Roy Cooley, Tiff Ford Swap Wins in Founders' Cup

The June 27th Founders Cup got off to a halting start, but thanks to the resourcefulness of Señor Commodore, Tom Tys, and Jon Fisher, his committee boat crew, it all came out right in the end.

Rain and thunder threatened, the wind was iffy, and the high-numbered buoys were securely locked in Ken Hull’s garage. But Tom persevered, and Race 1 went off with a downwind start to Buoy 4 on the west side. Roy Cooley and his tiny Aero (theme song: "Me and my Aero…") slithered off like greased, well, Aero, scoring a well-sailed win, leaving Tiff Ford and David Belleville in their Scots to play catchup. David’s been upgrading his Scot this Spring, and the extra speed showed, but Ford managed to stay ahead to take 2nd through guile, old age and treachery.

Race 2 took a longer down-and-back course to buoy 2, and Roy in his Aero and David in his Scot, aided by wife Linda, daughter Erin, and a well-flown spinnaker, beat solo-sailing, spinnaker-free Ford handily to the downwind mark. Which is when things went completely cattywampus. Cooley and Belleville stayed closer to the west shore, while Ford tacked later and sailed closer to the middle, which turned out to be the right answer. David and Roy staged a close race for second, but when Roy couldn’t quite make the mark at the finish, forcing an extra tack in light wind, David and his crew had him. Ford's 2, 1 results won him the 2020 Founders' Cup. Frank Sczerzenie and crew David were seen haunting the 2nd race in their Scot Osprey II: they had suffered a rigging glitch before Race 1 and were forced

to pull down their mast, forcing them to miss both race starts after all their frantic work.