Attended the wedding of Blake and Julia in Deltaville on what would have been a cloudy weekend had Blake and Julia not created their own sunshine. I did a little photography of the groomsmen getting ready and riding the boat over to the venue.
Congrats Blake & Julia!
We started the day with steady rain and plenty of it and hoping for a clearing to enable us to get some racing in for Fishing Bay Yacht Club‘s Summer Laser Regatta. After watching the weather for a bit we were going to have a break around mid-day so we made the call to race right off the dock in the 8-10 SSW breeze we had.
We got off to an on time start with 11 boats on the line. The racing was fun and competitive. The wind was shifty. A few quick sprinkles rolled over the course before clearing later in the day.
Alex Jacob did a masterful job in the first 4 races and stretched out in all of them to take bullets. Robert Suhay, Len Guenther, myself, Mike Moore, Brad Squires and James Jacob all sailed in a pack just behind with any one of us challenging for 2-6 in every race.
PRO Lud Kimbrough and his crew of Eliza Strickland, Anna Matchett, Clay Harris, Katherine Harris, Miles Kimbrough & Just Wilton did a great job being out there under threat of storms and adjusting the course as the wind flaked back and forth. The course lengths were great allowing us to stretch out just enough, but still keeping the starts and the races close.
My day and my first race with my new boat – No Quarter – was a bit of a mixed bag. I had the boat together well enough, but my lack of time in the boat this year clearly showed. I stayed with the pack and had some great legs, but wasn’t able to put a whole race together. I’ll be Laser sailing the next 3 weekends and should be ready by then for the District 11 Championship at Tred Avon August 23-24.
Saturday started out as a nice day for sailboat racing at Fishing Bay Yacht Club for the 2nd Sea Breeze regatta before storms chased us off the course. I sailed in a 3-boat Front Runner fleet with crew Anna Matchett against Mark Stephens/Matt Braun & Kevin Cross/Matt Lambert.
In the first race we had a great start and won the boat shutting the other two boats out and forcing them to start behind us. Up the first beat we had good speed and worked the shifts on the right side of the course.
We made a few crosses just ahead of the other two boats but lost out to Mark who snuck ahead of us right at the mark rounding. Downwind Mark played the middle while we went hard right. The 2nd upwind leg was a little flukier. We again played the middle right while Mark played the left and Kevin went up the left. At the top mark we were in 1st, Kevin came way back to round in 2nd just ahead of Mark. The final downwind was a drag race with us about 4 boat-lengths ahead of Mark and Kevin and in the end Mark edged Kevin out at the finish for 3 and some close racing.
Right at the end of the race Mark had a gear failure so it was just at two boat race for the 2nd race. We had a terrible start, were slow crossing the line and lost a lot of ground to Kevin. Halfway up the beat we heard on the radio that the course was being shortened so we did our best to play the shifts, but knew we were being sent in and a 2 was good enough to win the day.
Thanks Anna for coming sailing with me today. And thanks David Hinkle and the race committee for running races for us.
We had another great night of J/70 sailing at Fishing Bay Yacht Club on Friday with 5 boats out and a nice 5-8 easterly wind. I sailed on Mike Karn’s Inconceivable along with Jim and Carrie.
The final day of racing at the Screwpile Regatta and hallelujah we had good wind for sailing! Today’s schedule was 2-3 buoy races under partly cloudy skies and high 80’s temperatures.
The racing today was really pretty fun. We were right in the thick of it with boats all around us all the way around the course.
Upwind it was a choice between better pressure on the left and a right trending wind along with adverse current on the left. Downwind we had great sets and worked for clear air.
We sailed well, didn’t make any major mistakes and closed out the final two races with a 5-4 putting us in 6th place for the regatta. Thanks Sam for having me aboard. It was great sailing with you, Mayo, Mark, Melissa, Chris, Bonnie, Lauren and Ed.
Saturday was distance race day at the Screwpile Lighthouse Challenge Regatta. The regatta has a new format for this year where we buoy race on Friday and Sunday with a distance race in the middle. The conditions were good for racing – about 8 knots with mostly overcast skies – a little atypical for this regatta this time of year when we’re used to sunny skies, scorching temperatures and no wind.
