| the Bayview YC
One-Design Regatta Detroit River, Michigan * May 30-31, 2015 Regatta report by Uncle Al |
|
Veteran
Consistency
Wins Out at Bayview
Despite
unhelpful
weather, the 4th annual Bayview YC One-Design Regatta
was once more a
great success, a fine reward for the immense amounts
of time and effort
put in by Regatta Chair, Keith Ziegler, and his many
committees. The
forecast weekend weather was not promising. Saturday
was expected to be
our best racing bet with warm south winds of 10 to 15
knots expected
until about mid-afternoon when unsettled weather
including
thundersqualls were poised to roll through the area. A very capable fleet of
9 Wayfarers shared Circle D on the Detroit River in
front of the club
with Ultimate 20s and Buccaneers and our excellent RC
gave us two fine
races in short order. Alas, as we were about to to
begin our third
Saturday race, the RC made three sound signals and
raised N over A,
abandoning all further racing that day because a nasty
squall was
bearing down on us. Helpful news for Uncle Al who had
a wedding to
attend at 4 PM at the Clark Lake YC near Jackson, MI,
where one of Al's
favourite crews, Shannon Shank, was tying the knot
with future doctor,
Josh Donkin. A wet but very uplifting wedding it was,
too!
 Meet Mr. and Mrs. Josh Donkin  You may remember Shannon and Josh from the 2012 Warm Water where Shannon sailed with Uncle Al and ...  ... after the racing, we introduced Josh (and Tiberius) to the beauties of sailing. Unfortunately, the miserable cold, wet and windy weather forecast for the Sunday came in as advertised and Sunday's races also had to be canned. In Wayfarers, there was only one consistent team near the top, and that was Al Schonborn and Roger Shepherd who won the series with a pair of second-place finishes, a performance that also saw them declared D Circle overall champions. Roger and Raewyn had to leave early and Roger is thus missing from the photo below.  Only two points separated the next four boats. Unluckiest of the lot were Marc and Julie Bennett (below) who fell fom 3rd to 5th when five boats finished in a neary dead heat in the downwind finish of race 1. The Bennetts went on comfortably win race 2 and would have won the series on the tie-breaker had they not lost their first-race 3rd at the last second by a matter of inches.  Sailing Tony's brand-new W11044, Tony Krauss (below left) and Doug McCreedy got off on the right foot with a very solid win in race 1. But race 2 saw them fall to 6th and they ended up in series 3rd, a point behind the Bennetts. Having been seeded 7th in the 9-boat fleet, Team Krauss were easily Most Improved Wayfarer having beaten their expectations by four places.  Nick Seraphinoff of the host club and crew Chip Cunningham ended in a points tie for 4th overall with Sue Pilling and Steph Romaniuk, only a point back of Tony. With their first-race 3rd, Heckle and Jeckle took the tie-breaker over Sue and Steph who counted 4-4. Making it three wooden classics in the top five were TS&CC's Kit Wallace and Jeff Hocking who rebounded from a DFL in race 1 to nail a very fine 3rd in the 2nd race. Not much of a series for the 3rd-seeded David and Anne Pugh of Oakville who sailed Reckless Abandon to 6-8 finishes and beat fellow Oakville sailors, Rob and Daniel Wierdsma (7-7) on a tie-breaker. 7-7 was likely not the kind of consistency the Wierdsmas were after. All the way in from Idaho to visit her W8705 that is living with Nick, was Sarah Pedersen. Her crew was to be Nikos Damaskinos who unfortunately had to attend his daughter's morning grad and returned just in time to see further racing cancelled. This was kind of weather that tested the shore capabilities of our hosts, and they rose very well to the challenge. And not to forget Nick and Mary Seraphinoff who hosted a fine Friday-night BBQ which featured a New Orleans-type jazz band that was a great hit with young and old alike.   Unlike the windward leg, the run lasted an enjoyably long time in the 10 to 12 knots of breeze with occasional gusts near 20. As far as I could tell, no area of the river was to be preferred. Instead, our success, such as it was, came from looking for wind streaks and trying to stay in them. Thanks and a suggestion: From: Keith Ziegler Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 2:53 PM To: uncle-al3854@cogeco.ca Subject: Bayview One Design Regatta thank you! Wayfarer Sailors, I would like to thank all of you for making the trip to Bayview for the fourth annual Bayview One Design Regatta. We didn't get as much racing as we all would of liked, but by that time it was out of my control. This was the first time in the four years of the regatta that we have lost a day of racing in the river due to weather, so I hope this will not deter you from returning in the future as I have gotten to know alot of you and you all are a great group of sailors which is the reason why we hold this event in the first place. As we say at the view "sailing, it's what we are , it's what we do". Hope to see you next year! Keith Ziegler 2015 Bayview One design Regatta Chair From: Al Schonborn [mailto:uncle-al3854@cogeco.ca] Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 5:45 PM Subject: river racing idea? Thanks for all the great work you and your committees did for us. Hope to see you on the water some more this year. Just doing the W report on the BOD and it occurs to me that perhaps it might have been better racing if the RC had moved the windward mark perhaps 20 degrees to the right and thus made the time spent on each tack of the relatively short beat more even? Is that ever done? Of course that would make the run a mostly one-tack reach, so I guess one cannot win. Then again, we could have had a longer offset leg to where the windward mark was actually place, i.e. an offset mark that was straight upwind of the gate? That would work. Best regards, Uncle Al W3854 |