Windsor Canadian Club Long Distance Race

The start was at Canadian mark "CC" with the wind at about northeast about 10-12 knots. The pin side was heavily favored and there were 3 other J120's starting. I was a little late getting to the line and Hot Ticket was able to get to the pin to windward to us and take the lead.  The leg was a 2.5 mile port fetch so we had to follow her to mark AA. The next let was a 7.3 mile beat and we were able to round behind Ticket. The next 14.1 mile leg was a close reach at about 45 degrees apparent. About 3 miles down in the leg we put up our code 0 because of a little bit of a lift. We managed to stay to windward of Flying Irish and had decent boat speed. We caught up to HT but she tried to come up to us. We were still able to roll her. Unfortunately Flying Irish got a little ahead of us. About a mile before the Thames River mark we put up our .6 oz chute. We rounded right behind Irish, the new leader, but the lazy sheet was not released and we almost got rolled by HT it was such a bad jibe. Later on the next 20.3 mile leg the wind picked up and we got rolled by Jayhawker because they were using their reaching chute. We changed to our .75 but could not make up the difference to the finish. Although we placed 3rd we did pretty well with the entire fleet because we finished with some large boats.

Result: 3rd out of 4 J120's

Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/pdfs/WYC%20Canadian%20Club%20Race%20Results.pdf

Windsor Wednesday Race

This was a starboard tack to windward start, gust to 22 knots out of the NW with light rain showers, course C. The pin side was favored so my plan was to start there from the middle of line. When I did the initial approach I realized that we would not make the pin so 45 seconds before the gun I had to tack to port to get up the line and then get back on starboard. This unfortunately put us behind by 20 seconds and under the other boats so when we got to the windward pin we were 5th with Flying Irish on the outside. Hot Ticket left us a hole the size of a house so I was able to sneak into the inside of the mark to pass her. The next leg was a port jibe almost dead downwind. We put up the .6 oz chute so we were able to go much lower than most of the other J120s. When jibing both Flying Irish and Jayhawker blew apart their spinnakers. It was enough to allow us to jibe in front of Jayhawker. At the top of the leg Night Moves jibed to starboard and since we had an overlap we had to do the same. We had only 6 people so the jibe actually went well. With this move Night Moves was able to get the shorter distance to the mark. Night Moves tacked at the windward mark and we did the same behind them. The next two legs were fetches so although we could gain a little distance due to fast reactions of trim to gusts by the crew, we were also able to hold off the competition behind us. The last leg in the river after DP5 was a number of tacks to the finish. Because of our finish we were able to gain another 2 points up on Jayhawker in the standings for a solid first place for the spring season.

Result: 3rd out of 6 J120's
Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/regatta2005/WYC%202005%20Spring%20Race%205.pdf

Irked by IRC

US Sailing just posted the IRC handicap numbers for most of the J120s participating in the Bayview Mackinaw. It was our hope that the numbers would be reasonably close but there is a 34 minute differential over 48 hours between Merlin and Night Moves. What makes it even worst is that Merlin is hull #98 and Night Moves is hull #99. Hank Mistele is pissed and I dont blame him. After 7 years of racing one design we have found absolutely no difference in boat speed with these boats. Luiz Kahl has refused to make our ratings the same so here we are stuck with this problem. The J120 owners are in this class because we wanted to race boat for boat. There has to be a better way!

