Great Turnout for the 2012 Susan Hood Trophy Race

by Guy Perrin on 4 Jun 2012 Despite the postponement because of unsafe Lake Ontario conditions on Friday, 87 racers showed up at the start line at 11:00am on Saturday for the Susan Hood Trophy Race. The usual triangular 76-mile triangular course was shortened to 40 miles from PCYC to the Burlington Weather station and back; the winds cooperated with the Race Committee as it setup as a perfect , albeit very long, windward-leeward course. The 15 to 20 knot westerly breeze had already kicked up a good some good waves as the first gun went off.

Ron Bianchi's well attended weather forecast at the 9:00am Skippers Meeting was right on the money as usual!

The IRC divisons were first to go with 21 yachts, followed by a variety of fully crewed and double-handed PHRF entries; entries ranged in size and performance from a J/145c to a Mini 6.5 and just about everything in between, including older 70's and 80's pocket cruisers to modern carbon rocket ships.

The Susan Hood Trophy Race was Rob and Sandy Butler first Lake Ontario offshore event in their new McConaghy 38, predictably, Carbonado took line honour with a time of 5 hours 25 minutes.

PCYC entries took first and second overall in IRC; Umi Taka, Chris Rypkema's Beneteau First 40.7 was fist, IMXtreme, Joe McDonald's IMX38 was second and rounding up the podium was Ashbridge's Bay Yacht Club Crime Scene, Stephen Treviit's J/35. Interestingly, the top five boats in PHRF Fully Crewed were all racing each other in the hotly contested Full Crew 2 division; Encore, a Sabre 386TM, sailed by Youngstown Yacht Club Tony Byrne , took first place followed by PCYC's Darren Gornall and Craig Pirie on Afterburn, a Dash 34 and RCYC's Tango, Pierre Savard's Beneteau 36.7.

Flags were awarded late Saturday evening at PCYC, unfortunately some boats were still on the race course at the time; last boat to finish was around 10:30pm.

Full results are available at http://www.yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=573!Yacht_Scoring.