Wednesday afternoon, Uncle Al got to vacuum the house (note front hall rug hanging from mast) while waiting for Marc to arrive after completing his work day in Markham, NE of Toronto. The plan was to hit the hotel in Bradford, PA in time for a late supper, and then get an early start towards Rock Hall and the beloved River Race and Regatta. All this was duly accomplished, and by early Thursday afternoon, we had safely arrived at ...

... Chestertown's Chester River Yacht & Country Club where tomorrow's River Race would start. It was a relatively cool afternoon (70F) for mid-June on the Chesapeake Bay, as we greeted various Wayfarer friends such as Tony Krauss (white shirt) and Jim Lingeman (r) who had come up all the way from Lake Eustis in Florida, what with this year's Rock Hall Regatta doubling as the Wayfarer U.S. Nationals. For Jim, it was a double reunion: a former top-flight Windmill sailor, Jim was happy to see ...

... Allen Chauvenet (r) and his lovely wooden Windmill Beauty & The Beast. The latter was to provide Jim with flags and other paraphernalia he would need to run the Windmill Nationals in Virginia in mid-July. I checked their site today (1 Nov 07) but alas, found no report on that event. Above, Allen (r) and Marc discuss the upcoming Chester River Race for which Allen is thrilled to have an experience, capable crew this year. Allen mentioned the fact that this year, the Windmill would show the Wayfarers a thing or two. The gauntlet was thus dropped to Marc and Al, defending River Race champions.

Tony has launched and moored his boat at the CRYCC, and is already delivering his trailer to the Rock Hall YC. After getting us lost twice on the back roads of the Eastern Shore, Uncle Al now lets Tony lead, and is rewarded by the unique sight of his truck signalling a right turn while his trailer indicates left turn. Turns out Tony had put his lights board on the trailer upside down - which still doesn't explain Tony's truck indicating a right turn as he turns left?

As we prepared for the traditional Thursday night Wayfarer party which had been moved from Frank Pedersen's place to the Rock Hall YC due to the large number of W's expected, the temperature plunged into the low 50's F. Having only ever experience summer heat at Rock Hall, Uncle Al (above) had brought no long pants or sweatshirts. Fortunately, Mary had brought along two genuine "Union Suits" (complete with seat flap!) that Al had had delivered to their place in North East, Maryland. One of these was ...