close reach the next!

Aboard SHADES, Julia and I were beginning to wonder if we would ever reach #3 as most of the fleet was bringing gust after gust from astern. Note how far Roger (7700) has caught up.

Around the second of two small "points", we discovered the very welcome sight of Team Brown (above) waiting to pass us our cards and wave us onto a one-tack port beat northwards between Hemlock and Poplar Islands, followed by a close reach NNE across the lake. 

Here former Wayfarer, Joel Truckenbrodt (above) was manning waypoint #4 in the mouth of Lounsbury Bay as second-place Roger Shepherd demonstrated the right pick-up approach, i.e. delaying his gybe until after the cards have been handed to Raewyn.

That little speck near the start of the arrow leading from #4 to #5 is what Trout Lake Wayfarer cruise-race sailors have always called Garbage Island, named for the inevitable winds mess to be found between it and the "mainland". Nothing in the Sailing Instructions kept us from going around the outside of that island, but I do  believe that we all took the shortcut. An educational experience in how to minimize damage from shifty, patchy winds, and a number of boats learned slow lessons!!

 

Once past the Garbage Island madness, Al and Julia finally popped the chute on the long run along the north shore towards the 5th and final pick-up point manned once again by Terry Alderson and his motor boat in Milne Bay. In honour of its many adventures on the lovely waters of Trout Lake, starting in 1977, we thought it appropriate to bring out this battle-scarred veteran (above) for one more appearance this year. Just for giggles, I checked the 1979 North Bay nostalgia pages and located these two Trout Lake clasics:

Alf Easy and Mike Codd and their nasty black spinnaker round the gybe mark
inside Al and Julia using the brown and gold marauder in its heyday.


Fred and Anne McNutt round the windward mark in W855 with her blue sails in the 1979 Don Rumble series.

On the leg from #4 to #5, the skies provided a little of everything: from sunshine to a couple of mini-rainsqualls while the winds picked up to solid hiking strength. The photo above was the last one Al took while racing since it was becoming clear that a heavy-looking rain was sweeping down Trout Lake and about to catch us. So the camera was quickly stowed in the aft tank while Julia helmed and flew the spi. Unfortunately, I buttoned up the hatch cover without removing wet gear and ended up being one of many who arrived wet and thoroughly cooled at our finish line which this year was once again at the McNutts' cottage.

When the squall hit, it brought the occasional gusts of 15+ knots and thoughts of capsizing aboard SHADES but still we ended up pulling away from 2nd-place Roger (above left) as we prepared to pick up our final baggie from Terry who made life more interesting by trying to move his boat into better delivery position at the last second. I meant to suggest to him that just sitting there anchored or drifting is an easier challenge for an approaching sailboat to cope with.

A final new wrinkle in this year's course was a requirement that we pass east of Rolph Island on our way from #5 to our finish at the McNutts' beach. This proved to be a difference-maker. It did not affect Julia and Al who re-created one of their old-time Cruise Race horizon jobs from the 1980's. But Roger and Rae who were sailing to a solid 2nd as they gave Rolph a wide berth to avoid its wind shadow ended up losing to a clever gamble made by Sue and Steph who cut the island very close, drifted through a few second of dead calm and then shot out the other side into 2nd place which they held over Roger and Rae to the finish. Rounding out the top five in the TLPR's racing segment were John and Dolores de Boer, followed by Dave Richardson and Kim Rainville.

The usual delicious barbecue was rain-drenched for a few brief moments and required an umbrella for Chef Fred (above) before being enjoyed by all. Perhaps appreciated even more than the food was Anne's running a load of wet sailor clothing through her dryer while we ate. Thanks a ton, Anne!

Our feed was duly followed by Dave Hansman's revelation and explanation of the Poker Race results (above), where it turned out that Sue and Steph (above right) had done it again with Chich plus a couple of high-ranking poker hands which enabled them to easily beat out runners-up, Roger Shepherd with Raewyn Perry in Invasion, as well as race winners, Al and Julia Schonborn in SHADES who fell to 3rd after scoring the absolute worst poker hand of the 20 that were submitted.

Lady luck continued to smile on us as the skies cleared and we got to sail the five miles or so back to base (above) in a lovely hiking breeze on the largely port-tack beat that is standard for sunny summer days on Trout Lake. After a quick haul-out, the group returned to the yacht club's camp village where barbecues were primed for whatever we wanted to cook and bar service was also avaialable. Who could ask for more on a gorgeous sunny evening beside Callander Bay??!!