Co-champions declared after eight exciting, close Ontarios races

Both days of the 2008 Wayfarer Ontario championships, hosted July 19-20 by the Lac Deschênes SC, began inauspiciously with lack of wind. But all things came to those who waited and our 10-boat fleet ended up enjoying eight evenly matched races in which most of us spent at least some time in or near the lead. Regatta Chairman, Robin Allardyce, has reported on the social and organizational aspects of this fine weekend, and I will now do likewise for the racing and its results.

Results-wise, there were two stars of the series: Frank Goulay and Kim Bergevin of the host club. These two sailed to a first-place series tie with Uncle Al despite their decision to forego the spinnaker until Kim has had more practice. And they would in fact have beaten Al in the tie-breaker (four firsts to Al's three), were it not for the CWA rule that ties will not be broken in CWA-sponsored regattas. Frank and Kim did have some good fortune insofar as the winds often blew hard enough to permit boats to sail at hull speed, even without the spinnaker, so that it was hard for the spinnakering boats to gain much ground. Congratulations to Kim and Frank who also gained a share of Most Improved honours, beating their 2nd seed by a single place.

If we were doing the "three stars" as they do at hockey games, one of those three stars would doubtless be young Angus Wilson (13) who crewed for Uncle Al as a last-minute replacement. In very challenging conditions - shifty winds of 10 to 18 knots - Angus learned the quirks of Al's SHADES quickly, and was indeed instrumental in allowing W3854 to make a major comeback - 1-1-2-1 in the final four races - that gave Al and Angus the tie for series first and the Bronze Sail Trophy.

Models of consistency were North Bay's Dave and Carol Hansman whose 4-3-2-3-4-2-3-4 placings left them with the blue third-place pennants. To which they added one green pennant, their share of Most Improved honours as they, like Frank and Kim, beat their seed by one spot.

Our international team, Marc Bennett (Pickering, ON) and Julie Seraphinoff (East Lansing, MI) nearly won a few races but inconsistency proved to be their weakness and they ended up well entrenched in series 4th.

Also doing North Bay proud were Sue Pilling and Steph Romaniuk who stepped into W7346, a mainly cruising Wayfarer kindly lent to them by Alan Asselstine, and took a fine 5th overall. The undoubted high point of their series was their victory in race 4, their first win in a major Wayfarer regatta race.

Yet another "mixed" team was next in line - no fewer than eight of the ten entries were sailed by male/female teams. LDSC's Lori Beehler and Thunder Bay's Andrew Haill once again teamed up to fine effect. I believe they shared the helming duties? on their way to series 6th, only three points back of Sue and Steph.

After a 40-year hiatus out west, Mike Heath-Eves has re-joined the eastern circuit in his beloved W398 that has been magnificently re-finished. Mike and his crew, Bill Hillary, showed excellent boat speed and handling but in the close going, always seemed to fall to around 7th which is where they ended their series. A slight improvement should see these two move up dramatically. It was fun to have people as keen as Bill and Mike added to our group whose brains they picked throughout a most enjoyable weekend.

Rounding out the fleet were three local boats who took turns beating each other throughout the series. In the end, Robin Allardyce and rookie crew, Marjorie Germain, beat out Paul Pineault and his wife, Marilyn, who in turn beat out that friendly Frisian, Andy Douma who was introducing Erika Nordstrom to the joys of racing.