Month: August 2017

Gimli Yacht Club

The 2017 Canada Summer Games was hosted by the City of Winnipeg. Canada Summer Games are a multi sport games modelled after the Olympics with each province selecting and sending athletes to compete against athletes from other provinces/territories. Awards are given to the province with the most medals and to the province/territory which most improves its results from the previous games. The games are held each two years alternative between summer and winter sports. The sailing events took place at Gimli on Lake Winnipeg approximately 90 kilometers north of the main games village.

The 2.4mR class was used for the Para mixed event. (there are only four sports who include a Para event in their program). As the games are considered a development program the age of the athletes are restricted. However in order to have a full field, age exemptions were given to the 2.4mR Para event.

Seven of the ten scheduled races were sailed in generally light winds. The final three races were cancelled because the wind did not reach 3.5 knots. The third day of racing saw winds as high as 16 knots with large short seas caused by the long fetch and the relatively shallow lake. This caused three boats to swamp and one boat not to start in the difficult conditions of Race # 5.

Interestingly two boats were jib-boom boats and they definitely showed that they can be competitive in both light and heavy conditions. Where they seemed less competitive were in 5 to 7 knots of breeze. This option should be seriously considered by sailors with disabilities.

The next Canada Summer Games will be in Niagara region of Ontario in 2021. For those Games  it will be important that all Para sailors will meet the age restrictions of under 35 years of age.

Results

Rank	Helm	Province	Points
1st	Joe Gerlinsky	Saskatchewan (AL)	12
2nd	Aaron Wong-Sing	Ontario	14
3rd	Siobhan MacDonald	Nova Scotia	16
4th	Delani-Hulme-Lawrence	British Columbia	22
5th	Bryson Foy	Manitoba	24
6th	Wendy Frazer	Alberta	35
7th	Krystle Con Shewchuk	Saskatchewan	37
8th	Alyssa Belliveau	New Brunswick	40

Full Results can be found here