Select few hardy souls rewarded as great sailing and socializing bless 50th Clark Lake Invitational Regatta

 

2010 marked the 50th running of the Clark Lake YC's annual Fall Invitational Regatta, known since 2006 as the Tim Dowling Memorial Regatta (see pics of our marvellous and oh so dear departed friend, Tim, above). We could have used a few more folks of Tim's great enthusiasm this year as attendance dwindled to a mere 36 boats: 9 Rebels, 7 Interlakes, 6 Wayfarers, 5 Buccaneers and three each of Sunfish, Snipes and Hobies. The latter two fleets were  making their debut in this regatta. Cool fall-like conditions were forecast after a very windy Friday afternoon was followed by a cold front that may have discouraged some sailors from attending.

Those who did attend got the unfailingly great meals and hospitality (including free beer and a warm welcome from club commodore, Dan Hockenberry (above) and a roaring fire in the fireplace behind the registration table). As well, there was the opportunity to acquire 50th anniversary caps and T-shirts.

Saturday morning arrived with lots of gusty NW winds (above) and a change of Primary Race Officers: a sore knee was preventing Bruce Nowak from sailing his Rebel, and Bruce thus volunteered to replace Neil Robb who was now able to sail his Rebel - sort of. You see, Neil had lent his beloved and lovely Rebel 4162 to Uncle Al for the weekend, thinking he'd be the PRO. Neil would hear nothing of Al's offer to sail Neil's son's Rebel (above left) that was being quickly prepared for Saturday action.

As forecast, the winds slowly moderated somewhat and three races were in fact completed that afternoon with a very civilized shore break between races 2 and 3. The club very cleverly reduced the start sequence for each of the seven classes from five to three minutes and used "rolling starts" (no gaps between sequences), thus using up only 21 minutes instead of 35 to get the starts in for each of the races. All three races started near the Beach Bar at the east end of Clark Lake and began with a beat to #5 (see chart above). A subsequent close reach to #1 was followed by a fairly short beat ot #2 before we got some serious downwind practice from #2 to #4 which is virtually the entire three- mile length of the lake. Each race then finished with a beat of about half a mile from #4 to a finish line off the club.

Dealing with a NW wind on Clark Lake. On our boat, Rebel 4162 Last One, Shannon and I discussed the things we had (re)learned from the first race and its NW winds. All of which we used to good effect in the day's other two races, something that of course never comes with any guarantees on Clark Lake, but was worth a try in the absence of other brilliant ideas. Below, I am writing down our list in hopes that I - and perhaps others - may benefit from it in future regattas:

1. What I like to call the Hockenberry manoeuvre because he has gained big time doing this so many times, again paid off in all three races. In race 1, it took Dan Hockenberry and John Washburn moving into a nice lead to strikingly jog my memory, before Shannon and I copied that approach in races 2 and 3 with fine success: Set up so that we approach Eagle Point (just to the left of mark #6 above) on starboard tack about 100 yards short of laying it, then tack more or less on or past the layline to mark #5.
2. On the beat from #1 to #2, we gained very nicely in each Saturday race by going centre-left, i.e. staying to the left of the rhumbline until we got a big enough starboard knock to be able to more or less lay #2.
3. The downwind legs from #2 to #4 once more reminded us of three important principles of small-lakes sailing:
       (a) the wind tends to funnel/increase going past a point such as Kentucky Point (west of mark 5 above) so it
            paid to shave that point fairly close but
       (b) rounding it was very risky due to nasty dead spots caused by the proximity of the windward shore. Instead
       (c) we sailed down with the puff away from the point - as part of that golden downwind rule: up in the lulls,
            down with the puffs. Doing this helped us significantly in each race on this leg.

After the three fairly gruelling races in cool, gusty winds, many sailors made it an early night to a much appreciated bed not too long after the usual delicious supper provided by the Clark Lake YC ladies. Some of us who stuck it out a little longer got to sample Larry Schmida's fine Korbel champagne with which we toasted to a long and very happy life together for Ed Montano and Shannon Devine (above) who were starting their honeymoon the way sailors should - with a fine regatta!!

 

A very few of us we rewarded for staying awake and at the club even longer when our scheduled band of Tom Spring (black shirt) and Steve Trosin once again highlighted our weekend with an hour or two of superb songs. Tom is a member of the club who isn't just a handsome face and fine guitar player, he also plays trumpet in the Jackson symphony orchestra. But on this night it was mostly guitars and a new favourite song to add to my collection: Ball and Chain which the lads informed me they were borrowing from Social Distortion.

