LAKE VERMILION — A huge crowd took advantage of good weather on Sunday to take in the 33rd Annual Lake Vermilion Antique and Classic Boat Show at The Landing, an event organizers described as one of the best ever.
Measured by bratwurst, the crowd surely outnumbered those of recent years. A tent selling the delicacy ran out of buns for the first time anyone could recall.
Showgoers enjoyed about 30 entries in the show, which was hosted by The Landing and Moosebirds with the Vermilion Lake Association as an honorary sponsor, with a good mix between old favorites and new entries. And one of those old favorites also lays claim to being one of the most unique.
Jim Andrews is the owner and captain of the only sailing boat on display at the boat show. His Yellow Feather is a thistle — a 17-foot one-design racing boat with a long history and a design that hasn’t changed much in decades.
“Originally they were built in cold molded mahogany, and then in 1960s they started making them out of fiberglass with the wood rails and trim. This one is number 3170, and there are now a little over 4000 of them. This one is from 1973,” Andrews said.
Andrews and his wife live in Rochester, where they both spent long careers at the Mayo Clinic – he as a physician, she as a veterinarian. They’ve had a cabin on the west end of Lake Vermilion since 2017, though their ties to the lake go back much further.
“We’ve been coming up a lot longer than that,” Andrews said.
He grew up in Michigan and first got hooked on sailing as a kid during a family vacation to Rhode Island.
“The first boat I sailed was called a Beetle Cat,” Andrews said. “Twelve feet long, six feet wide, very slow. But it was a great boat for teaching kids to sail in.
“My parents rented a cottage on the ocean and they signed me up for sailing lessons. They had no idea what they were doing when they did that or what the end result was going to be.”
He’s owned and raced many sailboats over the years – “Snipes and Lightnings, a boat called an Interlake,” he said – but Yellow Feather was purchased for enjoyment, not competition.
“I have not raced in this boat. I’ve raced other one-design boats,” Andrews said. “There’s no sailboat racing here on Vermilion, so I bought something that I really wanted rather than whatever the local racing boat was.”
The boat is technically designed for a three-person crew, but Andrews said he and his wife are content to head out together when the wind is light and the skies are friendly.
“We just sail on light air days,” he said. “We’re two little people, but we go out and sail and we have fun.”
Lake Vermilion can be a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to wind conditions, Andrews noted.
“If you can get out into Wakemup Bay, it’s good. Head of the Lakes isn’t real great with all the islands. The wind is very shifty,” Andrews said.
“Wakemup is much better. It’s much more open,” he added. “I have a little trolling motor and we can motor out into Wakemup and sail it there.”
He said the motor also comes in handy when the lake goes flat.
“Yes. It got me here without it incident today. There was no wind this morning at all,” Andrews said.
He appreciates the fairness that comes with sailing a one-design class, where the boats are identical by design and success comes from skill, not spending.
“It’s one set of plans. So when they’re raced, all the boats are exactly the same,” Andrews said. “So you win by sailing? Well, not by having a thick checkbook.”
After more than 30 years in Minnesota, Andrews said it now feels like home and will stay that way.
“We made the firm commitment that we’re not moving back to Michigan,” Andrews said. “Minnesota is where we’ve raised our kids and had essentially our entire married life. So we’re going to stay. It’s been a very welcoming place to be.”
The winner of the captain’s choice award this year was “Running Wild,” a 1928 Chris-Craft owned by Don Dickinson. The people’s choice award went to Sawyer LaDoux’s “Flat Bottomed Girl,” a 1972 G-W Invader.