| 2009
Wayfarer Midwinters & U.S.
Nationals report by Uncle Al ... |
|
Train Derailment Gets Wayfarers Back on
Track
It's an ill wind - as they say
- that blows no
one good. The 10th annual
Wayfarer Midwinters, which doubled this year as the U.S. Nationals, was
about to be truncated to a disappointing four races by Sunday 8
February at noon
when a rare train rolled past on the tracks which we cross to access
the host Lake Eustis SC. As the train got about half-way past our
crossing, it suddenly crunched to a halt. Word quickly spread that its
three locomotives had been derailed and that we would be trapped inside
the club grounds for a minimum of four hours. While this upset a couple
of our teams who needed to start their long trip home as soon as
possible, we made the best
of a bad situation: Our super Race Committee, chaired by Dave and Joan
Williams, quickly got us out onto the water for two more races in winds
that were finally starting to pick up all over the three-by-five-mile
expanse of Lake Eustis.
 By the time two Sunday heats
had been completed, our 14 Wayfarer teams had
enjoyed six very closely contested races in mostly light winds of four
to eight knots. Our three-day series, running from Friday 6 Feb through
Sunady, the 8th, was blessed with lovely sunshine and pleasant
temperatures in the 60's
and 70's F. Unfortunately, Saturday brought only enough wind for one
race so that 35 MC Scows who had come in from all over the southern
states ended up with a disappointing one-race "series" because their
NOR had stated a 12 noon cut-off time. However, all was not lost: Due
to the fine efforts of MC stalwarts, Dave Moring and Scott Tillema, the
Wayfarers and the MC's got to mingle in a very friendly manner, and
everyone had a great time.
Our sincerely heartfelt thanks to the many willing, cheerful and oh so capable volunteers - mostly from the Lake Eustis SC!
 As always, our Lake Eustis Sailing Club
hosts had our
social and sustenance needs well looked
after with breakfast and lunch available in the beautiful clubhouse (above). Friday evening saw the
Wayfarers gather at the Quarterdeck
Restaurant where our regatta organizers, Dotty and Mike Murto,
had made reservations. It was a pleasant outing, highlighted by Jim and
Linda Heffernan's leading us in singing the Wayfarer Song, lyrics to which they
had preserved from last year's International Rally at Hermit Island.
The text was available in the original Danish, in French, in English as
well as in Dutch. My crew made an attempt at the Dutch in honour of our
two Dutch skippers, who smiled a pained smile. To me, Nick's
rendition sounded very much like the sounds he and I had made after
getting food poisoning two nights before. The Quarterdeck dinner was in fact our
first solid food in two days, and I am happy to report that it stayed
down.
 Saturday night saw a burgers
and hot
dogs BBQ at the club (above),
after which we lounged in
warm early evening sunshine. Following that, USWA Commodore, Jim
Heffernan, called the USWA AGM to order, where we discussed means of
increasing our numbers, the need but lack of likelihood of
getting a North American Wayfarer builder, a dues increase from the
current $12,
and approved the proposed Class Rules and WIC Constitution
changes.
 After that, some of us joined
the MC's around their RV village campfire
behind the club but still made it an early night, being in bed at our
hotel shortly after 10PM. Sunday ended up being
one of the oddest days in North American Wayfarer racing history: Until
noon, there was little sign of raceable wind, so the
disappointed MC's packed it in and had their awards presentations,
after which the
free beer began to flow - some of it into Wayfarer sailors, as most of
us were
convinced that there would be no more racing. As lunch was being laid
out, the aforementioned train derailment and a building breeze soon saw
us being sent out for two more exciting races. And what a great
series it ended up being! All 14 teams started
together, with the six boats sailing solo or not using spinnakers
racing for the Midwinters trophy, and the other eight being scored for
the U.S. Nationals.
Thrilling U.S. Nationals Series Goes Right Down to the Wire Going into the final race of
this no-drop series, the leaders were
tied. Ottawa's Frank Goulay had teamed up very successfully with
Thunder Bay's Andrew Haill to score 4-1-1-2-1 in W864 borrowed from
Nick Seraphinoff of Detroit, while the latter was again crewing for
Oakville's Al Schonborn who took 2-2-2-1-2 placings into the finale.
Both of these teams were well challenged by the other teams: three
quarters of
our Nationals fleet was seeded in the top quarter of the North
American Wayfarer rankings and no fewer than five of our eight boats
were past National champions!
In addition to the highly
skilled competition, the two leading crews also had other challenges to
meet:
Frank was
sailing a borrowed boat with a pick-up crew, and he and Andrew had very
kindly given up their planned Thursday of practice at the LESC to nurse
Al and Nick
through a Wednesday-Thursday bout with food poisoning in St.
Petersburg. By Friday, the latter had recovered, but Nick was still
feeling the effects of last summer's major back surgery, especially in
winds that regularly required him to crouch down to leeward. Even in
our 4th-race tacking duel of 20+ tacks on the final leg, Nick never
even considered asking to slow the pace to ease the pain. Great work,
Nick - and thanks!
