Sunfish Race Results

Sunday we saw the final Sunfish Race for this season. Here is Susan Bouchard's report: 

It was a cool, dreary, rainy Sunday, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the sailors competing in the final Sunfish race of the 2026 season. With steady winds throughout the race, conditions made for an exciting finish to another season of sailing.

The Single Division came down to a battle between Jack LaGue and Jay Chatot. (Pictured left). The two sailors were close in the season standings, and in the final race, Jack crossed the finish line just a few seconds ahead of Jay. That narrow margin was enough to secure Jack the overall 2026 season champion. It was truly a photo finish to an exciting season!  

 

 

Final 2026 Season Standings

Single Division

• Jack LaGue — 30 points
• Jay Chatot — 28 points
• Jules Chatot — 23 points
• Rob Stewart — 23 points
• Lee Erdmann — 14 points
• Phil Crosby — 6 points
• Sharon Trull — 5 points

Double Division

• David Porter and his sons — 30 points
  Sidney sailed with David in the second and third races, and Henry joined him for the fourth race.
• Scott Spencer and Josh Ventrice — 10 points

Following the races, sailors gathered for the annual Award Ceremony hosted by Mark and Rosie Smith. The Smith family has hosted this celebration since 1970, when the Caledonian Cup races first began at Joe’s Pond. The sailing races were resurrected in 2016, continuing a tradition that has become an important part of the Joe’s Pond summer community. This year’s ceremony was especially significant because 2026 is the final year that winners’ names can be engraved on the Caledonian Cup trophy.

 

The gathering was also an opportunity to look ahead and discuss the future of sailing at Joe’s Pond. Several ideas were raised for making the races more accessible and encouraging more participation. A sailing workshop will be offered in the spring. The goal is to introduce more people to sailing, build confidence on the water, and hopefully encourage new sailors to join the races.

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 If you are on my list to be notified when I blog, because my computer failed, I wasn't able to send notification as I normally do. But I was able to publish the information provided by Barry Cahoon about milfoil treatment, so if you haven't already seen that, it is posted and you can read it just below this latest post. My computer literally died over the weekend. Jamie took it to Josh up in Lyndonville (Northeast Computer Systems) on Monday morning - and now I have it back with a new hard drive installed - everything is working perfectly again! I have to say, Josh does great work, and I was amazed that I got it back so quickly. He is good!! It was really handy that Jamie was able to get it there and pick it up for me, too. Sometimes things just work our perfectly.

 

Other times, not so much. I've had a bunch of things go haywire recently. It always seems that "troubles come not singly but in battalions," to paraphrase Shakespeare. It's the little things that I take for granted - and suddenly everything needs new batteries, or things need to be updated, cleaned, or serviced. It has something to do with summer winding down, I suppose. There are things that have to be done "before snow flies."   I'm impressed and dismayed at how quickly the summer has passed. I had to go to Hardwick last week and there were trees turning along Route 15 in Walden. No surprise - Walden's growing season is even shorter than here at Joe's Pond! They get all the weather before we do and more of it, I think. But we should have a nice - hopefully long - autumn with sunny days and cool nights. I hope we get some much-needed rain, too, before everything freezes up. 

 

That's it for now - enjoy what's left of summer!