Waukegan 2008
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CANCAN and COLLABORATION WIN THE WAUKEGAN RACES
(Sunday, June 22, 2008) "I've been doing this race for forty years!" That was Clem Boltz answer to the question of why he took his boat Cancan deux along the shore to win the C Coming in 2nd place in the race was La Tempete. With Tom Weber out of town she was skippered by Tom's son, Ryan. 3rd Place went to Turning Point, let by Bill Bartz and Dave Hardy. The race to Waukegan is a distance of 26.2 nautical miles. This year going inshore paid dividends as the boats going there "firstest with the mostest" did the best. Boats spending more time offshore did not fare as well.
Once in Waukegan the boats of the 40.7 fleet joined the raft and the crews began visiting from boat to boat. Later that evening the Waukegan Yacht Club hosted a party for the sailors. Sunday morning the club put on their usual well-attended breakfast buffet, this year concurrent with the awards presentation of the previous day's race. The reported count of boats participating in the race from Chicago to Waukegan was one hundred. Sunday morning saw the usual light air for the first sections starting followed by the familiar calm as several sections stacked up on the starting line. Ron Buzil of Vayu gives his version of the start of Sunday's race back to Chicago: "We had the usual Waukegan to Chicago dead air at the start. We had PHRF 2 boats, around us as we got to the line -- their start was15 minutes before ours. We crossed the starting line about 9 minutes after our gun. The J120 to the right of us (I can't say to leeward because they were on port tack and we were on starboard tack and there was no wind but both of us were moving at about .5 knot). "We saw a wind line along the shore and slowly headed to it. La Tempete and Das Boot went there too. Meanwhile I saw Collaboration and Excalibur slowly working their way offshore. Inshore, La Tempete got to the wind first and began moving with their genoa. We got there and put up a spinnaker and quickly overtook them. Soon I saw their white chute going up. The chutes didn't last long though as the wind began to fill in off the Lake, so we changed tacks, without changing course, doused the chute and hoisted our light genoa. Das Boot had gone way into shore and stayed there all the way to the Temple of DOOM at Wilmette. They were about 100 yards off the beach. At that point we were just slightly ahead of Das Boot who was 10 boatlengths to leeward and La Tempete about 300 yards behind Das Boot. It was just south of Wilmette that Cancan joined in, slightly ahead of us. The last few miles was a series of tacks to try and fetch the point at Montrose Harbor and the finish line just south of it. Every time the three of us got on port tack we got headed and had to tack out into some mean chop. At one point or another each of the three of us was in front. Vayu tacked short on the last tack and Boot and Cancan got the best of us in the end." That was the story inshore. Bob Vickery describes what happened offshore on Sunday: "It was Turning Point, Collaboration 2 and Das Boot on starboard going for the pin, about 3 boat lengths from the mark when the wind died completely with 3 minutes to go before the start. Excalibur was to the east of us and about 2 boat lengths further back with Cancan behind him. Our plan was to go east, expecting a thermal breeze to develop. With 10 minutes to our start we noticed that the wind had shifted from the west to north, so we rigged for a jibe set at the mark. "When the starting gun went off, our instruments were all reading zero's and we noticed the breeze along the shore, but we also observed several fishing boats to the southeast of the starting area were anchored and all pointing to the southeast, seemingly indicating some sort of breeze coming in. Excalibur got the southeast wind first, switched to port tack and started moving, sailing over Das Boot in the process. They then rolled us as we both passed the starting mark, but they hit the mark in the process! One of the boats astern of us (either Das Boot or Cancan) at that point saw Excalibur's infraction and hailed protest. Excalibur and Turning Point both maintained momentum at this point, (approximately 5 minutes after our starting gun) and carried their speed aiming to the shore on a southwest angle. We worked our boat gingerly to a beat to make progress for the growing southeast wind line. Excalibur then performed penalty circles for hitting the mark, put up their spinnaker and kept moving to the southwest. "By this stage, (approximately 15 minutes after the starting gun) the thermal was taking hold and the small puffy clouds over the shore were sprouting with vigor, indicating that the thermal was indeed going to take strong hold. From there, we just shifted gears and held on. We saw sustained 16 knot breeze from noon thru 2 PM with 15 degree shifts. We reached the Montrose point at 2:30 PM and we were trading tacks with Goblin and Seagoon, the section 1 boats, when the wind went light leaving a terrible left over chop. This caused us to take a quick tack out into the lake for a little fresher breeze and the big boats with their tall rigs powered to the finish. I thought that it might turn into a real challenge for anyone else to finish, but the breeze held on."
For photos of the Waukegan Races 2008 go to:
Final results of the Waukegan Races:
Chicago to Waukegan (Sat.):
Waukegan to Chicago (Sun.):
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hicago to Waukegan race on Saturday, June 21st. The usually laconic skipper went on to explain, "there were many lifts and headers. Sometimes we had tack to avoid the shore". 
Two of the boats registered for this race didn't show up at the starting line. Tsunami was at Crowley's Yacht Yard for repairs after running aground on a shoal on Wednesday evening. Collaboration had lost her headstay turnbuckle overboard and the harbor and motored to Waukegan later that day.