In the decisive final race
which, like all the others, was sailed on a
windward-leeward course, Al and Nick took a slight lead
early. Having still not discovered any predictable
pattern to the westerly winds coming across Lake Eustis, Al and Nick
were determined not to let Frank and Andrew go off on their own and
come back with the lead. So, we matched tacks with grim
determination, a strategy that paid off as we pushed each other to
excellent speed and pointing, while slowly building an edge over the
rest of the fleet.
As we began the second run
(which would prove to be the final leg of a shortened course), Al was
leading Frank by perhaps four boatlengths. Both leaders gybed to a very
broad port-tack reach almost immediately, and Al's lead evaporated
quickly as Frank brought a puff from astern and sailed up into it until
we were bow to bow. Now it had become a nerve-wracking foot race to the
finish about half a
mile away. Al continued to take every opportunity to sail down with
puffs while Frank kept edging up towards ripples that were oh so slowly
edging closer from the left. Just to add a bit spice to the situation,
Montreal's Peter Rahn and son, Alex, rode a puff of their own right
up the middle between Frank and Al. With a hundred yards to go, Al and
Nick were about one length clear of Frank and Andrew who were
overlapped with Peter and Alex. And that's way it ended, as for once,
no one got extra wind. Their clutch win allowed Nick and Al to defend
the Nationals title that they had won - much more easily - last summer
at
Rock Hall. In retrospect, we were pretty proud of ourselves. We could
so easily have lost this series.
 Perhaps the single most
significant difference-maker was our finish in Friday's 3rd race (above). With
Frank and Andrew already home and cooled out after their second
consecutive horizon-job victory, Andrew had ample time to capture the
developing close finish. With no hope of crossing Peter (286) and
Richard Johnson (to leeward and
ahead of Peter), we had pretty much resigned ourselves to 4th
place behind these two. Going across behind them would only carve our
4th in stone, so we chose to leave the door open for Lady Luck by
tacking a couple of lengths short of the lay line in
hopes of a last-second starboard lift. In the end, there was no lift
and we knew that would would soon have to tack and take our medicine.
But then Lady Luck poked her oh so lovely upturned little nose in the
door: Peter (above) was
making Richard wary enough that the latter was pinching up to defend
against Peter, and in doing so, he was forgetting about us and sailing
perhaps two lengths high
of the pin end of the mark. This meant that we in SHADES could tack into that gap
without fouling Richard (Rule 18.3).
So, we got everything ready, threw in a quick roll tack to port just
short of the mark. Two lengths later, we shoved SHADES' bow across the line as part of a
tack back to starboard while staying just nicely clear of both Richard
and the mark. Three virtually simultaneous beeps came from the RC boat,
and we were pleased to later learn that we had edged out Richard and
Peter by
about one foot - the difference between series first and series second!!
A slightly less hairy yet still
significant hole that we managed to
climb out of came in the first Sunday race. Trying to leave no
preparation unmade, we switched to our fairly new (2004) spinnaker from
my favourite, the gift from Mike Mac which had been no longer
new, even in 1992. Things were pretty close as we rounded the offset
mark after the first beat with Frank just off our bow and leading the
race. We were in a great attacking position and quickly popped the
chute - sort of! Our spiinnaker in fact went up suspiciously quickly
and I soon saw why: We had tied it on sideways. By the time we got it
re-tied, we had fallen to 5th. Over the course of the rest of that
race, we managed to nibble away and rescue another 2nd by remaining
(relatively) poised. The way Frank and Andrew were sailing so fast and
mistake-free,
we really needed that 2nd, since we couldn't imagine Frank placing
worse than 2nd in the finale, and we knew that we would lose any
tie-breaker.
So we did end up edging them
out in the finale and in the series, but it was by the slimmest of
margins. Congratulations to Frank
and Andrew who sailed well enough to win most series, and would have
won this one, if there had been a drop race. They made only one
significant
mistake, but it was costly: they fouled James McIntyre at the first
windward mark in the first race. By the time they had done their
penalty turns, they never did recover and finished 4th in a shortened
race.
