I have never been involved in a major dingy class racing event either as a competitor or official so this past weekend has been quite an experience for me. Nelleke was a station boat for the three days of racing which for the uninitiated as I was means that you anchor off one of the marks and be available in case someone needs a place to tie off or get below to warm up or anything like that. The reality for this regatta was that we just sat there with nothing to do but take pictures and watch the excitement. Towards the end I was starting to feel like the crazy old bachelor uncle that people feel obliged to invite to family events but who they tuck away in a corner and ignore while he drools over the front of his shirt. I didn’t do any drooling but we were definitely tucked away into a corner. Still, we had a ringside seat at the windward mark and watched boats crank around the mark jamming for position. Very exciting.

The most interesting thing for me was to see the broad spectrum of competition in the field. On one extreme we had national and international level competitors and on the other we had rank newbies who had never been in a competition before. The amazing thing to me was that the contenders didn’t seem to mind the newbies and indeed even offered encouragement to them In many of the keelboat and ocean racing fraternities that I have bad some limited experience with this would not have been the case. They would have seen the inexperienced people as getting in their way and slowing them down perhaps costing them the race. I was really impressed with the sense of fraternity and camaraderie that they all displayed.

They got in ten races over the three days with fog on the first day, 30kph winds on the second and light winds on the third. On day one the club had BBQ burgers and sausages, on day two we roasted a pig and on day three for the awards diner they had lasagne with fixings. I believe that everyone had a great time and will be departing with a positive impression of the club and our town. This is quite important to us as this is the first time that the nationals have been held outside of Ontario in central Canada.

I was lucky to have the assistance of a couple of guys from the club for all three days, from Kayt and her stepson on the first day and from Barb on the third day. Good times for all I believe. I will definitely help out again in future if I can.