Windsor Wednesday Race

This was course D starting at a broad reach on port. The first leg was only about a half mile but I noticed that the starting line was cocked severely to the pin side. The wind was only 10 knots when we came out but at the starting gun it go up to 18 - 20 true. We did not pull out our headsail until 2 minutes before the start gun because I was more interested in placing us to line at the pin at the gun. Jayhawker started a little right to us but a little behind so we were able to gas him after the start in spite of him trying to force us up to the other boats. That was enough to allow us to round the mark first. The next leg was also a nearly 2 mile broad reach were we were able to hold off the rest of the fleet without putting up our spinnaker. Some of the other boats had put up their spinnakers and were broaching all over the place. The next leg was a beat and I decided to split the difference between the two boats behind us. Unfortunately Jayhawk managed to round the next mark on starboard so I had to let him in. Because their trimmers were not ready they went past the mark causing more problems for us. When we went on the next reaching leg I decided to go to a #3 sail because of the appearance of thunder storms in front of us. I did not know how much wind was in them and was worried about blowing out the main by luffing it. The bare headed change caused us to lose a place to Merlin and we were not able to make it up in the rest of the race. Unfortunately the wind speed did drop after the sail change so it just hurt our chances.

Result: 3rd out of 6 J120's

Detroit Noods Day 3

Today was a disappointment as well as a day of triumph. We started the day with a tie with Hot Ticket for 3rd place at 20 points with Merlin and Capers tied for first at 15 points. We had a relatively good start being maybe 8 feet off the line a little bit ahead of most of the fleet. We stayed left early and then tacked under 5 boats on the layline. Unfortunately since we were not ahead enough we got rolled so we rounded the top mark in 4th right behind HT. We managed to round the lower mark in 3rd with HT though. HT did beat us to the top mark again but stayed on the left side on the downwind leg to get an inside overlap. Bob D. went to the starboard side of the boat to point out to HT that we did have an inside overlap. We came out gassing HT to windward where we went out to the layline and HT tacked for clear air. We did overstand the layline so even though we came in hot it gave HT maybe a quarter boat length to gas us from leward to win the race by half a boat length with HT finishing 1st and Carinthia 2nd. The HT people sailed a great regatta and they beat us on the course instead of the room. The crew work today was nearly flawless and I am very proud of them. If not for either of the mark touches yesterday we could of carried the whole regatta. Damm!

Result:
1 Merlin Rob Amsler 19.00 1 1 4 1 4 4 4
2 Hot Ticket Bob Kirkman 21.00 5 7 3 2 1 2 1
3 Capers Don Hudak 21.00 3 3 1 3 2 3 6
4 Carinthia Kern 22.00 2 2 2 6 7 1 2
5 Night Moves Mistele 34.00 6 4 7 4 3 5 5
6 JHawker Sandlin 44.00 8 5 8% 7 6 7 3
7 Ihnsanity Ihnen 45.00 4 6 6 8 8 6 7
8 Flyin' Irish Bresser 49.00 7 8 8 5 5 8 8

Detroit Noods Day 1

The new Doyle D4 mainsail panels are still in New Zealand so we will be going with the old UK carbon main. If we do not get high winds we should be able to squeak by. Today started with winds at about 11 to 12 knots. We had 8 J120s including Capers from Lake Erie. We felt good about our upwind speed. We were able to at least pace with Merlin and in many cases do well against other boats. In the second race we did have port starboard incident with Hot Ticket and earlier a inside overlap disagreement at the leward mark. Fortunately we both decided to not take it to the room. In the last race we were leading at the last windward mark and decided to cover Merlin since they were leading the series. We managed to hold them and Hot Ticket at the finish but Capers did beat us by a boat length at the finish to take second. We are at present tied for first with Merlin with Capers only one point behind us. Most of the downwind legs we felt we were able to point lower and a little faster than capers. Thank goodness they had a North spinnaker. We had experienced the speed difference with other boats with North spinnakers down south so it did make the difference. We had problems with our furler but have fixed it at the dock.

