I got to take one of Jess’ college sailing friends Michelle out racing on a Front Runner for the Indian Summer Regatta. Once again we had a very competitive fleet of 4 boats. Michelle did great to learn the boat very quickly. In the first race we even had the spinnaker flying upside down (my fault). With that sorted we picked shifts well and stayed competitive.
Today started out as a pretty light-air day and the wind quickly built for the 2nd race of the FBYC Offshore Fall Series #2. We sailed with just 3 of us – Andrew, Nathan and myself and we sailed a good first race, picking the correct side and finishing 1st in the 4-boat fleet.
As the 2nd race started the wind piped up closer to 20 and two of the teams dropped out and we knew at that point we just needed to finish the race to win the day. Unfortunately for us we were late at the start having been doing some rig tuning and not being closer enough to the line. Hotty Toddy had a 10-boat lead at the start, but by the time we got a mile upwind we had caught up and were neck and neck. We pulled away for another 1st.
Back racing the J/70 after nearly 2 months we had nice wind and clear skies for the FBYC Offshore Fall Series 1. We had out Louise, Andrew and Patrick and it was Patrick’s first time on the J/70. In the starting sequence Louise had a minor family emergency so we transferred her to the Mr. Roberts and had to sail 3 up. Having practiced 4-up and with no time until the start, we winged it and did our best with only 3 of us.
We weren’t able to quite keep up with E.L.E. but we did well nonetheless and were able to finish 2nd. In between races Louise was back and joined us for the 2nd race of the day. In this race all 4 J/70 were a lot closer and we got behind early on the wrong side of the course upwind. We came back downwind, but weren’t able to get back ahead of Spice to finish 3rd. All in all a fun day back in the boat. Thanks Louise, Andrew and Patrick for sailing!
For the 2016 FBYC Laser Fall Regatta we took a novel approach to running the races: since it was nice weather and light winds and we had no RC helpers – 7 of us took out 6 Lasers and a RIB. We then took turns on the RIB to run races and I jumped on the boat of whoever was on the RIB. We did two cycles so everyone missed 2 races and we got in 14 races.
All in all it worked pretty well, everyone had fun and it was good racing.
After last week’s game were were back a week later to tailgate for the ECU Football game against across-state rival NC State. This was the first game I got to bring Jess to and she was a good sport in ECU garb.
This also happened to be the game where our group was featured on the ticket. We had won a fan contest and so our group picture was on the ticket that went out to all of the season ticket holders, plus the story was in the program. Unfortunately, the ownership of the white tiger was a little disputed in the article, but we were thrilled to be recognized.
Despite the noon kick off and shortened tailgate time – we had a blast as always.
After being rescheduled due to a flooded Greenville earlier in the year we returned for the last and final game of the season.
We had a great kickoff for our seventh season with the White Tiger and 13th since some of us started graduating. It was great seeing everyone again and reminiscing about how much has change and yet how much is the same.
We were blessed with good overcast football weather.
It was great to be back!
The first of the one design fall series I borrowed a Front Runner and took my friend Patrick Conroy for his first sail on a Front Runner. Save one race we weren’t much of a match for the other very experienced Front Runner sailors, but we had fun and Patrick even got to drive the last race.
After racing we were joined by Jen and Patrick’s wife Lauren for dinner at Merroir.
The last of the Friday night series Brad and I joined Matt and Guthrie on E.L.E. for a light air night of sailing with 2 other J/70s. We ended up doing one race and saw a beautiful sunset.
Nearly a year in the making this would mark the first time I was the event chairman for the 77th Annual One Design Regatta. With that role came a lot of additional responsibilities and unlike the single-class regattas for Lasers that I have often chaired – this one involved organizing for many different classes. In the end I think we did the best we could to balance the wishes of the sailors vs the sailing conditions we had and the volunteers and resources we had available.
Being the event chairman I was focused on making sure the event ran smoothly and so I only made it out for two races. I had a good first race and ended up in a bad spot in the 2nd race that I couldn’t get out of at a mark rounding and ended up fouling a boat and had to retire from the race.
