Plus, Women’s J/30 Single-hander Wins Class!(Port Credit, Ontario, Canada)- Bonnie Reib and Jennifer Overbury sailed their J/33 DAYBREAK in the recent Lake Ontario 100 Race- it is a 100nm random-leg course around the lake and it can often be a very tough, very challenging event. This is the 4th and longest race in the six-race Lake Ontario Short Handed (LOSH) summer series that starts in May and ends in September. The race goes from Port Credit YC to Gibraltar Point Light Buoy, then to Burlington Weather Tower (a.k.a. Van Wagners Beach Light), over to Niagara Mark then back to the finish at PCYC. Here is Bonnie’s report:
“Following delayed starts due to low winds, a light but consistent warm breeze varying only between 6 and 10 knots is certainly ‘the zone’ for DAYBREAK, a J/33 that completed the LO-100 the weekend of Aug 14–15 at the top of her division and second overall outside of the multihulls.
DAYBREAK
benefited from the beautiful light breeze that filled in the morning of
the PHRF LO-100 race and carried through the evening and night until
that last few nautical miles. The J/33 is highly responsive in these
wind conditions and point of sail. The full 100-mile race was sailed
fairly close to the wind; there were some close-hauled stretches, but
the long legs were sailed on a close reach.For a double-handed female crew these wind conditions were optimal. Working as an integrated team, we were highly focused on sail trim for the full 18 hours and it paid off! We constantly trimmed the jib and used all controls to optimize the position and flow of the main. We continuously walked back and forth to check the look of the sails from many vantage points and tweaked things while monitoring speed to see if we’d picked up a small advantage from the changes. In this breeze, you can feel the changes in the tiller; when the boat felt a little unbalanced, we would think through what had to change and make the correction.
Having one of the earlier starts, DAYBREAK was very close the front of the fleet at the Gibraltar rounding. Setting off for the Burlington mark, the conditions could not have been better.
The
evening sail from Burlington to Niagara was spectacular, with the sun
setting behind us, the fleet visible all around us, and the boat
performing beautifully. Transitioning to night-fall, we continued to
trim according to feel and speed, utilizing the large spot light to
check the ticklers (telltales) on the main and jib for fastest trim all
night long- the goal was to keep ourselves ‘in the zone’ of best VMG
speed all through the night.It was an extremely beautiful warm night to race on Lake Ontario. We were thrilled to find out our efforts paid off in the end! What a pleasant surprise to win our class and fleet in the PHRF No-flying Sails division! Many thanks, Bonnie”
In addition to Bonnie’s and Jennifer’s awesome performance, Wendy Northcotte sailed her J/30 NORTH CAUGHT in the Single-handed No-Flying Sails division and won her class! As a result, Wendy is now second overall for the series. The DAYBREAK gals are, in fact, sitting in 4th for their series and have a chance to win it overall after the September race. Also doing well is their colleague in the Double-handed Flying Sails division, Murray Gainer’s J/109 LIVELY is sitting in 3rd place and also has a chance to win overall!
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