Jess was in town for the holidays and with it being such a nice day I showed her the new pedestrian bridge over the James River and we retraced the hike I did early this month. We ran into Lauren and Patrick who took a couple pictures of us.
My adventure with the Snipe sailboat began in early December. It’s a boat that has intrigued me since looking at pictures of the 1st Snipe World Championship at the Chautauqua Lake Yacht Club when I was growing up. My girlfriend Jess has been sailing them in Dallas and I think for a variety of reasons they could be a good boat at FBYC for those that would want something smaller and with fewer sails than a Flying Scot. A Laser sailing friend of mine has one that he hasn’t sailed for some time and said I could have it for a case of beer. So today I rented a trailer and went up and got it. It’s going to need some work, but it’ll make a good boat for getting started in the Snipe.
ECU Basketball was in Charlottesville playing UVA who was ranked in the top 10 at the time. I got to see the game with Patrick, Lauren and Jen. In the end it wasn’t much of a competitive game, but it was fun to root for ECU from the UVA section.
Last night in Richmond was the grand illumination and the opening of the new Tyler Potterfield Bridge connecting Brown’s Island to the Manchester Flood Wall on the other side of the river. I got out there first thing in the morning to check it out and ended up doing a loop over and around Bell Isle. It’s a nice bridge and it has many more incredible views of the city and the river.
It was another fun weekend with the tailgate crew especially with one part having just gotten engaged and another part home for the game on baby watch.
It was also military appreciation day and we got to climb like kids on the equipment and see a pretty cool flyover.
After spending some time in Dallas – Jess and I headed down to Austin to explore the city and surrounding area. One of the first things we did was visit the Hamilton Pool Preserve. It was an overcast day, we were there early and it was pretty deserted.
We visited some other parks, walked a portion of the trail around Lady Byrd ‘lake’ and visited an exhibit of Dr. Suess art. Those are all the things we did between eating awesome food at a variety of places around town.
For Halloween I flew to Dallas for a week of visiting Jess. To make a long story short – we made a deal back in June for something that resulted in me getting to pick out her Halloween costume and of course I picked a Pirate costume and she rocked it! We had fun time out on the town on a Monday night in Dallas with Connie and Andrew.
The Laser Frostbite Regatta was the last event of the year at FBYC and we made it quite easy on the RC by setting a course that allowed them to signal it from the dock. The wind was just the right direction out of the south west where the RC could run the races from the end of the dock. We used a boat to move the weather mark and pin. They had a great time and the proximity to shore enabled the sailors make breaks at the club in between races.
The wind was a little light for this one, but we rolled through the races doing short courses with 10 boats. While I seemed to have good boat speed – I did find myself on the wrong side of some shifts and occasionally out of the top 3. Charlie Brewer once again sailed incredibly consistently and took the day. I followed in 2nd with Len close behind. What a great way to end the season!
UCONN was in town for a Halloween inspired afternoon ECU Football game. We had a couple clever costumes among us.
It was the 35th Anniversary of the Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship and the regatta is finally old enough to be a competitor. The color coral commemorates a 35th anniversary and the shirts we designed turned out pretty cool:
The first day saw medium winds just into the double digits with mostly clear skies. In 5 races we had some close competition up top between Gavin O’Hare and Charlie Brewer who both finished the day tied with 20 points. Mike Schmidt was close behind in the 41 boat fleet.
Alain and his kitchen crew prepared another fabulous me and a tent city popped up full of sailors.
Sunday started out with no wind and we waited ashore as it began to build about an hour later. A little lighter than yesterday we ran a little shorter courses and made it through 4 more races. Charlie and Gavin stayed close and Gavin managed to edge just ahead of Charlie to win the championship.
Thanks to Alain, Rick, Len, Frank and everyone else who helped make this another great Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship. And after 13 years of only being the event chair – I’ll be looking forward to next year where I can both run it and qualify to sail in it!
