Hot Summer for Team Notorious

September 14, 2022

Notorious being launched at Lake Huron Yachts in Sarnia prior to Mac

Team Notorious is a National Yacht Club (Toronto) – based team, running two boats and winning extensively over the past decade and especially this summer.

Big Notorious is a Farr30 and little Notorious is a Melges24. Big Notorious has a fresh suit of 3Di’s and a full complement of new B&G instruments. Wiggers Custom Yachts in Port Darlington ON has done a beautiful job of refinishing the deck and Tony Shepperd in Sarnia did his magic with a fresh hull/blades job. 

Notorious and her team of Kevin Brown, Jeff Love, Robert Wigny, Mark McGinnis, Brandon Bedard and Scott Blair competed in ORC class C in this year’s Bayview Mac and won first in class and finished 14th overall in the Cove Island fleet of 79 boats.

After winning the LO300 in class and fleet again last year the team decided to move up to the challenge of the Bayview Mac. Earlier this season Notorious raced the Susan Hood as a warmup and took a first in class and second overall. As a final shake down of sails, equipment, and crew Notorious raced July’s PCYC Open regatta and came away with a perfect record of five firsts in five races.

On the weekend before the PCYC Open the team took little Notorious, their Melges 24, to the Collingwood Yacht Club to compete in the 2022 Collingwood Invitational Regatta.

The team scored three firsts in three races and walked away with the very prestigious Georgian Bay Cup which dates back to 1888 making it the second oldest sailing trophy Canada. The team of Kevin Brown, Robert Wigny, Mark McGinnis and Henry Schefter were thrilled to have won this trophy and event on their very first try. 

Skipper Kevin Brown beside Little Notorious with the Cup

Skipper Kevin Brown is proud of their progress. “We won the Mac racing under the ORC rule but most of our racing in the last ten plus years has been under IRC. We have won the IRC Lake Ontario Championship multiple times as well as winning the Lake Ontario, Great Lakes and Canadians multiple times each in that time. Last year’s class and fleet win in the Lake Ontario 300 was under PHRF but we have won it a total of about five times in total over the years mostly under the IRC rule. 

Most of North America has taken on ORC as the system of choice and it is creating very good racing from coast to coast for both course racing and distance races in all forms. It has even proven to be the best system possible for Whitesail and Shorthanded competition. Both the Bayview and Chicago Mac’s have embraced ORC and that, in part, is what makes them the premier distance races on the Great Lakes. We made a point of racing the Cove Island course rather than the Shore course of the Bayview Mac as, in my opinion, it is the real Mac and means that we are sailing against the best boats on the longer course under ORC.”

Team Notorious are all amateurs

The team also crewed aboard Jonathan Bamberger’s Farr45 Spitfire for the Bayview Mac in 2019 and placed second in class, so this was unfinished business until this year. Over the past ten years we have joined Jonathan the Spitfire program for a good number of high-profile distance races including two Caribbean 600’s, Newport Bermuda and a Fastnet where they cracked the top twenty overall.