Boat Name Skipper Sail     Dv Pts  1  2  3
Merlin         Amsler 15005 6.00      1 1 4 
Carinthia      Kern    25497 6.00      2 2 2 
Capers        Hudak 5455 7.00          3 3 1 
Ihnsanity      Ihnen   25329 16.00     4 6 6 
Hot Ticket Kirkman 25328 16.00    6 7 3 
Night Moves Mistele 25999 16.00   5 4 7
JHawker      Sandlin 50666  21.00   8 5 8 
Flyin' Irish     Bresser  25363 23.00  7 8 8

Detroit Noods Day 1

The new Doyle D4 mainsail panels are still in New Zealand so we will be going with the old UK carbon main. If we do not get high winds we should be able to squeak by. Today started with winds at about 11 to 12 knots. We had 8 J120s including Capers from Lake Erie. We felt good about our upwind speed. We were able to at least pace with Merlin and in many cases do well against other boats. In the second race we did have port starboard incident with Hot Ticket and earlier a inside overlap disagreement at the leward mark. Fortunately we both decided to not take it to the room. In the last race we were leading at the last windward mark and decided to cover Merlin since they were leading the series. We managed to hold them and Hot Ticket at the finish but Capers did beat us by a boat length at the finish to take second. We are at present tied for first with Merlin with Capers only one point behind us. Most of the downwind legs we felt we were able to point lower and a little faster than capers. Thank goodness they had a North spinnaker. We had experienced the speed difference with other boats with North spinnakers down south so it did make the difference. We had problems with our furler but have fixed it at the dock.

Boat Name Skipper Sail     Dv Pts  1  2  3
Merlin         Amsler 15005 6.00      1 1 4 
Carinthia      Kern    25497 6.00      2 2 2 
Capers        Hudak 5455 7.00          3 3 1 
Ihnsanity      Ihnen   25329 16.00     4 6 6 
Hot Ticket Kirkman 25328 16.00    6 7 3 
Night Moves Mistele 25999 16.00   5 4 7
JHawker      Sandlin 50666  21.00   8 5 8% 
Flyin' Irish     Bresser  25363 23.00  7 8 8

Windsor Wednesday Race

This was the same course B as last week with maybe 5 knots of air. I thought the left side of the course the boats were getting lifted on a port weather tack so I chose to start on starboard on the pin end of the line. I starboard tacked to the left of Jayhawker before the start. Right at the pin end Hot Ticket came across on port. Needles to say I had to duck HT (he was definitely fouling us) and then punch up to clear the pin. As we continued on I saw that we had clear air and tacked on port. Fortunately for us we continued up the leg with most of the J120's tacking behind us. I saw there was a increase of wind velocity ahead of us so I overstood a little to reach it and we came into the mark at 6.5 knots with Jayhawker. We decided to to do a bear away spinnaker set while Jayhawker did a jibe set. We did one jibe to the mark while Jayhawker gibed behind us and kept going. This gave us an inside at the next mark. So we were able to stay ahead by a few boat lengths. At DP8 we had difficulty taking the spinnaker down and Jayhawker got inside of us at the mark. The next upwind leg was only 3/4 mile and Jayhawker rounded first. Again Jayhawker jibe set the spinnaker and we did a bear away set. At the next mark we jibed clear ahead of Jayhawker but Jayhawker got an hourglass and we managed a 10 to 15 boat length lead to DP7. The rest of the way we held them off and beat them by at least 15 seconds.

Result: 1st out of 6 boats. Link:http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/regatta2005/WYC%202005%20Spring%20Race%203.pdf

Detroit Yacht Club Regatta

What a day! This was starboard broad reach start. We watched a number of earlier starts and found the committee boat side was highly favored. We simply went down to the first boat coming down on starboard tacked and started at the committee boat right at the gun. Nancy thought we were right on the line. Unfortunately I did allow Ihnsanity get on the windward side of us and she managed to round the first mark in front of us. Hot Ticket on the next windward leg did a good job of catching up to us but with Ihnsanity eventually tacked away where we went in to the Canadian shore on a lift. We got enough of a lead on them to hold off HT, Ihnsanity and Night Moves in the river. By this time the velocity picked up to about 17 knots but we seemed to have good upwind speed and the tacks by the crew were pretty fast.

