June 28, 2014 It's Lake Erie Interclub Time...
Nyanza is ready to defend last years overall win and we are pumped! Great crew with Captain Jim....JT McBrier, David "Lebron" McBrier, Bill (Stern Man) Lillis, Tim Mehl, Greg Eddins, and a new rock star addition Jeremy Lincoln fresh off a honeymoon and ready to use up some additional energy. Also we had Elliott Corrigan from Cleveland who had sailed in the winning Falcon Cup Year. Bob "Beans" Becker became our road man this year with a rotor cup problem. He did a great job. So we have a great crew.
Meanwhile Nyanza has had an engine issue which we thought was resolved..hell no...mororing out to the start at 5:15 in the bay the engine shut down. Still solenoid problems I am presuming. Oh well,
we take off down the bay , get out fast and are having a pretty good race until the wind shuts down.
We caught a ride with Dreamer and got towed 20 miles into Port Dover. So much for race one.
Boats actually made the time limit at 7PM so we ended up 19th DNF and 5th DNF in Class the first race.
.....well I called Bridge Marine and the owner spent 4 hours trying to fix the engine. we finally cut off the solenoid plunger so the engine would run. I am deeply appreciative of his efforts. His family had wanted to go tubeing? ........
The Bay Triangle was another great day, with wind and Nyanza had a great race. Out to Bluff Bar over to Tecumseh reef and into Dover. We took a 3rd overall and won our class.
Day three down to Port Colborne was an interesting race. Spinnakers, fluckey, we stayed inside going down the course but the boats off the rumb to the south did a little better fetching in closer as we approached Morgan Point where we finished. Nyanza took a 9th overall and a 1st in class.
Well.....we woke up at Colborne to heavy wind starting to build. Chuck started us off upwind 6 miles...set the mark more as a close hauled fetch...he did not get up wind far enough...JT listening to the radio got lats and lons and we made up a lot of time after slugging up wind and went right to the mark. Had a stupid Port and Starboard with Pegasus...some how people just don't want to give way on port! To my credit I did not sink him! Well turning the corner the wind is up to 20knots........go Nyanza.. time for the 90% cheater chute to Point Abino.....you got it ... watched Chris Wolford wipe out then everyone else......wiping out as puffs go to 30knots.......Not Nyanza
all was well for 10 minutes until the hydraulic cylinder on the back stay sprung a leak ...or so we thought. David put a line around the new head stay and cranked it down and off we went. We had a great race until Pat Huntley in his little rocketship weighing 4,000 lbs came planning by and we ran neck and neck to the finish with Bill Braun from Vermillion on "Horizon" without a chute.
Needless to say it was a thriller as we buried the bow back to the hatch and then exploded out on a wave going 12-13 knots. Lots of work but a real RUSH. We managed to take a 4th overall and another 1st in class.
Arriving in Abino Bay, Canada , one of my favorite spots I have ever been is always fun. Stayed this year at the BYC summer station and went over and partied at the BCC where we watched the World Junior Lightning Teams race from all over the world.
Day Five took us out to the Seneca Shoal Buoy across the lake and back. About 14 miles ..Still plenty of wind and pretty uneventful. Oh, until we punched a hole in the new number one. Spreader patches were not in the right place. Back to Doyle for a repair job.
It was another great series and Nyanza took 4th overall behind the big J's winner Sledge Hammer and Tom Lewin followed by Doug Oaks on Quixotic and some how the great Canadian sailor John Vallee and Ritual snuck into third by one point. As for class we had a tight series with Horizon but won the class with a 5DNF,1-1-1-2 total point 10. It was a great series for a 28,000 lb Hinckley 42SW.
LETS GO DOWN WIND SOME MORE!!!!!!! (See Pics) Captain Jim
