Strat Hendrie Regatta

January 28, 2001
Lake St. Clair, Michigan

The Strat Hendrie Trophy is awarded to the winning boat on the first day of club racing each new season. It is one of the most impressive of the DNIYC of Detroit trophies, and is a scale model DN constructed of brass, and housed in a presentation case.

The conditions on Lake St. Clair weren't the best this year, with 80% snow cover, and drifts up to 5" deep.  2"-4" of fresh snow had fallen Friday night and Saturday, and the wind had blown the snow into drifts. The drifts were mostly soft and easy to get through, but they were a definite hindrance to speedy progress in light wind. And the wind was light and shifty, averaging around 8-10 MPH. There were no problems with the ice under the snow, but the light shifty wind made for some tough going for most of the fleet. The race committee (Debbie Goodwin doing a commendable job) decided on 1 lap races, helping to keep the frustration level (and blood pressures) down to a reasonable level. Ron Sherry and local sailor Leon Lebeau made it look easy. John Harper and Cliff Cartwright were battling on the second tier, and the rest of the fleet just plain struggled to keep their boats going. I tried to convince myself that sailing in such conditions was good practice, but it didn't really work.

After the racing was over a few sailors stuck around to party at Leon's house, and the most fun of the day was sailing Leon's new rumble seat E-skeeter, which made a laughing stock of the light winds and snow drifts and ruled the lake for the afternoon. Two mile long (or more) upwind/downwind and reaching legs put smiles on the faces of all who got to sail her.

by Paul Goodwn - US 46

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      Pos    Sail#       Name         Race>  1    2    3    4    5  Points
      --------------------------------------------------------------------
        1   US   44     SHERRY,      RON     1 (  2)   1    1    1    4.00
        2   US   30    LEBEAU,      LEON     2 (  3)   2    3    3   10.00
        3   US 4379     HARPER,     JOHN     7    1 (  8)   4    2   14.00
        4   US  118 CARTWRIGHT,    CLIFF     5    5    3    2 (  8)  15.00
        5   US 4789      CLARK,    CHRIS     4    4    4    9 (DNF)  21.00
        6   KC 4878  MCCRINDLE,     MARK     6    6    5 (  7)   4   21.00
        7   US   46    GOODWIN      PAUL     3    9 (  9)   5    6   23.00
        8   US   99   DEFER(S),    HARRY     9 (DNF)   6    8    5   28.00
        9   US 4968    KENNEDY,      TOM  ( 10)   8    7    6    7   28.00
       10   US 4472    GREGORY,   ROBERT     8    7   10   10 (DNS)  35.00
       11   US 5144    REHE(J),     MIKE    11 (DNF) DNS  DNS  DNS   50.00
       12   US 4710       BARR,    AARON   DNS (DNS) DNS  DNS  DNS   54.00

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Updated: January 29, 2001