Result: 1st out of 6 boats. Link: http://www.drya.org/race2005/Results/dyc.htm

postscript--We also received at the DYC regatta party a first place flag for the regatta last summer. We got a flag and a picture of the trophy we supposedly had our name on. That is the first time I have got an picture and not allowed to see the trophy. Its been years since I belonged to DYC and they have not changed much. The program called for the awards at 4 pm and they did not get given out until 5:30 so even Rodney left. I also got chewed out by the cigar counter girl for wearing a hat in the hallway.

Detroit Yacht Club Regatta

This was starboard windward start with the pin end favored with 6 knots of air. There were only 3 boats in this race. Merlin had Wally Cross on the boat and by staying to the left of them I would be able to take the pin end. Unfortunately I later found out that they had a new #1 and mainsail. Although we started to weather we were not able to point up with them and we simple had to go to leeward and a little behind. We rounded the next mark in 2nd just ahead of J. Since the apparent wind was at 85 degrees I decided to us the .75 which initially fast. towards the end of the leg it was definately downwind conditions.At the gybe point we went with the .6 with a gybe peel. I made the decision to go on the canadian shore because I felt the wind was stronger. Merlin covered us but later gybed up to Jwalker on the far right. I decided to cut the rear range light close because I thought that side would be stronger pressure. It turned out that the american side had more air where Merlin and J got more pressure to finish in front of us.

Usually the left strategy works for these conditions but they do not call it Lake St. Stupid for nothing.

Result : 3rd out of 3

Link: http://www.drya.org/race2006/Results/dyc.htm

Windsor Wednesday Race

The first leg a near fetch. The port side of the line was heavily favored. I was thinking that tacking on to starboard would give us a slow start so I tried squeezing in on port on the pin side. The net result was a bad start taking gas from Hot Ticket and Jayhawker. In order to get better air we made a short starboard tack. Fortunately by doing this we got more pressure and a slight lift to help us round the first mark in 3rd place. Also for some reason Hot Ticket tacked behind us and ended up overstanding the leg. The next downwind leg Merlin and Jayhawker went far right and we tried to go underneath both of them. Fortunately at the next mark Merlin gybed where we and Jayhawker kept going down towards the river. The current gave us enough of a boost to enable us to pass Merlin. The rest of the race we tried to pass Jayhawker to no avail. We managed to finish however only 6 seconds behind.

Result: 2nd out of 5 boats. Link:http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/regatta2005/WYC%202005%20Spring%20Race%202.pdf

Great Lakes Regatta

Race cancelled due to no wind but we did win the J120 on the water party.

Windsor Wednesday Race

For first time out I felt we sailed a good race. we were off the line right on time and upwind speed seemed good.
The only major mistake that I made was to do a jibe set at the first mark. This slowed us down enough where Hot Ticket was able to catch up. Mike got to try out as foredeck and although it was a learning experience he did a pretty good job.

Result: 2nd out of 6 boats. Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/regatta2005/WYC%202005%20Spring%20Race%201.pdf

Lake St. Clair Spring Double Handed Race

Mike agreed to do this regatta with me. Although put into a PHRF class Merlin with Rob Amsler and Pete did participate in the same class. We took the pin side of the line and apparently Rob had gotten a line wrapped around the prop shaft so he missed the count for the gun. Merlin immediately put up their small spinnaker on a 55 degree reach. We attempted to put up our large spinnaker with the sock on it put had problems with the top of it. Fortunately we were able to continue with our geneoa and because the mark was much closer to the shore than the location given in the program we managed to squeeze in ahead of Merlin. Following the mark we popped our small spinnaker and managed to stretch our lead over Merlin. The following mark R18 in the channel we rounded with a barge and were not able to go over to the Crescent Yacht Club until later in the leg. Merlin attempted to stay in the channel for the current even later but fell further behind. Result: 1st out of 8 boats.

