Watch those tight Uppers!

Grayling, owned by Bill Young in Sylvan Lake, lost its fairly new mast on an August weekend event and tore up its deck when the short shroud reinforcing bar on the port side didn't spread the load enough. At the time, the wind was about 15knots, spinnaker flying, and wind almost abeam, so nothing out of the ordinary.

To spread the load, a rod from G10 material or stainless steel, needs to be installed under the gunwale with a new set of shroud u-bolts.  The reinforcing rod should be as long as possible (24" for G10) to spread the load.   MG Marine (Marina del Rey) can provide the materials and there are several drilling jigs for drilling new holes available in the Vancouver, Vancouver Island, and Orcas Island areas (see Gunwale reinforcement at Shrouds here) or under M242 Class Docs in the Fleet One Website.

See also the report by Reto Corfu on repairs to Back in Black after the same damage resulted in similar conditions. The report can also be accessed through M242 Class Docs on the web.

WHIPPET unscrambles the SCRAMBLE

Once again Martin 242s rise to the top in this classic Round the Bay race.  This year Whippet was the first Martin and FIRST OVERALL!

The Whippet crew consisted of Craig Strand, Aryn Strand, Erica Crilly and Elise Olson.

Shadowfax with Allan and Clare Strain, Adrienne Mennell and Peter Langille to 3rd Place Overall and was the 2nd Martin.

Both Whippet and Shadowfax took the same route: Bell Buoy, Passage Island, Start/Finish, Kits tugboat can, N (North Shore mark) and finish.  Shadowfax hedged their bet by going back through the Finish line before heading to the North Shore Mark.  By doing so, she cut the timing very close.  They made the final finish 21 seconds before the 4 pm deadline.  Whippet did the math and bet on the weather holding enough not to go the extra length to the finish line before heading to the North shore from the Kits tugboat can.  Whippet finished a 15:48 and corrected out about 8 minutes ahead of Rhumbline, a J29 who was 2nd overall.

Colin Potter's Christian Bligh went from 1st Martin last year to last this year.  This just shows the variability in this race.  You can go in any direction but some luck is needed to complete the course on a light wind day.

Craig Strand, Erica Crilly, Elise Olson and Aryn Strand (not shown) on board M242 WHIPPET were the overall winners of the 2019 English Bay Scramble