Warm summer weather and relaxing winds bless TARTS at TS&CC

The 44th annual TARTS & Balls Regatta was held June 4-5 at the Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club, attracting eight TSCC Wayfarers and five Albacores. Warm, sunny weather in the mid-20's Celsius, and light to medium winds made this our perfect opener the Wayfarers' "northern" season, allowing us to round into racing form gently. Our Race Committee of Mike Codd and George Blanchard gave us a fine series of 6 races - three each day - and even threw in a bit of nostalgia - triangle-sausage-windward courses. The winds spent both days oscillating between south-east and east, and kept the mark laying teams busy with several course changes which were done very professionally.

Even though most of our fleet tended to arrived at the first windward mark in closely bunched excitement, it was - in the end - top-seeded Al Schönborn and Marc Bennett in SHADES who won five races - including the finale helmed by Marc - to win the Wayfarer Division with relative ease.

Far more surprising was the impressive performance of Alastair Ryder-Turner and his 12-year-old son, Andrew (above). Putting his light-weight crew to perfect use, Alastair not only had great speed, but also sailed with veteran savvy throughout the series. Even when they got behind early in some of the races, Alastair and Andrew sailed smart and refused to be tempted by the quick-fix solution of banging the corners. And then there was race 2 where the green team from Aotearoa went left up the first beat, rounded with a hundred-metre lead, and held it all the way despite continuing pressure from Al and Marc, to win their first regatta race ever! Well done, Andrew and Alastair!! Quite the feat for a team that had been seeded 6th but which surprised us all by scoring 2-1-3-2-2-2 to take series 2nd and Most Improved honours hands down.

Also sailing well and fast were Kit Wallace and David Weatherston who scored 3-4-2 on Saturday but could not get Ab faB to point quite as well in Sunday's slightly stronger winds, and had to settle for 3rd overall.

4th place went to John Cawthorne and Robert MacDonald who scored a consistent 3-5-3-4-5 to beat out Hans Gottschling who teamed up with Thomas Vendely in this event and counted 4-5-6-5-3 in taking series 5th. Hans and Thomas had some bright moments like race 4, beat 1 where they got wind out in the lake and were poised to round first ahead of Al until they found that they had overlaid the mark, and that Al could tack 50 metres to leeward and three lengths ahead while still easily laying the mark.

Geoff Edwards signed up a new, young and most enthusiastic crew in the person of Jason Ellis from the neighbouring Boulevard Club for TARTS 2005 and placed 6th. Jason is keen to get more sailing time in Wayfarers, so if anyone needs crew, we can recommend Jason who has extensive experience in all kinds of dinghies.

Fred Black was back with Michael Kachkovsky with whom he first sailed last year at the Mississauga Wayfarer/CL16 regatta and had a series-long battle with Ed Tait and son, Colin, over series 7th as both looked greatly improved with their new sails. A fine 4th in the finale finally gave the nod to Fred and Michael. Michael also got a nice treat as Fred let him helm race 5. Ed and Colin also had bright spots, especially on the Sunday when they followed the rigging instruction left by Søren Jensen and Jesper Friis who had sailed Ed's W825 to an excellent 5th in the 2004 Worlds.

TARTS as seen by Uncle Al: This regatta marked the first time that we got to use our new mast after the old "leprosy" mast broke at the Midwinters. We also inaugurated a new boom plus a "new" rudder cobbled together from various bits and pieces including a very old blade I had found under some old sails in the garage and then refurbished. Despite a week of hard work to make sure that everything would work as intended, we still had a few bumps in the road.

The first of these was the fact that, as I went to launch SHADES, I discovered that the trailer's winch handle was gone, presumably having fallen off somewhere between the end of the Midwinters and the beginning of TARTS. After several attempts we finally got SHADES unhooked from a very taut winch rope without cutting the latter.

