ACE Donald Summerville Memorial Race

Donald Summerville was mayor of Toronto in 1963.  This race is put on by Ashbridges Bay Yacht Club in his memory.  It is the last race for the Toronto East Long Distance Series TELDS.

ACE and Razorbill were delivered to ABYC on Friday.

We all met at WYC at 9am and two cars drove down to ABYC.

• Me (Bow)
• Michael C (driver)
• Kris (driver)
• Micheal A (pit)
• Jenny  (runners)
• David (jib)
• Dave (jib)
• Phil (main)

Winds were forecast to be 10-12 knots from the east and lighten in the afternoon.
Course was from ABYC to a mark of Frenchman's Bay and back.

There was a really good field in IRC, and we were in the first start.

We left all our sails (#4, #3, #2, and heavy #1) on the dock and went out with just the light #1.

There was more than 12 knots at the start, but it did lighten as the race went on.  It was everyone on the rail pretty much the entire upwind leg.

Kewl shot of Phil through the window

Upwind the entire way

As we got toward Frenchman's Bay mark #4, the winds really lightened and shifted all around.
We had the two X35s and RazorBill right with us:

Spinnaker ready for a gybe set at the mark just ahead

We rounded the mark, and hoisted the spinnaker.  We noticed the two boats slightly ahead of us were struggling to fly theirs, so we immediately hoisted the #1 up and doused the spin.  We passed Razorbill and the the X35s very quickly.

Yellow circle is where we doused the spin

Weird, the winds had swung around to the SW about 7-9 knots.  Completely not in the forecast.

We started out sailing about 50 degrees of the wind directly at the mark.  Shortly after the winds moved right, and we were sailing close hauled trying to make the mark.

Jenny and Me on the rail

That's the Goodyear blimp

Kris, Dave, and Jenny with Razorbill below us

Alas, the winds swung further to the west and we could not make the mark, and had to tack out.  The X35s who immediately went close hauled ALMOST made it to the finish.  They pulled ahead when we tacked out to avoid landfall.  We found that the winds inshore were fluky and shifty, swinging as much as 45 degrees all over the place.  The boats (X35s) offshore had a more consistent wind.

We should have covered them early once we had a lead.

We finished 5th over the line and in corrected time out of 8 boats.

Taking the sails down with Toronto skyline in the background

What we forgot about here is that this is the final race of TELDS, and we should have been racing PHRF instead of IRC.  The PHRF boats sailed a shorter course and were done HOURS before us! The winds did NOT swing around for them, and they were able to fly a chute back to the finish.

Oh well, great day on the water!

Trip Odometer: 36.88 miles
Avg Speed: 5.5 knots
Moving Time: 06:17:00

Google Earth Track

NOTE GPS batteries died on the upwind leg, but I was on the rail the entire time:

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We loaded the sails back on ACE, and went to the clubhouse for the dinner, before Dave and I headed out to deliver ACE back to Whitby.  Peter also went out the channel with us with the other David.

Dave and I put the main up and motor sailed as, there was only 5 knots of breeze from the SW, and we wanted to get home.  The breeze filled in from the NE to 11 knots, and we just motor sailed with the main up.

Click for BIGGER

Dave on the tiller

Trip Odometer: 22.65 miles
Avg Speed: 5.9 knots
Moving Time: 03:50:22

We arrived home at around 10pm, the same time as Razorbill.