Light Wind, Heavy Action as Chips Arend, Frank Sczerzenie Take Aug 1 VCR Wins.
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The August 1 VCRs were the races that almost didn’t happen, then kinda started to happen, then finally supplied some the strangest, most annoying, most exciting racing of the year. At 2:00 the wind meter was showing 0.5 mph, and who cares where 0.5 mph comes from? Boats that had started an hour before race time were still inching toward the David-and-Linda-Belleville committee boat at 2:00, so Commodore Tom decided to postpone until 2:30, on the off chance that more of the boats becalmed all over the lake would come within spitting distance.
Tiff Ford acted as aquatic messenger in his kayak, relaying starting information to 3 Sunfish that were still hundreds of yards away when the 5-minute signal whimpered for the up-and-back run to 7. Chips Arend on his MC Scow played the wispy, shifty wings like the master he is, beating Tom Tys by 5 minutes on the water when Tom found himself in the mother of all wind holes after rounding the mark. Frank Sczerzenie came in 3rd on the water, but Peter McIlroy looked close enough to beat Frank and Tom by handicap with about 1/3 of the run to the line to go. Then Peter found the hole that Tom hd just escaped, letting a bouncing gaggle of Sunfish catch up to him right at the line. Paul Bellville, who had crossed the start line 3 minutes after the starting signal, wound up in a tie for 5th with Peter, with Michael Belleville, Luke van Meter and Doug McIlroy all within ten seconds of the two.
In race 2 (to 7 and back, red) Tom Tys and John Fisher did their usual light-wind getaway at the start, followed closely by the Frank Sczerzenie/David Waller Flying Scot, and the Jon-and-Kathy-Belleville Flying Dutchman. Frank ran afoul of a Flying Scot’s tendency to hook its mainsheet on the tiller in a jibe, doing an unintended swerve into the Belleville Flying Dutchman. So when Chips Arend arrived on the scene, Jon Belleville was struggling to recover, and Frank was doing his penalty 360s, letting Chips slither past. Frank recovered nicely on the run back to 5A, using his spinnaker to almost catch Chips on the water, and beating both Chips and Tom Tys after handicaps to do his version of Danny Sullivan’s “Spin and Win” victory in the 1985 Indy 500.