{"id":75130,"date":"2023-04-06T17:47:58","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T21:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=75130"},"modified":"2023-05-07T00:04:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T04:04:33","slug":"wayfarers-bound-for-annapolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/regatta-series\/wayfarers-bound-for-annapolis\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayfarers Bound For Annapolis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Wayfarer <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Wayfarer dinghy teams compete in their 2023 Midwinter Championship in Florida in February. <\/span>\n John Cole Photography <\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

The Wayfarer<\/a> dinghy has been around longer than\u2026well, let\u2019s just say a lot longer than the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series. By a lot. So how is it possible that this internationally-sailed 16-foot dinghy has zero street cred in the one-design hood? Ali Kishbaugh, who\u2019s been racing Wayfarers for about seven years, isn\u2019t sure why, but she\u2019s hopeful the class\u2019s debut at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta in Annapolis in early May will help get the Wayfarer the attention it deserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to class historians, the Wayfarer dinghy was originally designed in 1957 by Ian Proctor, the British designer and sailing hardware entrepreneur (Proctor Spars). It was, of course, an international woodie phenomenon until fiberglass came along. With molds passed to and through various builders, including Ontario\u2019s Abbot Boats, the Wayfarer has been modernized over the decades to its current \u201cMark IV\u201d version, now exclusively built by Britain\u2019s Hartley Boats. The MK IV, aside from modern construction techniques, has improved the original design\u2019s buoyancy and self-bailing issues, and the underdeck spinnaker launching tube now makes sets and douses much easier than from the traditional laundry basket stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 400-pound centerboarder has a big and open cockpit that can comfortably seat three adult passengers, but class racing calls for only two. It can be coastal cruised (yes, they do\u2026), club raced, and easily handled by beginners or pushed harder by more advanced racers, like other designs of its ilk\u2014the Flying Scot, Lightning or Buccaneer to name a few. Canada\u2019s Parallel 45 Marine is the exclusive importer and distributor for Hartley Boats<\/a>, but Wayfarers can be shipped direct to the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of boats being raced, primarily east of the Mississippi, Kishbaugh says, are more the modern-day fiberglass models, but there are quite a few woodies hanging around. \u201cThey\u2019re the same hull design, but they sail as well as the composite ones. It\u2019s just that the rigging is a bit different on the newer ones as they\u2019re geared more toward racing. The woodies tend to be more used for cruising, but that\u2019s the one big thing about the Wayfarer\u2014there are the cruisers and the racers and both do very well.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are mainly pockets of local Wayfarer racing, says Kishbaugh, and concentrations today are in Michigan, Connecticut, Florida and North Carolina. Kishbaugh lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and with the boat always at the ready on its trailer she races her Wayfarer in regattas up and down the East Coast. The Midwinter Championship on Florida\u2019s Lake Eustis is always a big gathering, and there\u2019s the Eastern Championship at New Bern\u2019s Blackbeard Sailing Club (NC), this summer\u2019s Nationals in Rock Hall, Maryland, and then North American Championship on Lake Michigan\u2019s Tawas Bay, which typically attracts a strong Canadian contingent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe thing that makes it fun and different from a lot of other dinghies is the people,\u201d Kishbaugh says. \u201cI could have chosen a Flying Scot, a Laser or a Lightning or any other dinghy. But it\u2019s the people in the Wayfarer Association that are so welcoming and warm\u2014just fun people. And then there\u2019s the boat. Because of the hard chines, if the wind comes up, it\u2019s a sturdy boat and it does well in strong winds. It moves reasonably well in light winds because it\u2019s not round bottomed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\" <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Ann Marie Covington and Ali Kishbaugh wait out a rain squall at the 2023 Wayfarer Midwinter Championship, held on Lake Eustis, Florida. For Kishbaugh, the appeal of the Wayfarer class is the ease of sailing the boat and the people she sails with in the class. <\/span>\n Al Schonborn<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

In her late 50s and fit as a fiddle, Kishbaugh, includes herself among the older sailors that are drawn to the Wayfarer, many of whom \u201csail very, very competitively.\u201d Like other legacy classes, though, the class struggles to convince younger sailors to join its ranks. It frustrates her to no end that she knows firsthand that once you race a Wayfarer, you gain a greater appreciation for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s how it worked for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first time I sailed one was when somebody came to Catawba to race. I looked at it and thought it was beautiful\u2014a really classic looking boat,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As her story goes, she crewed for somebody, loved it, and soon after, \u201con a little lake in Greensboro, North Carolina, I raced a regatta on a borrowed boat, with a crew I\u2019d never met, on a lake I\u2019d never sailed before and I did really well. So that was, for me, the moment I was hooked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She bought her first Wayfarer and then \u201cquickly decided I needed a newer one that was a little more competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the Wayfarer has been around for 65 years, there\u2019s not much new to be learned in the way of tricks, Kishbaugh says. \u201cShe is what she is and the way that it\u2019s different is how you tune the boat and the sails.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But her tips for Wayfarer boatspeed ring true for any dinghy and hints at the athleticism required. \u201cKeeping it flat\u2026it needs to be sailed flat because of hard chines\u2026that\u2019s the biggest thing. We may be an older crowd, but we definitely hike hard. Personally, I would rather have more wind than less. In heavy wind, she flies downwind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re fun boats, but we don\u2019t get a lot of the college kids. Those who say it\u2019s only for older folks are wrong. What I like about it is that it\u2019s more maneuverable inside the boat. A Thistle will beat you up. Our younger sailors are into the 420s, 470s, but I think if people knew more about the boat they would be more interested in giving it a try. We just need to get more people sailing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To that end, Kishbaugh says the elder statesman of the U.S. class is Jim Heffernan, who has raced Wayfarers for more than 30 years, and internationally. He was long the skipper to beat until a much younger Laser sailor named Jim Cook moved to Charlotte for work and joined the Catawba scene. Cook bought his second Wayfarer from USWA Commodore Richard Johnson, and injected his youthful enthusiasm into the class. Cook and his teammate Mike Taylor swept the Midwinter Championship races in Florida in February, but died in a boating accident in late March, an accident that shocked the tight-knit Catawba and Wayfarer family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cJim was an amazing sailor,\u201d says Kishbaugh. \u201cHe was a graceful person, and was always humble. He\u2019d walk around and give ideas and pointers if asked but didn\u2019t push his thoughts and was just a good person and a good friend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cook was registered to race the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta in Annapolis next month, but with his sudden and tragic passing, Kishbaugh says, the fleet will race in his honor, to showcase that the Wayfarer class is full of good people and friends like Cook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the Annapolis regatta\u2019s participants will have likely never seen a fleet of Wayfarers, but when the racing gets underway on Friday, May 5, there will be no mistaking the half-dozen colorful hulls and spinnakers of the regatta\u2019s oldest dinghy class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m really pushing our people to do it,\u201d Kishbaugh says. \u201cWhile it is an expensive regatta for us because of the travel and housing, it\u2019s such a great place to sail, and I think it\u2019s important for the class to be part of something bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wayfarer dinghy teams are hitching up their trailers and headed to Annapolis for the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":75131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Dave Reed","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"157","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"The 65-year old Wayfarer dinghy class will join the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in Annapolis for the first time ever.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"","arc_website_url":"","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":false,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":true,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","ad_targeting":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true,"sponsored_url":"","social_share":true},"categories":[157],"tags":[181,309,232,2903],"class_list":["post-75130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regatta-series","tag-helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-series","tag-helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-series-annapolis","tag-one-design","tag-wayfarer-dinghy"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}