Sunday morning brought bright but very cool sunshine (above) and, as forecast, lighter winds. Unfortunately, these winds were generally from the north and thus blowing across the not too ample width of Clark Lake. This forced PRO, Bruce Nowak, to do some creative course setting, the results of which he shared with us at the Sunday morning Competitors' Briefing.


While no course can be a masterpiece with a north wind blowing across Clark Lake, Bruce (above) made the best of a bad situation. Starting us in the SW corner of the lake and moving mark 1 to the east near the Eagle Point shore across the land from #6 (below), he cooked up a course of ...


... start-2-1-5-4-3-6-finish (above) that gave us four short beats: start-2, 1-5, 4-3 and 6-finish in race 4. This worked out as well as anything could be expected to, given the conditions. In order to complete our series by about 1 PM, Bruce wisely shortened that course to 5-4-3-6-finish in our finale. As expected with this wind direction, Clark Lake was littered with major, seemingly random shifts and tons dead spots. In these conditions, a superb crew like Shannon becomes even more valuable, given all the jib and boat heel trimming not to mention crisp tacks that were required. In addition, the following worked well for us:

1. Job 1 = stand in the boat from time to time, look for wind and go to it. Nothing else matters nearly as much in such light winds.
2. In such shifty conditions, I like starting at the "raft end" on starboard because that keeps me from getting pinned to the headed or otherwise "wrong" (e.g. sailing into dead air or weeds) tack by a starboard boat to windward and astern. Even though I got caught barging and was over early when I started there in the final race, we had clear air and freedom to tack after our re-start, and were soon able to choose our preferred course unimpeded.


Our race 4 start was the exception that proved the rule: Here the wind had shifted during the sequence such that it had become hard to cross the line on starboard. That did two things, provided the wind shift did not oscillate back overly soon: It gave the pin end boats the whole length of the line as an advantage over someone starting at the boat end, and made it hard for boats astern to pin you onto the headed tack. Starting at that pin (ball???) end worked very nicely for us (above right in 4162) in that race.
3. Other things being equal (such as wind pressure), we tried to stick to the lifted tack when possible, though on the final beat of race 4 we nearly lost Dave Nickels when I disobeyed the cardinal rule of covering one boat: stay between your opponent and the finish line. Shannon and I were on the starboard layline about 200 yards from the finish line with 2nd-place Dave Nickels about 100 yards to leeward and a few yards astern. Suddenly the wind backed about 90° from NW to NE and we both tacked without even moving the tiller. Now Dave was windward boat  and only a few smidgens astern - all because I had not made sure I had put our lead directly between Dave and the finish line. Lucky for us, we were still able to finish without having to tack or we would have lost to Dave.
4. As on the previous day, the free legs were a fine time to remember up in the lulls, down with the puffs.
5. For these two light-air races, both Neil and I by-passed one of the two sets of centre mainsheet purchases (see Neil photo below) in order to let the sail go out to a run with far less encouragement.

Wayfarers (6 entries): As expected, the top-seeded Marc Bennett and wife, Julie, out of East Lansing, MI, dominated the no-drop series with four firsts and a second. In the battle of Walled Lake, MI teams, Joe DeBrincat and son, Jeff, could not overcome a second-race DNF, even with a 4th-race victory, and were edged out by a single point by Tony Krauss who sailed with wife, Mary, as crew on Saturday, and Mark Sandstrom on the Sunday. These these three also earned Most Improved honours, having beaten the 4th seed by two places. Well done, Tony, Mary and Mark.
It was nostalgia time for USWA Commodore, Jim Heffernan, and his wife, Linda, of Chapel Hill, NC. Long-time Michiganders, the Heffernans decided to not only come back for Linda's high school class 50th reunion, but to also borrow the Lake Lansing SC-based USWA fleet boat and make two regattas (Clark Lake and the London, Ontario Pumpkin Regatta) part of their odyssey. Dick Stage, husband of Linda's classmate and reunion host, has recently acquired W1193, and teamed up with Jim on the Sunday as Jim completed his series in 4th place overall.

In what is becoming a tradition, Ann Arbor's Mike Austerberry and crew, Todd Pascoe, brought not just W2951 but also their young families to this lovely weekend for the 3rd straight time. Even though they again could not stay for the Sunday, it looked like they were cramming in enough fun for two days on their one day! Bridget Balint again brought W4098 from Bloomington, Indiana, and teamed up with Robert Mosher of East Lansing. Robert and Bridget picked up some useful pointers and seemed to be having a fine time!!