Charleston Race Week

This regatta because most of the crew was out of vacation time I put together a nearly all Bayview crew. This included Karl Kuspa, Jay Schmidt, Merlin owner Rob Amsler, Chuck Stormes, Bob Declerq, and near Bayview members Kathy Stevens, Ken Schram and Nancy Caldwell. The first day was about 12 to 14 knots. We took a 3rd the first race but because we overstood the windward mark we took 9th in the 2nd race. Undeterred Bob as tactician was determined to go up the left side of the course and took two 4ths. This was one the strangest race start days I have experienced. The race committee announced the boats on the radio over early 1 minute before the start. We got called over early because we were on the pin side and they could not see us go back down before the gun so we had to restart. The second day we noticed they had a RC boat on the pin side to help with the over early calls. The DSQ was really was incident that should of never happened. Before the start we tacked inside the J35 and were both on starboard and the J35 to leward. For some reason unexplained to us from astern he decided to head up way too fast and ram our stern pulpit. He threw the flag and then claimed we did not stay clear. This guy rounded up so fast that the scrape on the stern pulpit was at a 45 degree angle forward. He therefore lied when he got in the room about us staying clear and on the way out asked one of the judges, his uncle about the coming family reunion. We got tossed and the J35 did not. Without the throwout we would of taken second. This guy took almost all lasts in the regatta and his only thing he managed to do is get one of the lead boats tossed. Needless to say we did appeal it to US Sailing and we have not yet heard the result yet. The last day was pretty good where we tied for first with K2 because of his 3 seconds a mile PHRF handicap. We sailed a good regatta and it certainly added to my learning experience. We had a boat full of pretty good sailors and yet we managed to get along well. Jeff Johnstone was down sailing one of the J109's and we managed to stuff him at the start of the last race. Maybe he should of been promoting the J120's instead!

Results:
PHRF B 9 Discards: 1
Boat Name Class Sail # Bow # Helm Course State PHRF R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 Nett Rank Fleet
K2 J120 120 25 Gonzales 1 VT 54 6.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 7.0 3.0 1.5 4.0 5.0 24.5 2
Carinthia J120 25497 24 Kern 1 MI 51 3.0 9.0 4.0 4.0 DSQ 2.0 1.5 2.0 3.0 28.5 3
Cash Flow Hadley 40 83015 23 Griffin 1 NC 48 2.0 1.0 8.0 5.0 2.0 8.0 6.0 5.0 1.0 30.0 4
Pamlico Andrews 38 767 1 Muller 1 MD 69 5.0 4.0 7.0 7.0 1.0 1.0 8.0 3.0 4.0 32.0 5
Teamwork J120 51334 40 Team 1 NC 54 7.0 3.0 5.0 1.0 4.0 5.0 9.0 1.0 9.0 35.0 6
Ecclesiastes J109 37 26 Thompson 1 CO 69 1.0 5.0 3.0 8.0 3.0 7.0 5.0 8.0 6.0 38.0 7
evonne.com/2 J109 SD 142 29 Yonover 1 IL 75 9.0 8.0 2.0 3.0 5.0 4.0 7.0 7.0 7.0 43.0 8
Hoodoo J109 126 43 Campeau 1 SC 69 4.0 6.5 6.0 9.0 6.0 9.0 3.0 9.0 2.0 45.5 9
Arrow J35 32864 28 Schwenzfeier 1 SC 72 8.0 6.5 DNC 6.0 8.0 6.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 52.5
We brought Commodore Bayer's gas engine blender on the second day for the "hummer party". Invited guest were the other crews of the J120's. It made a lot of noise so even Tim Allen would of been proud.

Miami SORC

This series was very close to South Beach. Very easy to get in trouble for some of the guys. The first day we were a little short of crew so naturally the wind was around 18-19 knots. We started with a #3 but it did not do well with the standings. The second day we improved a great deal and did well the third day.

