Brian Jeffs and Scott Bamford shine in superb Pumpkin victory at Fanshawe

London's Brian Jeffs and Scott Bamford are the winners of the 2004 George Blanchard Red Top Award, emblematic of Wayfarer victory in Fanshawe YC's annual Pumpkin Regatta. Scott and Brian made their first-ever Wayfarer regatta win a thing of beauty, scoring 1-2-1-1-2 in the five-race series sailed in mostly sunny and seasonably cool weather with winds mostly ranging from 8 to 15 knots with the occasional Saturday stretches of 20+ knots. After Saturday's three races in NW winds, the series was still a three-way fight among Brian Jeffs, Nick Seraphinoff and Roger Shepherd, but when Sunday's winds shifted to somewhat lighter SW breezes, neither Roger nor Nick were able to sail the races to the (damn) dam nearly as well, and Brian and Scott did a numerical horizon job on the rest of the fleet.

A pair of Sunday 5ths turned out to be enough to let (downtown) Dutton's Roger Shepherd and Joanne Kumpf edge out Detroit's Nick Seraphinoff with Joe Blackmore and take second place by a single point. Nick and Joe could take solace however, from the fact that they were the Most Improved crew, having beaten their 6th seed by three places.

Top-seeded Rick Goldt picked a tough time in which to train a new crew, young Georgina Searle, on the Saturday. Even with his new crew doing a fine job, especially on the spinnaker legs, all Rick could manage on Saturday was a couple of 4ths behind Brian, Nick and Roger, all of whom thrive on the windier conditions. Even with the #1 crew, son Aaron, back on duty on the Sunday, Rick scored a sub-par 4-3 and ended up in series 4th.

The team of Doug Netherton (Ottawa) and Roger Redwin (flown in from Winnipeg) sailed well but were hurt by a DNF (broken rudder in race 2) and an OCS (failing to re-start around the end) on Saturday, but still scored a sound series 5th, up two places over their seed.

Also up two spots over their seed were locals, Len Macdougall and Andy Turnbull who edged out fellow Londoner, John de Boer by one point for 6th overall. Sailing with an ailing Dolores, John started race 1 and then took pity on his crew and took the rest of the day off. When other Saturday developments made Uncle Al available as crew for the Sunday, John and Al took turns helming Silverfox which performed nicely with a 2-1, and moved John back up to series 7th.

Saturday ended up being too much for Fanshawe teams, Jeff and Vera Eames, and Jeff Baker with Lisa Sweeney, who were thus left to fight it out for series 8th in Sunday's more benign conditions. Team Eames ended up getting the nod ahead of Team Baker/Sweeney.

Meanwhile, it was not the best of Saturdays for Uncle Al who had won the past 11 Pumpkins. When his son, David, became unavailable to crew at the last moment, Al was left crewless. But Dolores de Boer's daughter, Michelle Dicker, turned out to be willing to sail even with only last-minute notice. And she did a fine job for one beat, one beautiful planing reach across the lake and a couple of hundred yards of the first run. Al was a bit casual about his first gybe and ended up dredging the bottom of Fanshawe Lake with his mast top. The saving grace was that with Michelle's capable towing of the bow while Al sat on the centreboard giving directions, we ended up rescuing ourselves - although our sincere thanks go to the rescue boat who picked up stuff that was floating away, such as floorboards and the medicinal liqueur from Denmark. In hopes of getting back out for race 3, we set about cleaning the slime from the top of the mast and the mainsail - at the end of which lengthy procedure, Al discovered he had managed to drop the main halyard sheave housing into the lake and effectively ended SHADES' 2004 Pumpkin participation. If anyone reading this knows of such a housing for a mast from the 70's that someone is willing to part with - perhaps from an old broken mast, please contact Uncle Al who would be extremely grateful!!

Missed very much at this year's Pumpkin was George Blanchard who had celebrated his 90th birthday at the 2003 Pumpkin. Word is that George has no cartilage left in one of his knees and that doctors ordered him not to do anything violent - like sailing the Pumpkin!

Thanks again to the Fanshawe YC and its members who again gave us a memorable and enjoyable Pumpkin in 2004. Special thanks to Mike Codd who gave up sailing Red Top in order to run the Race Committee with Steve Dietrich and Maria Darroch. And finally, kudos to the management and staff of the Huron House where the Wayfarers and a few others had a lovely Saturday night of chatting and feeding our faces.