North Sails LOFT NEWS

Story Contributors: Rhonda Joyce

ANOTHER FUNDRAISING SUCCESS AT TAHR

Sailing & Fun For A Good Cause

The 10th annual Toronto Area Hospice Regatta (TAHR) at Port Credit Yacht Club was another smashing success, raising over $47,250 for the Ian Anderson House Hospice (IAH).  This brings our three-year total to over $152,000!!

Mother nature played a huge role with beautiful warm sunshine and a moderate, albeit shifty, offshore breeze keeping the chop to a minimum for the forty four boats participating on either the one-design course or in the fun one-day pursuit race.

When PCYC took over the reins of the TAHR in 2017 the goal, besides raising money for this incredibly necessary and worthy cause, was to bring some old fashioned fun back into the sport of sailboat racing.  We reached out to everyone, including power boaters and casual family cruisers to try their hand at a less intimidating pursuit start race. Plus we threw in curve ball: the much dreaded/loved Noodle-Toss-Man-Overboard-Drill, making the results less predictable and the post racing war stories a lot more hilarious.  

This year we had three volunteer rib teams tossing noodles aft of participating boats thus beginning their MOB recovery. Keep in mind that the noodles are light and easily bounced out of reach by both wind and bow waves so while it may have been quite the reality check for some skippers, this was no ordinary drill!  All boats crossing the finish line must wave their noodle to be scored.

Mike Wolfs had his hand in everything from working with the PRO to make the vision of the fun race come to fruition, liaising with club management, getting some fantastic and highly coveted swag from North Sails, finding new sponsors and auction items and maintaining the sanity of the regatta chair and this author.

North Sails Toronto was happy to support TAHR again with a silent auction item and donation of all SI folders for Skippers!

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