North Cape Yacht Club
July 25-26
Despite a discouraging weather forecast, I travelled to represent fleet 216 at the second annual North Cape Great Lakes Championship this past weekend.
I missed the Friday tune-up, which as I understand it was a great opportunity for personal coaching from Ernie Dieball.
“No crew is no excuse” — I sailed with a J29 crew from North Cape and a young Thistle sailor that stayed the weekend after the Highlander Nationals that just finished at North Cape earlier that same week. Ernie had extra crew from the NC junior program available as well. We were a good looking team, but about 5-10 boat lengths off the pace most of the weekend.
Saturday morning started wet and dreary and kind of crummy because somebody left the lights on inside the van, but the weekend got better quickly. We sailed six races in sunshine and breeze, three races in 12-18 on Saturday and another three races in 15-23 on Sunday. Some commented on the wave pattern on starboard, but they seemed small by Saginaw Bay standards (except the one time I really needed to lee-bow Sipel on the lay line). Surprisingly, there were no capsizes to entertain the local media, although I had a leg over the side and said something stronger than “ease” during a bad jibe near the finish line on Sunday. One boat retired on Sunday after shredding both chutes. Only seven boats racing, but we finished within a minute from first to last every race, on 4-leg W/L with beats that were roughly 1 mile long—typically excellent NC race committee work, if you don’t mind downwind finishes in breeze.
Heagy found a berth on a leaky Tartan 10, and dinner was burgers, beer and corn on the cob, so the regatta was inexpensive for me. Local sailors provided entertainment on Saturday, a retro 70’s group that played some decent Rolling Stones. This was the opening act for the reggae band that played across the channel at the Sand Bar later that evening. NC sailors closed down the bar, and still kicked my B on Sunday.
I caught a little grief for the condition of van as I was packing up, which besides 2 sets of wet Lightning sails and gear, also packed a sailboard and four sails, and a bicycle that went unused for the weekend.
Dieball, Sipel and Davis were the top three boats, which seems to confirm the great performance of the Dieball sails that we saw at the districts.
Thank you John McCree for this report