2019 Interclub Committee Boat

There have been no sailing pictures yet this year because crewing on a sailboat does not allow time, or hands, available for picture taking. But manning the committee boat does. The boat I crew on, Caleidoscope, is entered in the Interclub and came in 2nd in their class in the first race, which was held in Erie, Penn. The second race, from Erie to Port Dover, there was insufficient wind and the race was cancelled as no-one was going to be able to complete it.

The Committee Boat crew on our way out on Monday morning. Daniele (sorry, partially obscured), Bill (this years Race Marshall), Andy (skipper/owner of "Between the Sheets", our Committee Boat), Gina, Karen, Jaquie.

Rain was in the forecast and it was cool, grey and dismal.

More to the point, there was very little wind. We put up the postponement flag and waited to get some.

It didn't take long and we were able to get them started in a gentle breeze.

Shaibu (a Dover boat) in the foreground and Islay, the yellow boat (also from Port Dover).

It's never good sailing weather when you can see reflection.

As we send the fleets off, one by one, based on their handicaps (Lake Erie PRF), the rest of the boats mill around behind the start line, trying to stay out of each others way.

There goes Caleidoscope.

A close start for Sequence, in the foreground, a Port Dover boat.

The most interesting start was when Nyanza (dark blue boat) decided to start on a port tack. The other boats, on starboard tack, which has the right of way, were coming on fast.

Nyanza realized, rather late, that they couldn't make it across without a collision and had to crash tack.

He ended up directly in the path of The Fish, Seven on the other side of Nyanza was able to speed pass and  Flyer (a Dover boat) saw what was happening and tacked away.

The Fish radioed in that they were protesting Nyanza. Nyanza moved off to the side of the race course and did a 720 penalty (He performed 2 full circles). Then they all sailed off.

After about half an hour of blaring horns, switching flags, counting down over the radio, and taking pictures, our morning job was over and they were all off, heading for Nanticoke buoy, Bluffs Bar and then back to us.

We chatted, snacked, moved the tetrahedron to the finish line, sat on the deck in the sun or in the cockpit in the shade and then the flies came! They are the bane of life on the water. They look like ordinary house flies but they land and bite and it feels like they are taking a chunk out of you. It is better if you can keep your feet up (they like ankles), be in the sun (they like the shade) and stay where it is breezy (seems to blow them away). So Daniele and I spent most of our time sunbathing at the mast. The cockpit was littered with little fly bodies as they were swatted and stamped on. The flies must have been out on the race course, and the wind dropped, so soon one boat after another radioed in that they were retiring from the race. We crossed them off our participant list and watched them motoring in until there was only one that we could see out there.

Here she comes, Damn Yankee (that IS her name)

They were very happy to be finished, complete with the smily face painted below their water line.

There was a fish fry at the yacht club that evening but I opted to go home as I would have to be back at the dock, ready to leave, at 6:15am the next day.

Tuesday was a totally different day; sunny and lots of wind, white caps.

Caleidoscope has a bow wave even with a reefed mainsail and the #2 headsail.

This race, heading to Port Colborne, was a downwind start. Some of the boats opt to start with their spinnakers already flying, no room for error there.

Some put them up when they are clear of the start line.

Either way, its fast

colourful

and doesn't always go

according to plan.

After picking up the tetrahedron, motoring to the dock and tidying up Between the Sheets we all went to the Dairy Bar for breakfast. It was about 9:30 and we felt like we had done a days work. While there one of the boats radioed in to say it would be a fast race and they anticipated being in Port Colborne by noon!

Back home

The kite boarders were also enjoying the wind.