Going down wind with east coast J44 Goldbrick

Getting ready for start

 
  
Lots of Silver

The Great One

There used to be a small general hardware in Detroit near the Belle Isle Bridge. The owner named Thomas was a tinsmith who fashioned dorade vents for the passing freighters. In the 50's a couple of part timers from Detroit Edison worked there. One of them dabbled in small boats called Lightning’s at Bayview Yacht Club. Soon the owners had passed and the wife of the one remaining owner asked the boys if they would like to buy the store. They agreed and slowly the store’s focus shifted to sailing.

These were the hay days. The big three were churning out cars and profits for themselves and everyone associated with the industry. Cash was flowing and leisure time for most was readily available. Sailing was booming in Detroit in the 60' and 70's and the builders hadn't figured out that they could make more money outfitting the boats. The hulls came bare and everything was needed from winches to interiors. With the orders scribbled on his hand and the cash register in his pocket, Warren Jones would oversee the mayhem as customers would tear open the shipments, grab their orders, and write their own invoices. Don Fires would help them with their rigging needs. The little store on Lafayette and Townsend soon became cramped and the basement was used to store the line with stopper knots in the floor to keep it from slipping through.

After the riots, the owner’s wives would not make the trek to Detroit so they decided to move to Grosse Pointe near Lake Saint Clair. The store expanded to 4000 square feet in 1969 and the racing scene boomed with CCA and IOR boats arriving yearly. Warren and Don rode the wave running things with the same loose fashion of the original. Boxes piled in the aisles with customers finding their way through the maze to discover what they were after plus a few things more. This was an "experience", not a shopping trip. If the items could not be found, the orders of "blue aisle, down two racks, on your right, waist high, you'll find it" were barked out by Warren. Every item in this vast space filled to the gills was in Warren's head, simply amazing.

During this period in 1972 Warren and his brother Burt built a custom 42’ racing boat at Tartan Marine. Rumor has it this boat never was on the production line and Charlie Britton at Tartan received a cash payment and the boat “disappeared.” A spar and sails were bought from a Canada’s Cup contender and the turbo Tartan 42 “The Great Whisper” was born. The boat traveled to the SORC that winter and returned to the great lakes to be campaigned for 30 years. The boat and the brothers that sailed her are legends. Their booming voices yelling at each other could be heard like thunder across the lake. Through all the yelling they managed to win a few races. The crew list compiled by the “Whisper” over the years is staggering. The boat has sailed over 1000 races and won local, DRYA, Mills and Mackinac championships. The half hull hangs proudly in the Bayview bar and all of her crew consider themselves lucky to have been able to sail with Warren and Burt on a sailing legend.

Through the 80's Thomas Hardware enjoyed the explosion of IOR in Detroit and now the even more complicated racing machines needed specialized attention. The focus of the store switched to more performance based products. Racing in Detroit was a scene with 300 keel boats out on a Saturday afternoon. As the 90's approached a storm cloud was on the horizon.

The cost of the sport and ever increasing demands on people’s time had started to erode participation. The low lake levels didn't help either. The sport was in a decline, but there was still a constant. Seventy hours a week Warren could be found at the store. If that wasn't enough, his home phone was on the back door for emergencies. He saved more than one boat in his day with a vast inventory of products and more important the knowledge to get the job done.

In 2005 Warren was in his late 70's and still working full time. On February 25th he drove his 79 year old brother Burt to the airport at 6:30am for a ski trip, went to the grocery store and dropped off some things for his ailing wife (broken leg.) As he headed to Thomas Hardware he had to have been happy. Spring was on the way, his wife was mending and he was going to the one place that truly made him happy. As much as his gruff exterior and attitude turned people off, that was his way of showing affection. He truly loved people and his customers. He would do anything for anyone, talk at length to anyone about nothing, and forever give the people he liked the hardest time in the world.

We all need constants in our lives and one of them in now gone. Thomas Hardware will live on, but there is no way to keep it the same. Warren touched thousands of lives through the years. Through all the customers, suppliers, employees, sailors and competitors it would be hard to find anyone with a bad thing to say. Please don’t get kicked out heaven before we get there, we all need to get yelled at one more time.

...Todd Jones