DRYA Wins the Richardson Trophy
by Rolf Krotseng

What could have been a chilling, windy, wet saturday on Lake Ontario turned out to be a mostly sunny pleasant day with fairly steady eight to ten knots of breeze in the Toronto’s harbor for the 2001 running of the Richardson Trophy Match Racing Championships of the Great Lakes.

Nathan and Adam Hollerbach from Bayview Yacht Club representing the Detroit River Yachting Association won the double round robin series eight to zero, besting Oskar Johannsen and Andrew McCtavish from the Royal Canadian Yacht Club representing Lake Ontario with six wins and two losses.

Rod Syck and Scott Tompkins represented Lake Superior with four wins and four losses. Brian Cramer and Peter Carson from Lake Huron scored two wins and six losses. Larry Kwiat and Rich Montplasir from Lake Michigan pleased everyone with eight losses. Clif Vaughan, last years winner from Lake Erie was unable to attend.

R.C.Y.C.’s club owned Ideal 18’s were used in this competition. That’s a far cry from the C&C 33’s and 35’s that their fathers raced to win in 1975 and 1976 and the C&C 29’s that Eric Hullerbach won with in 1979.

It’s a sign of the times. Next years competition will be on Lake Superior most likely in J-24’s.

Well matched offshore yachts are increasingly a rarity and the officers of the Yacht Racing Union of the Great Lakes unanimously felt it was more important to run the event than to gouse about water line lengths.