Rebels (9 entries): In the speedy and immaculate Rebel 4162 Last One, Mister Wayfarer, Uncle Al of Oakville, Ontario, teamed up with the lovely, local and very capable Rebel sailor, Shannon Shank. Al put Shannon's expertise to the best possible use as he and Shannon swept their series in convincing fashion. What kind of a weekend was it for Al and Shannon? In the final race, Al was an OCS after being caught barging, went back to re-start, tacked to get clear air, got a shift and was promptly in the lead. Ah, it's lovely when the Lord loves you!!  At mark 4 though, we developed doubts. A comfortable lead over all but Neil Robb evaporated and we found ourselves in 5th place before we escaped our own private doldrums. But veteran experience showed as we did not bang corners on the way to #3 and rounded #2 just behind Neil as we both passed single-handed Dave Nickels who was in irons at the mark after a bewildering array of shifts. On the run-reach to #6, we brought up puffs and passed Neil before holding on to complete our sweep. Thanks for being a lovely crew in every way, Shannon!

Clark Lake's Neil Robb was the unexpected beneficiary of Bruce Nowak's bum knee as Bruce found it too sore to permit racing but OK to be PRO in Neil's place. Despite Al's offer to return Neil's boat for Neil to sail, the latter insisted on sailing his son's R3923. He and Mark Ortiz lost series 3rd by only a point while holding off another tradition in the making, the Chicago "boys week-end away" by a mere point also. The "boys" in question, John Washburn and Phil Faulkner were poised in series 3rd going into the finale but their 6th-place finish in that race dropped them to 5th overall.
The other Chicago team, Wayne Rathbun with wife, Renee, recovered nicely from their last-place finish in race 1, scoring 4-3-5-4 in their remaining races to take series 6th. Following the Rathbuns was another local team, Woody Woodruff and Bill Locke. The amazing Woody continues to go strong at age 87 and surprisingly got his best result - a 4th - in the windiest weather of the series, race 1.
Finishing in an 8th-place points tie were the Clark Lake team of Brian Main and Mike Wolf who put in one their all too infrequent sailing appearances, and Fenton's spousal team of Jay and Pat Topping who continue to improve each time out.

Interlakes (7 boats): Three familiar names topped the Interlake standings. Veteran, Bob Bradley sailed three up with wife, Betsy, and an as yet unidentified 3rd team member, and had a very close series with another three-up family team, Tom, Tim and Scott Marion, before edging the Marions whose final-race charge fell short by one point. In series 3rd, it was more Bradleys, Bryan with brother, Jim, who placed every bit as well as the top two teams after their first-race 5th.
A points tie for series 4th between Greg Harrison with Elona VanGent and Ron Gall with Jim Davis was broken in favour of Greg and Ilona who finished their series on just the right note - with a first. 6th overall went to Mike McClinchie and Bill Smith ahead of veteran, Brook Smith with Sheri Hartsep. The latter were Saturday's #1 entertainers as they were trying to gybe around in hopes of leaving the U-shaped docking area off the club. A gust caught them and their bear-away manoeuvre only made it to straight downwind before it met the dock at full speed.


The recessed Interlake bow shape (Brook and Sheri in 1380 above) has probably rarely been as useful and appreciated as it must have been during this mishap. Instead of cutting through the dock and severely damaging the boat hull, 1380 just gracefully slid to a halt half-way across the dock! And me without my camera!! Rats!!

Buccaneers (5 registered): The Bucs packed things in after four races, all of which had been dominated by Ryan Flack and his wife, Jen. The runner-up spot went to our honeymooners, Ed Montano and Shannon Devine with their string of four 2nds. Representing the host club and placing 3-3-3-3 and 3rd overall were Larry Schmida with Scott Dowling (Tim's son). Sailing only Saturday's races and placing 4th in each were Wayne and Luke Waldrup, while Barry Frisbie and Craig Callis managed only a first-race DNF before calling it a day.

Snipe (3 boats): The Snipes also packed it in after four races by which time John McAllister and Tracy Hughes had nailed a convincing 4 firsts over Matt Heywood and Chris Bickley. Packing it in after sailing a pair of Saturday races and placing 3rd were Dexter and Lynn Harshbarger.