KYC Regatta Reports

2025-08 JLS Wins Shark Canadian Champs and Clinches Shark of the Year Honor

Photo By Alex McDonald

Whitby Yacht Club was host to the Shark Canadian Champs this past weekend and two KYC boats,  JLS and Inevitable participated.  Racing started on time at 1100 and RC got 4 races in for the day.  Conditions were winds from the SW and averaging 10 to 15 knots with a sea state of about 2.5 to 3 foot waves.   JLS sailed a 2, 1, 1, 1 on Saturday with Inevitable getting better in every race,  finishing in the top 10 in the last race of the day.   Unfortunately, for the last race on Saturday, RC pin boat didn’t fly the “On Station Flag”  until 3 mins into the start sequence. This confused some boats thinking the RC was not in sequence.  A protest was lodged and it was decided to throw out this race.  The Jury BTW had KYC Members Chris Walmsley, Christina Dinsmore-Weguelin and Robert Weguelin acted as Virtual Judges for the event.  

Sunday races were scheduled to start at 1000 but winds were not co-operating until 1100.

The first race, JLS was called OCS over the VHF.   This put extra pressure on JLS as the second place boat was close behind in overall points to JLS.  Fortunately this boat finished 7th and was their drop race equaling JLS with their OCS drop.   Not having the luxury of a drop race now, JLS had to be conservative on the start and also keep close tabs in the second place boat.  JLS managed to stay one point ahead after 3 races sailed on Sunday to win the Shark Canadian Champs.  Congrats to Matt and James Fair and Peter Van Rossem on their win and Robin Wynne-Edwards, Jay Ladinik and Pavel (Pasha) Samuleev representing KYC away.

On another subject,  JLS has now counted 5 regattas in 2025 to finish the race for Shark Of The Year Honors.   With their regatta finishes this year being  3, 1,1,1,1,  no other Shark can beat JLS for the Trophy.   Congrats to Matt and James Fair, Josh Wilby, and Peter Van Rossem for an amazing regatta result to clench Shark of the Year for 2025.  Honorary mention to Josh Wilby, Mansell Styles and Sam Mastel-Marr for representing JLS in Sarnia finishing in seventh in their first Shark Regatta.