October 15, 2011
The Lake Trophy is supposed to be a race only for women at the Inverness Yacht Club in honor of Mrs. Almira Lake. In the last decade it’s only been raced once or twice as there are very few lady skippers who can round up enough female crew to have anything resembling a race. I won a match race version of this in 2005 as the other boat spent the entire race looking at the views while Dorci and I worked on our rolltacks and blasted around the course. Club champion Milly refuses to race in women-only races as she likes racing against her male friends. What’s a club to do to combat flagging numbers in a race?
This year we allowed men to join in the racing if they made some effort to present as female. I supplied wigs, though many opted to race sans hair. The race committee co-opted my camera, and took many of the on-the-water photos.Thank you to the race committee for all their photographs and mark setting, and to Mark for being a fabulous crew and helping us get across the finish line in front of all the other boats.
The boat that wound up winning was the only one with an all-female crew. Congratulations to everyone who raced! It was great to see a lot of folks who don’t usually steer as skippers.
The local Vanguard 15 fleet happened to be visiting the Inverness Yacht Club that weekend. “Are things usually like this around here?”
In a word,
“Yes.”
The wig was convincing enough to confuse Milly every time she saw Win.
Phil later fell off the dock in his habit. "Phil, we're going to have to disbar you from the club, that's a filthy habit!"
My old buddy Joe showed up to sail a Laser!
Mark with a shock of platinum blonde hair
The ladies rig the spinnaker on the Scot
The winning crew
Phil brought his trailer from Burning Man to camp out at the club.
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