the 2010 North Bay Wayfarer Weekend Don Rumble Memorial Series * Sat 3 July 2010 report by Uncle Al ... |
Replacement
crew, Roger Shepherd, pays big dividends in SHADES' Don Rumble Memorial sweep
The Saturday of our weekend arrived as forecast: warm and clear, blue skies. An early morning ripple or two under those skies - see photo below - is usually a harbinger of good solid hiking breezes to come by 10 a.m., a much younger Ken Holloway once told a disbelieving me. And in all the years since, I have not seen that piece of Ken's weather wisdom fail. As we started (photo above) the first race of
our scheduled series of five just after 10 AM, the wind had built to a
nice little hiking breeze for our small fleet of seven boats. (l to r) Andy Douma with Robin
Allardyce, Ross and Lori Jamieson, John and Dolores de Boer, Dave and
Carol Hansman, Sue Pilling with Steph Romaniuk, Dave Richardson with
Kim Rainville - Uncle Al who had again lucked into getting Roger
Shepherd as crew while the ladies, Julia and Raewyn, stayed ashore, is
off to the right of the above picture, having gotten a start right at
the RC boat.
As usual, our RC of Fred and
Anne McNutt had us sail a modified Olympic triangle - start/finish line
1/3 up the beat: short
beat - two reaches - long beat - long run - short beat to finish (see diagram above).
By the time we reached the end
of our short initial beat, the wind had piped up considerably (above). Making sure they did not
let Canadian champions, Sue Pilling and Steph Romaniuk get too far away
unattended, Al and Roger used their weight advantage to grind down the
rest of the teams and ultimately pulled away to a handy win. Most of
the others were more closely bunched - l to r above: Dave Richardson,
Sue, John, Dave Hansman, Ross. In the end, Sue recovered to grab 2nd
place ahead of Dave Richardson who in turn knocked off the other Dave,
Mr. Hansman who reveals in the email below why they did not fly the
chute in race 1 and eventually dropped out of the series part-way
through race 2:
-----
Original Message -----
From:
Hansman, Dave
To:
Al Schonborn
Sent:
Tuesday, October 26, 2010 8:43 AM
Hi Al:
I have to report that it is another sunny, +25°C day here in Santiago, Chile. The leaves are back out on the trees and the spring flowers are in full bloom. At home in North Bay – weather is pure “shit”. Oh well…. After the first race, the wind appeared to be lightening up and Carol said she was feeling less dizzy – we decided to continue racing. However, she got hit again hard in the head, same place, and that did it – I knew it wasn’t safe to continue, so we retired. Carol was not happy, and somewhat embarrassed, that I was doing it, but she was glad I did it. It took about 2 hours for the dizziness to leave and we kept a close eye on her the rest of that day and that evening to make sure there was nothing wrong beyond getting her bell rung a couple times. I suggested she wear a ski helmet the next day but I was told what I could do with that idea. Fun, fun, fun… Dave Also of note from race 1 is the fact that Andy and Robin began their race reefed, got axed boat-speed-wise, shook out their reef and then coped much better. Sue and Steph have Chich in fine upwind form in race 2. Uncle Al and Roger use their weight to fine advantage as they keep SHADES in perfect upwind trim. Note the slightly eased main. Dave and Kim on their way to series second The start of our third race after
a short on-the-water lunch break saw our fleet dwindle to five active
participants as Dave H. and Andy had dropped out: l to r above: Ross, John, Dave R,
Al, Sue. In the second heat, Al, Sue and Dave R had again placed 1-2-3.
During the break the wind gusts became longer and stronger to the
extent that the windward mark was slowly but surely being dragged to
leeward and towards the left side of our beat. The RC was having to
make do with minimal support and decided the course was still doable.
By the time we started what turned out to be the final race, we could
nearly lay the windward mark on starboard tack from the start line, so
the key was to get off the line with clear air. As can be seen above,
Al and Roger (3854) were perfectly placed to pinch off Sue and Steph
(397), and they did so before rounding onto the first reach with a nice
little lead. That reach had now become quite close, what with the
drifting mark, but after the gybe ...
... we were treated to a nice,
broad spinnaker reach with some pretty hairy gusts prompting Al (above) to sit well aft and keep
the bow up, just to be on the safe side. As we sailed the long beat and
ensuing run, I thought how fortunate I was to have such a capable,
unflappable crew as Roger.
By the time we were on the
final short beat to the finish, the winds were regularly over 20 knots,
and we were quite happy to have a little rest after crossing the line
with our third straight win. Treating the spectators to a fine duel
over second place were John and Dolores (7351) who edged out Dave and
Kim (above).
We later discovered that Sue
and Steph had capsized in one of the wilder gusts and had dropped out.
Above, you can see the shipwrecked mariners heading for Callander's
town beach - a lee shore but fortunately it was not rocky and the
Callander Bay waves are never very big.
Meanwhile, Ross and Lori had
also capsized - near the leeward mark. As we finish, Roger and I were
asked by the RC to perform rescue boat duties in SHADES. Unfortunately, the
official, inexperienced rescue people had chosen this time to go have
lunch. So we planed on over, and stood by, telling them that Roger (no
heart condition!) would be willing to get into the water to help out if
necessary while Al offered to pick up anyone who was feeling too
exhausted? Unfortunately, the luffing sails were too loud for my advice
to be heard after the Jamiesons righted MYSTiC and tried to gently sail her
the quarter mile or so to the beach before bailing most of the water
out. What works in this situation is to sit with board full up and the
sails luffing while one or both bail. No rush - the boat will be quite
stable without forward momentum. Trying to sail, no matter how gently,
almost invariably leads to another capsize I have found. And it did
here - a beautiful death roll - and this time the aft tank had begun to
fill up and even with Roger's help, W4577 could not be re-righted a
second time until the rescue boat finally arrived to help (above). I believe this was a case
of let well enough alone, i.e. once re-righted, you should take the
safe approach and bail before you sail!!
Many thanks as always to our
RC, Fred and Anne McNutt (above) who
were now going to have to prepare their Trout Lake cottage for the next
day's onslaught of Wayfarers who would complete their Trout Lake Poker
Race with a lovely picnic at the McNutts' once more.
Lesser preparations for us
sailors who were getting set to trail the boats the short distance to
the launch ramp at the west end of Trout Lake for the next day's Poker
Race. Above you can see the bonus of having a support team: Uncle Al
admires Julia's thoroughness as she hoses and scrubs off any plant and
animal life that may be hoping to infest Trout Lake. And, in what has
become a marvellous Saturday night tradition, Lynn, our lovely chef
from The McCoys once more fed
us in fantastic style.
After which we had thank you
awards for various volunteers - none more appreciated than Linda O'Shea
who was presented by Dave and Carol Hansman with what was either the
world's largest bailing bucket (above)
or a deluxe mixing bowl for Dark and
Stormies!!!
Once more, the Bruise Sisters were front and
centre to dance for us with guest "sister", Dave Richardson (above), after which our MC, Dave
Hansman (l) had the lovelies
line up (below) with the
Gold, Silver and Bronze "medals" cushioned in a lovely manner for the
lucky winners, all highlighted by own very own flower girl, Sue (r).
And here's is how we placed: Series 7th: Robin Allardyce and Andy Douma 6th: Dave and Carol Hansman 5th: Ross and Lori Jamieson 4th overall after having to count their last-race DNF: Sue Pilling and Steph Romaniuk Series 3rd, blue flags: John and Dolores de Boer 2nd overall, red flags: Dave Richardson, Kim Rainville Winners of the Don Rumble Memorial Trophy with
three straight firsts: Uncle Al with Roger Shepherd
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