North Bay Wayfarers make big splash at wind-challenged Pumpkin

Despite very challenging, light and fluky winds, the 2007 Pumpkin Regatta was a great success. Hosted by London, Ontario's Fanshawe YC Sept. 29-30, the Pumpkin got lovely summer weather: sunshine and temperatures in the mid-20's Celsius. In addition to the ever-reliable Wayfarer gang, the racing featured healthy fleets of Lasers and Y-Flyers - the latter having come for their Ontario championships.


Despite a continued lack of interest from the embarrassingly sedentary Toronto area Wayfarers, we had a fine 11-boat fleet with sailors coming from as far afield as Maryland, Michigan, Ottawa and North Bay. And it would have been 12 Wayfarers, but Jeff Eames (W7220) gave up his weekend's racing so that we would have a Race Committee Chairman. The North Bay contingent did indeed make a big splash, starting with Dave Richardson and Kim Rainville who capsized in one Sunday's few gusts. A less literal and far more satisfying splash was made by the team of Sue Pilling and Steph Romaniuk, sailing Blue Sky SC Wayfarer, Mystic. Using ancient, blown-out sails, the 8th-seeded Sue and Steph won the first race, and then added 3-2-3-3 placings to nail down an outstanding series 2nd, as well as Most Improved honours. Putting the icing on the North Bay cake was Dave Hansman who usually helms Banshee (W282), but who volunteered to crew for Uncle Al aboard the defending champion SHADES when super-crew, Marc, became unavailable. In the most difficult crewing conditions of all, light winds coming from every direction, Dave did a superb job. Not only did he cope unflinchingly with Uncle Al's light-airs antsiness, but he also kept the boat and sails in perfect trim despite the seemingly constant need for adjustments. And in the end, Dave was rewarded with a share of the George Blanchard Red Top Award as he and Al took the series. See above for photos of the winners: (l to r) Al, Sue, Steph and Dave.


As usual, Wayfarers were invited to the Château de Boer for a Friday night bash (above), where John and Dolores fed us dinner and the Rock Hall special: Dark 'n Stormies (ginger beer, Gosling's Black Seal Bermuda Rum, and ice cubes). Several of us also had the good fortune (again!) of getting beds for the weekend's nights as well. Thanks, Dolores and John! We had a great time as always. And it was great meeting your newest Cocker, Callie (named for her birthplace, Callander), and also to enjoy your new roofed over deck.


Of course, for your Uncle Al, the routine was a bit different this year as Tony Krauss and Mary Abel had arrived in Oakville Thursday evening from the head of the Chesapeake Bay. After spending the night in Whiffle Web headquarters (Al's basement), Tony and Mary followed Uncle Al to Fanshawe via his brother Mike's place where Tony took possession of W276 Waratah which had been in the garage on a blocked-up trailer for 25+ years. In Tony's expert hands, the trailer was soon ready to take W276 back to his Maryland home - right after Tony finished crewing for John de Boer in the Pumpkin! And so, Waratah made her return to the Pumpkin (above).


Return, I hear you ask? Yes, indeed, W276 was not only Canadian champion several times in the 60's including the last time the Nationals were held on Trout Lake (1969), but also North American champion in 1970. And that year, still with Uncle Al as crew, Mike won the Wayfarer division of what I believe may have been the second ever Pumpkin Regatta (see nostalgia photos above or click here to wallow - I have enjoyed every Pumpkin since then in everything from baking sun to snow, except for 1987 when our son, David, arrived a few days before the Pumpkin). In those glory days of racing, the Pumpkin was a three-day Thanksgiving event complete with a Championship of Champions race (top two from each fleet, Portsmouth ratings) on the Monday (which we won, beating a Tornado and the Fireballs on straight time! light winds and the course was 2-1-6-finish). They used the race hut this year, too, but it looks a tad less rustic these days (below).


As Saturday's 1100 hrs start of the first race came and went, things did not look promising. Due to a complete lack of wind (above), racing was duly postponed until 1300 hrs, after lunch had been served.


As the revised start time approached, things did not look much different out on the water. "Dave," I said, "there's no rush; they're not going to make us race in this!!" And we continued our pleasant rigging chat with a new Wayfarer at the launch ramp. At last, we cast off and began the 200-yard drift to the start line. Alas, the warning beep went right on time at 1300 hrs! Rats, they were making us race in this stuff! So, Dave and I began to drift more urgently, but we were still a good two to three minutes late for our start - one of those minutes being due to the fact that the RC left only two minutes between the four- and the one-minute beeps. But the good news was that hardly anyone had moved very far off the line, in a (generally) northerly air flow that was mostly dead spots with the odd nice catspaw coming down at random (see race 1 photo above). After another 4-minute sequence to start race 2 (which most of us - except Jens - rolled with), the RC got it right the rest of the way, I'm happy to report.