Series 3rd went to the defending Midwinters and former Nationals champions, Peter and Alex Rahn from Montreal. They scored a very consistent 3-4-4-3-3-3 and were very much in the hunt at all times. In the end, their inability to beat Frank and Al more often killed their hopes of a repeat win.  The "blind chicken" team from Charlotte, NC, Richard Johnson and his wife, Michele, began the Nationals with a very impressive first-place finish. Putting a new jib to fine use, Team Chicken demonstrated a lethal combination of amazing pointing and superb speed, as they scored their first Nationals race win ever. Richard and Michele maintained their speed and pointing throughout Friday's three races, but like the rest of us, ultimately found it hard to stay in synch with wind and shifts. Saturday and Sunday found them less speedy - a puzzling phenomenon, since conditions were similar and they could not pinpoint anything that they were doing differently. Nonetheless, Richard and Michele had enough to take 4th overall and the beautiful Designer's Trophy as the top U.S. boat. Having been seeded 7th in the 14-boat fleet, they beat their seed by three positions and were tied for Most Improved honours. Alas, poor Richard and Michele had to rush away without their loot, since they were facing a long drive home, and Richard had a flight to catch out of Charlotte very early Monday morning. Three points back, in series 5th was last year's Designer Trophy winner, Jim Heffernan with his wife, Linda, of Chapel Hill, NC. Jim and Linda, too, are on the honour roll as past U.S. Nationals winners (1979). As I recall it, Team Morning Star had their best moments on the runs, but never got very lucky in picking places to go on the beats. Making a long, relaxed trip of
it from London, Ontario in their RV were John and Dolores de
Boer and their lovable dogs, Cassie and Callie. On
their first night's stop in Lexington, KY, the de Boers got a
first-hand look at the ravages wrought by a monster ice storm earlier
that week. Nick and I drove through the area as well. In the brilliant
sunshine, the ice coated trees looked startlingly pretty, but we felt
sorry for the poor souls who were still without power days later. John
and Dolores made it through without incident, however. In the series,
the de Boers, who won the U.S. Nationals at Rock Hall in 2007, took 6th
place, losing a tie-breaker to the Heffernans in the segregated standings.
 Local Crew Captures Midwinters Fleet Title in Tie-Breaker Jim Lingeman (above right) and Charley Jensen of the host Lake Eustis SC roared back from a first-race 11th to win the Challengers Trophy as top finishers in the Midwinters Fleet (non-spinnaker), beating last year's non-spinnaker winner, Butch Minson (and his wife, Janice, in some races) on the tie-breaker rule in the segregated standings. It was a well-deserved win for Lingeman and Jensen, who beat the Minsons by a couple of points in the overall standings. At the awards, Jim - a long-time pillar of the Windmill Class - ironically credited tips from Butch, Sailing Coach at the Maine Maritime Academy, as being instrumental in helping him and Charley to score their impressive come-back win. 3rd place in the Midwinters Fleet went to LESC's James McIntyre with crew, Jim McIntyre (not related). The McIntyres were in the thick of their title hunt until the final race when the wheels fell off and they finished second to last in their fleet, a killer in this no-drop series. Following James and Jim in the standings was LESC Commodore, Dave Hepting, the only one to sail his entire series solo. According to Mike Murto's Most Improved system, Dave was the 2009 winner of that award in the Midwinters Fleet. That decision matched Uncle Al's statistics which had Dave seeded 13th but placing a much improved 10th in the overall fleet.  Only one point behind Dave was
our cruiser-turned-racer, Richard
Watterson, from Harrisburg, PA. Teaming up with fellow pilot, Mark Nye,
an experienced keelboat crew from Florida, the virtual rookie to
racing,
Richard, was pretty amazing as he knocked off three helms with
considerably more racing experience and without the reef points on
their mains. Having spent a day or two in Mark's home waters at an
undisclosed location on the St. John River, rigging their boat for
spinnaker and doing a little practising, Richard and Mark did not look
at all out of place on the spinnaker legs (above). Well done, Richard and
Mark!
LESC's Ted Benedict combined with Mary Abel of North East, Maryland, to take 5th in the Midwinters Fleet (12th overall). Mary had planned to enjoy a warm weekend with Tony Krauss, her significant other, but an unfortunate work conflict forced a disgusted Tony to bail out on his much anticipated weekend flight down to Florida where he had planned to crew for Frank Goulay. We missed you, Tony!! Thumbs up for Mary who drove solo all the way down to Eustis - although she did manage to work out a convoy arrangement with the Heffernans for much of the trip down to the Midwinters. Two Ottawa skippers, Paul
Pineault and Andy Douma, cruised to 13th overall in Andy's Mark III
which, like Andy, winters in Eustis where Andy has purchased a trailer
home. The Saturday wait for wind was not wasted time for these two.
After three straight last-place finishes on Friday, Andy had lamented
the fact that he had been unable to point nearly as high as anyone
else. So a team of specialists that included Frank Goulay, Peter Rahn,
Jim Heffernan and Uncle Al - all past U.S. champions - took their
Saturday morning coffees over to Andy's Port Tack Too and examined the
patient. After much measuring and discussion, the patient was deemed to
be suffering from mast rake deficiency and a bridle whose block was
much too big (loud clunks when it crashed onto the deck) and whose
length was excessive. These deficiencies were duly corrected, and later
that day, we were all very happy to see Andy and Paul roll to a much
improved 9th in the day's only race.
The "After you, Alphonse" perfect host award went to LESC's Mike Murto as he and crew, Izak Kielmovitch, took the 14th and final place overall. Mike and Izak actually finished last in only one of the six races, but the 9th-seeded Mike just did not have one of his better series this year. Next year, right, guys??!! |