Party Friday, September 3

Next week is the long weekend, and as part of Gary Hall's celebration of 30 years at Northern Harbour, Gary is hosting a full on dance and party Friday, September 3, with a live band, Highway 59. www.highway59.ca The band features fellow boater Dave Christianson (AFTICA) on bass, and Juno-nominated Gary Golden on keyboards, guitar and vocals. BYOB with band to start playing around 8:30pm, or earlier if everybody is ready to dance. I think our Yacht Club is beginning to develop a dancing problem with all of the bands this year...

LOWISA 45 results
Kenora Sports
Posted By By Emily Poschner
Aug 11, 2010


For the 45th year the annual Lake of the Woods International Sailing Association regatta sailed smoothly through Lake of the Woods waters for five days of racing and cruising.

This year the regatta shrank from a week-long tournament to five straight days of racing, due to competitors travelling from far distances.


"It usually runs from Sunday to Saturday but this year it just went from Monday to Friday with no day off in the middle," explained vice commodore Rob Eby.

For the most part Eby says they had good wind and sailing conditions Aug. 2-6. Problems arose halfway through the week when a storm brought in high winds on the lake, forcing some boats to return to shore and others to help out stranded vessels.

"Wednesday we had a bad storm blow through with 50 knots of wind and had to abandon the races," says Eby.

Boat numbers were up to 47, with 32 racing and 15 cruising during the regatta. Eby says this number is up about 15 boats from last year. He adds that next year they are really going to be promoting the cruise week that happens the week prior to LOWISA, hoping to get people out for both weeks of sailing.

LOWISA 2010 division winners were: Division 1- Bob Web, Division 2- Jim Fogg/Fred Finlayson, Division 3- Pat Kabris, Division 4- John Sexton, Three Day Race Series- Jim Richardson. This year the Challenge Cup between Canada and the U.S. was won by the United States. Last Chance Race Molson Trophy went to Blair Magnusa and LOWISA's Arctic Glacier Youth Regatta winner was Adam Clark.

Many other awards were given out including racing trophies and several spirit awards. Racing awards were handed out to exceptional Canadian and American boats and boats of different hulls: Province of Manitoba Cup (Canadian boat with lowest total corrected time) - Bob Webb, Minnesota Governor's Cup (American boat with lowest total corrected time) - Pat Kabris, Bergman International Multi-Hull Challenge Trophy- John Sexton, The Hank and Ginny Henderson Cup - Pat Kabris, The Jack Cully Trophy - Pat Kabris, The Evergreene Cup - John Sexton, The Earl Nelson Cup - John Sexton.

Race Report - Which Bay? Pursuit

Eight boats ventured out in what was forecasted to be "light and variable" winds Saturday for the "Which Bay? Pursuit". The race was 15 miles in length (round Copper, round Survey, past Strawberry, round Railroad and down Andrew Bay). The race featured a few surprises. First was the second appearance of Invictus in a club race. They had a great time and plan on becoming more active in the racing scene. The second was the reemergence of the Wells brothers on Steve Wells' newly acquired Goliath (the former J29 Ice Tea).

The wind was pretty steady between 5-10 kts from the north- west. Chute run down to copper, short beat up to survey then the kites went back up and most boats carried them for the remaining 10 miles to the finish. It’s not that often you get to carry a chute for over 10 miles on LOTW. This gave the boats lots of time to focus/experiment on chute trim and do some speed testing with nearby boats.

Rounding survey, Raven, Goliath and Grand Cru were in the lead and within spitting distance of each other. All three met back up passing through Strawberry and they again went their divergent ways. All three met up once again (no more than a boat length between them) rounding Railroad for the third and final "restart". The remainder of the race was down wind on port for the 5 mile stretch down Andrew Bay. At times the chute was a tight carry and a few boats dropped to get higher up the course before resetting. It was a great sail and beautiful day. Kudos to Stewart Anderson who not only overcame some time consuming boat issues in order to get to the start line, he also single-handed the race while flying the chute.

Finishing order:
1) Grand Cru (Beneteau 36.7) 3:25
2) Goliath (J29) 3:28
3) Raven (Abbott 33) 3:35
4) Borderline (C&C 30 MkI) 3:45
5) Sorcerer (C&C 34) 3:52
6) Auberg (C&C 33) 4:54 (towing dinghy)
7) Rapture (C&C 32) (non spin)
8) Invictus (Aloha 30) (non spin)

Thanks to all who came out.

Sailing in Squamish

Reminds me of the saying regarding flying the Spinnaker to Warroad "the crew puts it up... and God takes it down..."