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Spectacular Sailing Summer Continues at
Tawas North Americans
Bennett maintains perfect score ahead of Porter, Schonborn in Most
Improved stats
The weekend of
September
10-11 saw the Wayfarer North Americans once more hosted by the Tawas
Bay YC at the north end of Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay.
Unfortunately
all
the effort made by the host club, Regatta Chairman, Nick
Seraphinoff, as well as Principal Race Officer, Matt Princing, was
appreciated by a turn-out of only eight Wayfarer teams - the lowest NAs
turn-out ever. Still, those who attended had lots of fun as we sailed
in perfect weather (30C, sunshine and winds of 5 to 15 knots) and
partied in great form. Matt and his RC gave us 6 windward-leeward
races: four on the Saturday and two more on the Sunday, and we were all
done before 3 p.m. so that those with long drives home could get a
nice, early start.
Last year's winners, Al
Schonborn and Frank Goulay were on hand again this year, but one
six-year winning streak would have to end, as each would be helming his
own boat. It turned out that Frank and Al were quite evenly matched,
sailing
six close races while demonstrating the best combination of boat speed,
strategy and boat handling. In the end, it was the veteran team of Al
Schonborn and Marc Bennett that was able to squeeze out a hard-fought
victory in each of the six races, leaving Frank Goulay and his borrowed
crew, Joe Blackmore, with a fine streak of six consecutive seconds.
After clinching the series by winning race 5, Al and Marc switched
places in SHADES. Another great battle ensued throughout the finale as Marc
and Frank were
never separated by more than 3 or 4 boatlengths throughout the
race. Ultimately, it was Marc Bennett who came out on top, maintaining
something that has never been done before: a perfect score in the Most
Improved standings (calculated like a baseball won-lost
"percentage" by comparing a competitor's wins over, and losses
to, competitors in his or her most recent six Wayfarer events). As can
be seen below, Marc has not lost to any boats in his last 6 Wayfarer
events in which he has helmed. He thus has a winning percentage of
1.000, and ranks ahead of the 400-1 record racked up by Ian Porter in
last year's Worlds, and ahead of 3rd-seeded Uncle Al who currently has
a .993 winning percentage.
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|
|
W
|
L
|
W
|
L
|
W
|
L
|
W
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L
|
W
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L
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W
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L
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W
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L
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Pct.
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1
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Marc Bennett
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7
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0
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10
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0
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18
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0
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7
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0
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7
|
0
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14
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0
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63
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0
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1.000
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2
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Ian Porter
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400
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1
|
|
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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400
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1
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0.998
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3
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Al Schonborn
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10
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0
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43
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0
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100
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1
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35
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0
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56
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1
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39
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0
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283
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2
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0.993
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Also
moving
extremely well throughout the series were the 3rd- and 4th-place teams:
Nick Seraphinoff with daughter, Julie Price, and Doug Ryan
with his son, Chris. The main difference came in the strategy and boat
handling departments where these two teams were not as mistake-free as
the top two. In placing 3rd, the 5th-seeded Nick and Julie also took Most
Improved honours for this year's Wayfarer North American
championship. For the Ryan team from Wiarton, across Lake Huron from
Tawas, it was their first Wayfarer regatta appearance since their
excellent 5th place in the final race of the 2004 Worlds. And they took
up
where they had left off, sailing very well.
The
one truly local Tawas team placed 5th overall. Don Thwing shanghaied
his
friend, Mark Olgaard, into crewing for this, Don's first Wayfarer
outing of 2005, and Don and Mark survived quite well. They produced
excellent speed at times, but those times were not frequent enough to
unseat any of the more consistently fast front four (so to speak!).
Series
6th went to Joe DeBrincat who teamed up with fellow Michigan helm, Bob
Frick, when neither could find a crew for this event. Saturday's races
saw Joe and Bob with frustrating pointing deficiencies as they tried to
figure out their rather sensitive new McNamara-cut Quantum sails. After
a Sunday-morning bull session with experts, Marc and Frank (photo
below), the pointing
improved, but alas, the physical energy ran out aboard The Maltese
Falcon, and their Sunday results ended up no better than Saturday's.
A
second pair of crew-less Michigan skippers teamed up to finish 7th
overall. USWA Commodore, Mike Anspach, sailed a nice, relaxed series
with Paul McVey, and beat out Al Fick with Dave Merchan who were making
their second Wayfarer regatta appearance ever. The latter are still
getting the feel of dinghies and were further hampered by a poorly
maintained boat - a matter which they hope to rectify soon.
On
behalf of all of us visitors, I thank Nick Seraphinoff, Matt Princing
and the many helpful Tawas Bay YC members who made this event a most
enjoyable one. Thanks also to USWA Treasurer, Lorrie McVey, who took
care of registrations, regalia sales and scoring in her usual smiling
and very efficient manner; and to Nick's daughter, Emily, who took most
of the on-the-water shots to be found on these pages while also
distracting
my crew (and me!!) with her bikini. See you next year!!!
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