Michigan's Team Bennett Repeats as North American Champions

2023.09.19  This year's Wayfarer North Americans returned to one of our most loved venues, the Tawas Bay YC at the north end of Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay.  Sincere gratitude to Chris Princing and his superb group of Tawas Bay YC volunteers who made their fine club our home in the nicest possible way. A very well matched fleet of nine Wayfarers - four from Ontario, five from the U.S. - were pleasingly bunched together in all six races of a light-air series sailed in pleasantly warm sunshine. The races were mostly closely fought throughout the fleet and only one race featured a horizon job which was executed by the series winners, Marc Bennett and Julie Seraphinoff, out of East Lansing, Michigan. After getting their drop-race out of the way early with a 5th in race 1, Team Red Sky left no doubt about who earned the Gokl as Julie and Marc added 1-1-2-2-2 finishes to that first-race 5th to retain their status as Wayfarer North American champions. Silver went to top-seeded Michigander, Peggy Menzies, who teamed up with a superb local pick-up crew, Jennifer Princing (above), and scored 1-3-(4)-3-1-4: 12 pts to edge out North Carolina's Richard Johnson and Mike Sigmund (below) by only a single point: (7)-4-2-1-5-1: 13 pts.  The 5th-seeded Team Fetch shrugged off first-race bad luck that left them 7th, and even their narrow loss to Team Flew By You, still saw them beat their seed by two places which gave them a share of Most Improved honours. Top Canadian finishers were Mississauga SC's Ross Thompson and John Koetsier (above)  who were right in the hunt to series second until a 3rd-race dispute over start line luffing rights went against them And who would have thought that Uncle Al, who created our Most Improved system 25 years ago to give the less experienced racers something meaningful to fight for, would ever be in that hunt? Ontario's Uncle Al, now aged 82 and seeded 7th, teamed up with competent minder, Mike Codd (below right), who has George Blanchard in his dotage on his résumé, to grab series 5th and the other half of Most Improved honours. The joys of a sparkling weekend camping in Nichigan's north woods, Tawas Bay State Park, and socializing with fellow sailors, will doubtless by recalled by Uncle Al's up-the-street neighbours in Oakville, Ontario, David and Anne Pugh as the highlights of their weekend. The wind gods et al were unkind to our 3rd-seeded pair who ended up in series 6th, just ahead of their Mississauga clubmates, Rob Wierdsma and wife, Rose. The latter does not usually race and decided after four Saturday races she had earned a break to rest up for the Wierdsma-Pugh camping trip in the Upper Peninsula. The two Sunday DNCs dropped Team Wierdsma (below) to series 7th. It would be misleading to judge the performance of the two Michigan teams at the bottom of this year's standings by the list of their finishes. They were regularly right in the mix and a very well-sailing threat to be reckoned with at all times. In the end however, both teams fell just a bit short with Dave McCreedy of Wampler's Lake and Dave Wilpula (above) beating by a single point, their Detroit buddies, Matt Dailey and Nick Burtka (below)  in the beautifully refurbished W1028 Oracle that started life in the hands of Lake Orion's Wayfarer legend, Earl Schnur (further below).   1987 U.S. Nationals at Walled Lake, MI: Earl Schnur and wife, Pat (left); proud grand-parents with son, Joe, and grandson, Christopher?

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