This year, the Graham Pilling Provincial Championship Regatta turned into a one-day event, as sailing on Saturday was preemptively cancelled due to a severe weather forecast. Fortunately, mother nature wasn't entirely uncooperative, and we were able to get in some good racing on the Sunday.
It was a chilly morning, and there had just been a small rain shower just before when most of the competitors arrived. We soon got busy rigging our boats and launching Charger. Sure enough the weather started to clear, the wind picked up. Randy and Martin headed out in Charger to set a course, and the sailors followed once they were more or less ready. We had musical accompaniment, courtesy of the native Pow-Wow being held in the Park just south of the boat launch area.
We had some quite nice winds when we started sailing out to the course, but as we got closer to the start line and the start sequence began, the wind became a lot flukier. The committee had set a triangle-sausage course with marks to starboard, but mother nature had did not cooperate with their plans: we managed to have more upwind legs than the race committee had intended. Sue and Steph demonstrated their mastery of light air, and finished the race with a large lead - over 15 minutes! Surprising rest of the pack finished very close in spite of the light winds - there was only a few boat lengths between second and fourth place.
Given the light winds, the race committee decided to pull in the marks to make a shorter course. Of course, they'd no sooner finished this than mother nature countered with a freshening breeze! As a result, the second race was much quicker than the first, but just as tricky as the wind was shifting. Sue and Steph took the lead at first.
However, by the end of the second race, Shelley managed to pull ahead and beat Sue and Steph across the line!
The committee realigned the course with the wind (as best they could) for the start of the third race, and we had another exciting race with a very close finish for second place - Marika edged Shelley out by Just a few inches.
We had time for one more race (with no more course changes). Steve and Wyatt had a great start, but it wasn't enough to keep Sue and Steph from passing, so they had to settle for a second place finish.
It was time to head for shore, put our boats away, and announce the results!
Randy announced the results, while Martin took photos.
| Place | Sail No. | Crew | Race 1 | Race 2 | Race 3 | Race 4 | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 36476 | Sue Pilling Steph Romaniuk |
1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 2 | 51151 | Marika Beaumont Kaiden Beaumont |
3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 12 |
| 3 | 36398 | Shelley Beatty | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 13 |
| 4 | 53050 | Stephen Steel Wyatt Beaumont |
5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 15 |
| 5 | 16562 | Heather Pugh Tayja Beaumont |
4 | 5 | 5 | DNS | 20 |
Note: Those sailing single-handed were assessed a penalty of 1 point per race.
Sue Pilling, ably helped by Steph, maintained the family tradition of ensuring that the Pilling name shows up on the trophy, winning all but one of the races. The Beaumont family is clearly working on sailing dynasty, with a second place finish from Marika and Kaiden, and Wyatt and Tayja crewing on other boats. Shelley will no doubt be considering how soon she can train Ryan to crew effectively in order to eliminate the dreaded single-hand penalty!
Many thanks to Martin Walker and Randy Beaumont for volunteering as race committee.
Thanks to all those who provided photos:
© 2014 Ontario Mirror Dinghy Association