One saving grace was that the windward mark (#4) had been moved into mid-lake away from the swimming beach (see chart above).


But on the down side (or should I be diplomatic and say it was "more challenging"?), the leeward (Pumpkin) mark had been placed near the south end of the moorings (chart above) where a south breeze from the dam was fighting the northerly flow to a standstill. What a joy!!! It was enough to make many of us think longingly back to the Saturday of last year's Pumpkin (photo above) where we spent the day racing in a miserably cold downpour, but at least had lots of breeze! They would have served us better using either end of the start line A-B as the leeward mark instead.

In the end, we got three Saturday races in. In the day's finale, Dave and I were lucky enough to reach the windward mark at the same time as the last of day's puffs which allowed us to spinnaker almost to the shortened course finish at A-B after once around. Over an hour later, the last of the Wayfarers were still struggling to make their boats drift across the finish line. It is to their credit that all the W's who started, did stick it out and finish! The best line of the day came from our "photographe du jour", Mary Abel, whose Tony had crewed for John de Boer. "They had an alphabet day," she pointed out, "DNF, DFL (dead f...ing last) and DNS!"


But all in all, it had been a good day, out on the water with fellow sailors on a sunny, warm day, and the best was yet to come. Margaret Codd (Mike's mom) had phoned the Huron House and booked about 20 Wayfarer sailors in for their delicious and reasonably priced buffet. So we threaded our way diagonally across London back to John's place through the Western University Homecoming traffic crush, had a shower and a beer, and topped off a fine day with a fine meal (above). Not to forget the liqueurs courtesy of Doug Netherton, before we all hit the hay early after what had definitely been a tiring day.


Sunday arrived, sunny and warm, as forecast. And by 0930 hrs, there were perhaps 5 knots of mostly SSE breeze. With the odd stretch of 8 knots, gusts to 12 or once or twice perhaps even 15 knots, this was stuff we could actually sail in (photo above)!! Wasting no time, our RC got us three races in and we were done by not too much after 1300 hrs.


It was a more entertaining day on the water in another way as well. The Fanshawe Conservation area was, on this day, hosting a re-enactment of one of the battles from the War of 1812 - probably the Battle of Mark #4 since its beach was where the invaders were landing. All day there was musket and cannon fire, and occasionally we passed gigs filled with seamen from the British or American navy (above).

In due course, the awards ceremony arrived, where - as previously mentioned - Uncle Al and Dave Hansman claimed first place and the George Blanchard Red Top award while Sue Pilling and Steph Romaniuk were a pleasant and impressive surprise in series 2nd (and were Most Improved).

As expected, Conestoga's Dwight and Pat Aplevich sailed a fine series to take 3rd overall - a series that was highlighted by their fine first in the finale.


And what a pleasure it was to see Fanshawe's Jens Biskaborn and his wife, Sharon, back out in their Wayfarer! Having seen them secretly practising (above left) while the rest of us were taking part in the Rally this July at Killbear, we had an inkling Jens might be abandoning his Laser for this Pumpkin! Sharon and Jens began their series with a fine 2nd-place finish but then got left behind when they felt they should wait for the full five minutes of sequence before starting their second race. In the end, they were in a close battle over series 4th, but managed to hold off TSCC's Mike Codd and Kirk Iredale by a couple of points. The Codds were a large part of our Saturday dinner group. Mike, Darlene and the kids, Lilli and Holly, like to spend the Pumpkin weekend with Mike's parents in London, and it was great to have the whole group with us at the Huron House.

It was a family effort on the water for Fanshawe's Steve Graff whom we were happy to have back among us after a long absence. With his wife, Barb, and daughter, Tiffany, taking the crewing duties in turns, Steve ended up only a point behind Mike.

Ottawa's Doug Netherton and Françoise Brossard were also back after a lengthy hiatus and took series 7th ahead of the veteran Fanshawe team of Len Macdougall and Andy Turnbull. Both teams had their moments of looking great, but not enough of them to put them into the top five in this very challenging series.

Making their Fanshawe debut were North Bay's Dave Richardson and Kim Rainville. They often looked very fast but learned some lessons from Fanshawe's winds which make Trout Lake's winds seem like the open sea by comparison. Kim was one of the few who thought Saturday's winds were just about the right strength. And sure enough, when things picked up the next day, Dave took Kim swimming during race 5.

Despite their practice in Clark Lake's shifty winds the previous weekend, Michigan's Harold Whitcomb and his son, Mitchell, had to be unprepared for these winds. Still, they were consistently in the hunt and ended up tied for 10th with John de Boer and Tony Krauss, who doubtless gladdened several competitors who could point out that they had beaten the second-seeded boat!!

All in all, a fine way to end a successful 2007 Wayfarer season!