The Queensway Buttertart Festival

I can't remember when, how or why but I volunteered to help a friend with a festival this weekend. I may have been attracted to the name!
I spent Friday planting some free perennials in Flipside's patio flower boxes and then driving around Toronto picking up animal costumes and walkie talkies. Retirement makes room for a strange variety of activities.
8am I was at the park, rigged myself and the key players with walkie talkies and spent the next 8 hours manning Base Camp. This entailed (and this is just a smattering of the jobs) signing in volunteers, getting them their t-shirts and assigning them roles, pushing the coffee and timbits in the morning and water and pop in the afternoon, responding to radio and in person requests ("need power here", "need a table there", "where's Peggy", "get me Robin", "that ice cream truck needs to move", "need a volunteer at ...", "need water at ....".......), making sure supplies got where they needed to go, basically anything that was asked of me. I had an amazing volunteer with me all day who I gather from Peggy stayed right to the end, doing anything that was asked of her. The most fun were the young volunteers.

These 3 were asked to create colouring pages

and they did a great job. Then they went to an information booth and the Kids Zone (I think)

Being in an animal costume was a hot and tiring job, another one for a young person

But the animals without their human insides were a bit creepy.

It was a beautiful day. The park was a lovely location. A stage in the centre had bands playing all day and people danced, sat and watched or hung out at the beer tent beside it. There were vendors around the perimeter, many of them selling buttertarts.

Kids had "bouncy castles", games and activities as well as dogs doing tricks. Everyone seemed to have a great time, bought bags full of buttertarts and was blissfully unaware of the amount of work that it takes to put one of these events on.

I left at 4pm, picked up more plants at Eve's (she is renovating her garden) and was home and exhausted by 7:30.

Rug Hooking School of Trent

Trent Rug Hooking School is an institution in the Ontario Hooking world. It has been in existence for years and has a reputation for fun and frivolity as well as learning. The original organizers retired and this year it is being run by a friend and fellow J.J. Rugger, Cindy. She has changed the name to Rug Hooking School of Trent and I went for the first time this year.

Flash back to Saugeen Maitland, UWO. This was my room and I shared a bathroom with Dominique, who I drove up with.

Nicer view than I had when I was at Western.

Trent University is a very green campus, right on the river. Our accommodation, meals and my class were all in that yellow building. Peter Gzowski Hall.

I was registered in the Open Class, teacher Jayne Nevins, and I took this McGown pattern as I need to hand in a piece, for my accreditation, with finger shading, and I thought this would be an opportunity to get a McGown teachers viewpoint.

2 hours on Friday evening and 3 on Saturday morning and I had finished one grape leaf to my, and Jayne's, satisfaction.

Another 2 hours Saturday afternoon and about an hour on Sunday morning and I had completed the second grape leaf, some background and ripped out the plum and started again with a different swatch. I also changed my mind and went for a dark rather than light background. It doesn't look like much but I was very satisfied as it was much easier to do in dedicated class time with a teacher than it would have been at home.

Four of us in the class were members of J.J. Ruggers. To my left was Gail Christmas working on her Kookaburra.

She had completed the head beautifully and was now working on the wing feathers.

On my other side was Cheryl Krug-Wiltse working form 2 photographs she had taken of the Paris railway bridge. The piece is for the 50th Anniversary display for J.J. Ruggers.

On the other side of Cheryl was Sue Jones, also working from a photograph. This one was of her husbands family cottage and she was using sepia colours to replicate the old photo. She had done an amazing job of hooking the people.

There were a number of other classes being held and we would all get together at meal times to compare notes. Meals were cafeteria, University,  food, so on Saturday night 4 of us went out to dinner in Peterborough. There were also draws for hooking items, a shop to buy hooking supplies, wine and cheese, and on Sunday afternoon a presentation by Kay LeFevre

Kay is self taught and works predominately in yarns.

Her work is amazing and she bought a lot of it with her for us to see.

Depending on the effect she want to get she also uses faux fur yarn, beads,

crystals and iridescent paint.

Truly works of art, I found them both inspirational

and intimidating.

Home on Sunday night and the moon on the water restored my equilibrium.

As did a walk on the beach with Brit, on Monday, when we found this painted turtle baking in the sand and we moved her up the beach out of harms way.

Cat on a Pouf. He was glad to have me home.