05 Pumpkin report

But, by about 1000 hrs, there was a light SE breeze blowing intermittently, which allowed the RC to drop a Pumpkin mark about 100 yards off the south end of the moorings and create a windward-leeward course of

-6-B-6 on which we completed two more races as the patchy winds slowly gained strength to about 4 to 6 knots - see photo above.

Recognizing the need for some of the visitors to get an early start to their long trip home, Regatta Chairman, Robert Kennedy, and awards MC, Rick Goldt, quickly finalized results and laid out the winners' Canadian Tire gift certificates while the rest of us packed up in hot, brilliant sunshine and/or got some sustenance at very reasonable prices from Mike Wareing in his kitchen. By about 1400 hrs, the presentations were ready to roll, beginning with well earned thanks to our RC and Regatta Committees plus Bobby Hampton and Mike Morris (registration), and those who ran our safety boats (Will Pol, John Bryant, Graham Forster, Earl Fortin, Tom Posthumus, Bas Virschraper and his daughter, Jack Blocker and John Burgess).

In Wayfarers, Al Schonborn (Saturday helm) and Marc Bennett (Sunday helm) completed a spectacularly successful undefeated 2005 with a string of six bullets as they reclaimed the George Blanchard Red Top Trophy with a vengeance. Their previous week's regatta with the Rebels at Clark Lake had prepared them well for the shifty and patchy winds at Fanshawe, as had the fact that Marc and Al have had the benefits of regular practice, having sailed virtually every 2005 Wayfarer event together, something no other crew managed to come even close to doing. Marc and Al also shared the photography duties, the results of which you can find elsewhere in this 2005 Pumpkin coverage.

With boat speed and pointing pretty much equal among most of the 10 Wayfarers, the results came down to boat handling, shift playing and above all, finding the best wind. The fleet was usually pretty bunched up off the first beat but it was on the runs that the winners made their biggest gains, showing an uncanny knack for threading their way from puff to puff. On these runs, Marc and Al lived (and gained big time!) by two main maxims:
1. stay away from shores to which the wind is, or is likely to be, blowing at a significant angle, but hug shores to which the wind is parallel (and therefore funnelling along)
2. sail down with the puffs and go up in the lulls. The Sunday morning photo below illustrates this quite nicely:

You can see the SHADES wake threading its way down the middle of Fanshawe Lake, away from the shore (wind generally angling about 30° off the right-side shore at this time) and with the occasional squiggle as Marc sailed up in a lull then down with a puff. This puff, which as you can see, does not look like much on the water, was an amazingly lucky one for us as it stayed with us almost the whole run to #6 and let us leave the boats who had rounded the windward mark right with us far, far behind. Note the excellent light air downwind form being displayed by the four spinnakering W's: all being sailed flat to make it easier for the spinnaker to stay full of what little wind there is!

The second-seeded team of John de Boer and his wife, Dolores, of London also sailed an excellent series, starting with three seconds in four Saturday races and regularly showing great speed and pointing while demonstrating flawless boat handling on their way to taking series 2nd by a wide margin.

Much closer was the battle over series 3rd, as four boats ended up within 5 points. Toronto's Mike Codd and Kirk Iredale sailed George Blanchard's Red Top to what appeared to be a solid grip on series 3rd by scoring a fine 3-4-2-3 in Saturday's healthy breezes but struggled to a pair of 6ths in Sunday's lighter stuff and just managed to hold off three other teams. The 6th-seeded Mike and Kirk thus beat their seed by three places, and were the 2005 Pumpkin's Most Improved Wayfarer team. Well done, Mike and Kirk!

Coming in a bit late from the Detroit area were Joe DeBrincat and USWA Commodore, Mike Anspach, who thus missed the first race. But after that, Joe and Mike teamed up very well together, as Joe appeared to rediscover the form that has made him a North American champion in the past. After horrible boat speed problems at this year's NA's in Tawas, Joe has finally figured out his new Mike Mac-cut Quantum sails, and he and Mike ended the Pumpkin on a most promising note with a pair of fine second-place finishes that left them only two points out of third overall. This bodes well for Joe's Midwinters where he can try to erase memories of last year's boat speed horrors for him and son, Brian.

Series 5th went to the local team of Robert Kennedy and Ravi Gupta who looked good in scoring a very steady and competitive 5-4-4-5-4 after also being unable to make it to the first race. The Kennedy/Gupta duo entered the last race in a points tie with our North Bay team of David Hansman and Ross Jamieson and beat them by one place in the finale to relegate them to series 6th. Seeded 8th, Ross and Dave, fell just that one point and one place short of winning Most Improved honours! Congratulations, guys!! Both Dave and Ross were quite happy with how much they were able to learn about sailing in Fanshawe's tricky shifts - perhaps just in time for our 2006 Fanshawe-based Wayfarer Nationals?

It was a one-day appearance for Conestoga's Jeff Baker and Sandy Mackan whose Saturday 7-7-7-6 proved to be enough to grab series 7th, also a two-spot improvement over their seed. Well done, Jeff and Sandy. Still wrestling with gear and pointing problems (which they hope to address in time for next year!) was our second Michigan-based team: Al Fick with brother, Bill. Bill and Al suffered from very poor pointing ability despite fine-looking sails, and, among others things, made life harder than necessary for their Wayfarer by sailing with a rudder that is angled aft and which at one time came all the way up when their tie-down string broke, causing a near-capsize. Nonetheless, the Ficks were rewarded for their willingness to stick it out by an 8th-place finish.

Frustration would have to be the one word that best describes the 2005 Pumpkin sailing experience for our remaining two teams: Nick Seraphinoff and Joe Blackmore of Traverse City, MI (9th) and Ottawa's Doug Netherton with Françoise Brossard (10th). Both of these teams had just made good strides in getting their open-water, straight-line boat speed into excellent shape, only to re-discover that this is of little use in the shifts and dead spots of Fanshawe Lake! Nick chose the more constructive outlet for his frustrations by abusing golf balls, while crew, Joe, and W864 support "team", Holly, had a "nap". Doug and Françoise used the old Uncle Al method - long-since proven counter-productive - of yelling at the other crew member. Al and Julia got over their memorable Fanshawe shouting matches, and I hope that Team Toodle-oo will do so as well!

(above) Luckily it was a short trip home for some of us, and we were able to enjoy the beautiful Sunday afternoon a bit longer on the cliff looking north along Fanshawe Lake while having some refreshments with John and Dolores whose camper was right near by. Note the amazing lack of Fall colours on this October 2nd, 2005!!!