After that, things went swimmingly - until the early part of race 1: we got a really nice start at the slightly favoured committee boat end, only to discover that Kit was outspeeding us and Alastair was outpointing us. Marc spent much of the beat trying to coax a bit more performance from our tired old sails and as a result we were able to round a fairly close 3rd to Kit and Alastair. The first reach had turned very broad with light, patchy winds, and here, the lovely old 1992 Mike Mac chute (8868) performed its magic one more time as Marc nursed us past Alastair and Kit into the lead. Helping the cause was going up in the lulls and down with the puffs, and ample windward heel to help the spinnaker remain filled. In fact, no trick was left untried as we took down the jib and ghosted along with body weight well forward (helm and crew just aft of the shrouds) to reduce wetted surface. On reach 2, we sailed into a slightly better breeze to extend our lead, and then the RC did its bit to help us out by finished at the leeward mark before we could get axed again going upwind.

In race 2, the winds steadied away at a delicate 3 to 5 knots from the SE. We again got the windward end start, and played shifts and puffs, going centre right with most of the fleet. Near the windward mark, 5 or 6 of us were very close and fighting for what we thought was the lead. Until we discovered that Alastair had done very well on the far left. Alastair and Andrew rounded with a healthy 200-metre lead, while we tacked around the mark just behind Kit and just in front of John. Kit made the mistake of starting his spi hoist without first defending his wind, so we went high, took Kit's wind while he hoisted, and began to pursue Alastair. The latter however, sailed very well. Even when the wind came up from astern and we got closer, Alastair did not lose his nerve, and easily held his lead to win the race comfortably.

What I mostly recall about race 3 was that the speedy Ryder-Turner team had the decency to get off to a poor start and first beat while we picked the right shifts and found the best puffs to win the day's finale. On the way in, we got a tow in dying breezes from our kind safety boat and discussed changes to be made. It was agreed that the new sails - heretofore reserved for Nationals and above - would be trotted out for Sunday's racing to help preserve Marc's slim grip on his sanity.

But there was another, totally unexpected, Sunday change to come: As we hauled out, we noticed a stream of water gushing out of the hull, just to port of the keel about two feet aft of the bow. A closer inspection revealed a more or less rectangular hole about 1.5 by .75 inches (photo below) which finally stopped producing water about ten minutes later.

We were mystified. Several possibilities were considered and discarded: it had not happened during launch (we would have noticed), nor during the racing (never went fast enough), nor during our somewhat overly exuberant docking (not enough time between that and haul-out to explain ten minutes' worth of water in the front tank). "Who doesn't like you?" one wag asked. Finally, Al remembered the missing winch handle: it must have fallen off on the highway, bounced off the road and punctured the hull. This called for stern measures prior to Sunday: duct tape! Red Green would, I am sure, agree. We left to cover off the front tank to let things dry overnight.

Early Sunday morning Al was ready with fresh duct tape and lacquer thinner to any grease from the hull around the hole and from Al's taping fingers. A repair was duly made, one that lasted for Sunday's three races, the last of which even brought hiking breezes and hull speed sailing in waves! Good old duct tape!!

What I mostly remember about Sunday's racing was how well Alastair and Andrew were sailing, several times coming from well behind to become our closest pursuers. And the final race, where Marc and I switched roles as the wind rose to 10 to 12 knots. In that race, the wind backed nearly 20° during the first beat. Those of us who had gone left duly gained and I remarked to Marc that this would make the first reach really tight. We rounded about 50 metres ahead of Ed Tait, Geoff Edwards and Fred Black who were all in a close fight over 2nd place. Did we remember to check the feasibility of flying the spi before hoisting? No. Soon we found that we would be hard pressed to get within 50 metres of laying the gybe mark. And we were having to spill wind to keep the boat reasonably flat, so we doused fairly quickly. This should have been Ed's, Fred's and Geoff's chance to move past us into the lead but they too, insisted on flying the spi. Perhaps they were too close to us or to each other to bother looking at us and to learn from their mistakes. Some held the spinnaker to the bitter end and ended up having to beat to the gybe mark! Anyways, the lesson here remains, think before you act!!

All in all, this a most enjoyable regatta - one that deserves more support than it is getting, although Wayfarer numbers were up from last year. And speaking of last year, Mark Taylor, last year's winner, sent his apologies: he couldn't sail TARTS due to a business appointment in Quebec City.