On July 16th onwards, the Lake Ontario 300 Challenge offshore race was held out of Port Credit Yacht Club. The world’s longest annual freshwater race, 106 boats from clubs around the lake competed on either the Scotch Bonnet (200 Nm) or Main Duck (300 Nm) Courses in various divisions.
Three NSC members Nat Baddour, Doug Gibson, and Ross Ernst joined RCYC’s Carey Crawford-Brown (Skipper/Owner) and Chloe Gifford (Youth) on a C&C 115 “Sula Sula” as a PHRF-NFS (JAM) class boat on the Scotch Bonnet Course (SBC).
With everything from no winds to severe storm winds with some of the toughest Lake Ontario waves, and amazing moonlight sailing, the 2016 LO300 Challenge proved to be one of the classics in its history. One third of the boats chose or were forced to retire before finishing. (Read the 2016 Challenge Report).
Team “Sula Sula” was the first boat to finish (of all fleets) in 43 hours, 26 minutes taking ‘Line Honours’ for the Scotch Bonnet 200, and third in her division after corrections. While the Open 60 “Oh Canada” took ‘Line Honours’ for the 300 course finishing later in 48 hours, 56 minutes.
“Sula Sula’s” Challenge began by winning the RC boat at the SBC start and rounding the Humberview mark 3rd before reaching off the Ontario shore at 3-6 knots on the 90 Nm Scotch Bonnet leg. Reaching in light winds at 1-3 knots through Saturday night, sunrise found her within sight of Scotch Bonnet, and after drifting and tacking in no wind, finally rounding a close 4th on noon Sunday.
With the wind to build from the South, the team split from the leaders and close-reached at 3-6 knots along the 80 Nm rumb line diagonally across to Niagara. By midnight, the winds had built to 30+ knots with 2m waves and it was all hands on deck beating at 6-8 knots in the dreaded Niagara corner washboard with 2 main reefs before rounding. After skirting a mean thunderstorm from the West, sunrise found “Sula Sula” <1km of her final quarry, J33 “Wee Beastie”, and the high speed chase was on in the few miles to PCYC before finishing at 0634.
A GPS Replay of the LO200 and LO300 Fleets can be found here.
Other memorable moments; hooking up on-water with the NSC LTR Youth Coaches to say hi, incredible meals and provisions including a full Turkey dinner with all the fixings Sunday night, playing chicken with a night time freighter (tack or duckJ), moonlight sailing with a thunderstorm light show, the smile on Chloe’s face when the knotmeter bumped above 9 knots, and the Champagne ceremony on PCYC docks when most folks are getting up to go to work.
My personal thanks to Skipper/Owner Carey Crawford-Brown for the incredible hospitality and such a well-equipped, safe boat, Nat and Doug for organising such an incredible sailing gig, and all my NSC mates who lent me the much needed offshore gear.
Ross Ernst
Tanzer 22 “Snoekie”