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This year’s event was counted as part of the traveler’s series as single score which was only scored on Saturday for this purpose. There were a total of 14 boats registered including 6 boats from visiting clubs. The weather was in the mid-50’s with it feeling more like late October than the middle of September. It was nice to see once again former club member and Interlake racer Dick Barker as he dutifully came back as PRO for this annual event even in the face of uncooperative lake winds (imagine that on Portage Lake!). The first race of the day proved to be the most challenging as the wind went from the West, to the North back to the Southwest and then back to the North (did you follow that? – the race committee sure had a hard time doing so). The sailor who seemed to understand what it was doing more than any others was Bob Bradley #1332 as he masterfully took all the right shifts and tacked about half as much as everyone else. He did so well and made it look so easy that he had the committee questioning mark placement the whole race. Race two went smoothly while race three had its small controversy. It appeared to be a clear victory for Tyler & Felicia Cathey #1341 as they crossed in first place. A short time later, coming across the line with their red flag a flying was Andy Nixon and Kirsten Petro #1318. They were protesting #1341 at the start for having to duck them to prevent a collision under the rules of racing #10 and #14. They hailed protest, but apparently #1341 didn’t hear the hail. After sitting down with local and unbiased arbitrator Clark Chapin, it was agreed that Tyler would take a 50% scoring penalty to resolve the penalty. This opened the door the winner or race #1, Bob bradley to get in the top three for the event. Day 2’s highlight was race #2. First Ela Sliwerska was given the opportunity to take the tiller from Kevin Bracey in #1248 for her very first time skippering an Interlake (to the authors fear that drinking the Interlake cool aid may have her thinking about hard chines and not rounded bottoms). In only her 10th week of skippering and never in the Sweisguth designed boat, she stayed with pack around the gybe and downwind marks after making up ground from the windward mark. She held in tight and ended up getting a 6th and all the while beating out the and first day regatta champ Bill O’Donnel and the always animated Tyler on #1341 (who prior to the race was chuckling quite hard when he saw her behind the tiller). This race also had the incredible journey of first year sailors Greg Harrison and Elona Van Gent #1168 who on leg one went so far right that we figure the only possible reason for doing so was because they must have seen a floating object with a lot of cash. When the wind died, they were so far behind that it looked as though they would finish a week from Sunday. It was at this point they appeared to have thrown a switch in their boat and turned on the wind because they caught a breeze and over the course of the next three legs went from off the map into third place. They ended up with a very respectable 5th and look to be on their way up the ladder in the fleet. Congratulations to PYC skipper and crew Bill O’Donnel and Brian Hawkins for pulling out this year’s event on day 1 and Clark Chapin and Barb Johnson for winning the event over the two day period. A big thanks to Steve Schewe who could not participate due to an eye surgery but for his contribution of pictures for the slide show. Located
in Pinckney, Michigan12 miles northwest of Ann Arbor: Maps
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