Sporer Trophy Regatta

February 4, 2001
Lake St. Clair, Michigan

The Sporer Trophy is awarded to the winning boat on the second day of club racing each new season. It is another one of the impressive DNIYC of Detroit trophies, and is a scale model DN consructed of wood (including a wily skipper), beautifully painted, and housed in a presentation case.

The conditions on Lake St. Clair on Saturday (the day before the Sporer) was the best I've seen on Lake St. Slair in years. With hard ice, 0% snow cover, drifts up to 0" deep, and plenty of wind the racing was fast and furious. Saturday night around 1/2" of light snow had fallen and blown into drifts. On Sunday the ice was 50% covered in light snow drifts, mostly around 1" deep, with occasional 1-1/2" deep drifts. The wind was light and fickle, well below 10 knots for most of the day. For the first four races the wind steadily increased, but dropped off suddenly during the last race.

Ron Sherry came late, missing the first race. This left Paul Goodwin, Jim Grogan, and John Harper to duke it out on the course, reveling in the close tactical battle for 1st place. Just before the start of the second race we could see a boat coming downwind going at least 100 mph, mast hanging out, being driven hard by some demented ice-pilot. There was little doubt that Ron was on the way. True to form, Ron led the fleet in the subsequent races, leaving the rest of the sailors to pick up the pieces of their shattered egoes... Of course, we could be sandbagging... holding back until the Worlds... yeah, that's it...

by Paul Goodwn - US 46

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 Pos    Sail#        Name       Race>    1    2    3    4    5  Points
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   1   US   44     SHERRY,       RON  (DNS)   2    1    1    1    5.00
   2   US    3     GROGAN,       JIM     1    1    4    4 (  6)  10.00
   3   US 4379     HARPER,      JOHN     3    3 (  5)   2    2   10.00
   4   US   46    GOODWIN,      PAUL     2    4    2    3 (  7)  11.00
   5   US   30     LEBEAU,      LEON     4 (  5)   3    5    3   15.00
   6   US  151    LEONARD,     BRUCE     6    9    6 ( 10)   4   25.00
   7   US 4472    GREGORY,    ROBERT     7    6 (  8)   7    5   25.00
   8   US 4730    LEONARD,      DAVE     5    7    9 ( 12)   9   30.00
   9   US 5144       REHE,      MIKE     8 ( 10)   7    6   10   31.00
  10  AUT    7  RAKUSCHAN,     HEINZ     9    8   10   11 (DNS)  38.00
  11   US   99      DEFER,     HARRY  (DNF)  11   12    8    8   39.00
  12   US 3514      JURAK,      MARK  (DNS)  12   13   14   12   51.00
  13   US 3743   CARNAGHI,        JP   DNS (DNS) DNS    9   11   52.00
  14   US 4017    LARIVEE,     TERRY  (DNS) DNS   11   13  DNF   56.00
  15   US 4780 SERAFINSKI, MOBY MICK   DNS (DNS) DNS  DNF  DNF   64.00

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Updated: February 5, 2001