Sailing

Colin Hewitt toasted his boat, “Ariba,” with a small bottle of champagne cooler after winning his first race of the Rendezvous Yacht Club spring series last Wednesday.
But he was extra careful not to break any glass on the bow. After all, he had spent many months getting this Tanzer 22 model ready for this race.
Enter the world of sailing–a leisure sport that can get pretty heated, and where the first boat crossing the finish line isn’t necessarily the winner.
Since different makes and models of boats compete, finishing times are adjusted accordingly. For instance, a new boat built for speed will finish the route much quicker than an older one.
But when the scorers tally the positions, they apply a handicap using the Dartmouth point system. This mathematically takes away the edge a race boat would have over a leisure vessel in these events.
“They technically race against the clock and the time of their own boats,” said club vice-commodore Diane Wessels.
Last Wednesday evening, Hewitt was a full two minutes behind Quinn McCarthy and his boat “Sedna” in the actual race on Sand Bay but finished three minutes ahead after the times were corrected.
Warren Wagness (“Slug”) finished second, followed by Todd Hamilton (“Through”), Lonnie Parson (“Vixen”), McCarthy (“Sedna”), and Eric Rude (“Salty Dog”).
“It’s like golf,” explained Wessels. “Players are assigned different handicaps when they enter tournaments.”
The Rendezvous Yacht Club was founded in 1978. It became an international club in 1993 when the American Rainy Lake Yacht Club merged with the Canadian Rendezvous Yacht Club.
There were more than 40 members last year and they organized 24 races over the summer, which included the Wednesday and Saturday night race series.
McCarthy said sailing requires a lot of strategy given one has to consider wind and water levels. “There’s the image that sailors just sit back and relax,” he said. “But there’s a lot of strategy involved.”
Wessels added sailing is “simply a great way to see the lake.”
Another stereotype the club wants to shake off is that sailing belongs only among the “rich” sports for the high-end living types.
“I think any adventure sport has a high initial investment,” said Wessels.
“But once you have it and figure out how much you pay in the long run, and the pleasure you get from it, it becomes one of the cheapest sports,” she reasoned.