In this race we were a pinch late at the pin end of the line and watched a few of the faster boats in the water drive to windward of us. For the most part we were low enough to keep a clear lane, but they put some distance between us. After the first mostly upwind leg, the course took us on a couple of close reaches down the bay. Some of the boats with sails that were close reachers or windseekers were able stretch out in front of us a bit. We put up our spinnaker late in the leg once the angles were right.
Once we made the turn back in to the Patuxent River the wind started to get lighter allowing us to catch up to the boats already in the river. We rode the wind down the right side of the course as we converged with the smaller boats that had been sailing various courses. There were plenty of crossing situations and boats to be on the lookout for, and it probably made for some great pictures from the helicopter taking pictures of all of the spinnakers in the river.
One thing that worked really well for us was having me sitting on the rail with an iPad around my neck doing the charter plotting. We had the boat instruments working as well, but having real time information where we were without having to go below helped keep us on track and out of trouble.
When the leaders in our fleet were about a mile ahead of us at the last turn to the finish, we saw something unusual happen. Bad Cat – a local boat with a little over a 7′ draft had run aground in the channel. A minute later VooDoo 2 was rafted up next to them hard aground. A third boat from another fleet wound up next to them as well. We just sailed right on by and were pretty happy with a 6th place finish.
Following racing we had a great cookout with the crews from Persuit, Horizon, GOIN’, Cheeky Monkey hosted by VooDoo 2.
Here’s what we sailed today. The blue line is the course and the red dotted line mostly right along side the blue line is our plot.
We had some pretty light winds to start the Screwpile Lighthouse Challenge Regatta in Solomon’s Maryland. I am sailing on Sam Mitchener’s J/109 Double Eagle this weekend and we are rated as the slowest boat along with the other J/109 in the 10-boat PHRF-A1 fleet.
In the first race on Friday we got a good start near the pin in clear air. We worked our way up the 1-mile leg and rounded in the middle of the pack. On the downwind leg the wind started to go from light to lighter. We rounded the leeward mark and started making our way out to the right side of the course following most of the rest of the fleet. Three boats behind us rafted up at the leeward mark and the wind completely shut off.
For the next hour and half we would float around trying to make distance towards the now-shortened coarse at the windward mark. At one point we had the anchor down to prevent us from being swept away from the mark by the current. Many other boats did the same. Ultimately, the boats rafted up at the mark came from behind everyone to catch just enough of a breeze on the left side of the course to finish. 4 boats got across the line before the timeline, and the rest of the fleet took at TLE/6. Quite a frustrating day of sailing being out on the water with no wind, a lot of current and not being able to even sail the course. With two more days of racing ahead lets hope the racing only improves.
What the wind left us wanting for on Saturday was delivered on Sunday. Perfect sailing conditions with 10-14 knot breezes out of the south west and comfortable temperatures and partly cloudy skies.
Three more races were sailed. We did as well as we could and didn’t make too many mistakes. We still couldn’t hang with the faster boats and found ourselves 5-6-5 on the day. All in all it was a fun regatta and nice to sail with Rob Whittet, Steve Utley and the rest of the Wavelength Crew as we helped raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
The first day of the Leukemia Cup Regatta got off to a bit of a slow start when racing was postponed on the water for almost 3 hours. We had a couple teases where it looked to fill and thankfully we didn’t have triple-digit heat while we sat around.
We finally started a race and we had a good start at the boat with only Double Eagle between us and the boat. Below us were a couple J/105s.
We worked our way out to the left as we went up the course. All in all we sailed well, didn’t make any mistakes and got around the course cleanly. Unfortunately, we still couldn’t catch the 2 j109s or Voodoo 2 and settled for 4th.
Two of the j105s didn’t have such a hot first downwind leg. They were just behind us when one of them tried to gybe behind the other and wound up colliding. One boat put their spinnaker pole right into the cockpit behind the driver and as the boats tangled it sheared off the rear pulpit before the boats came to a stop and were untangled. There were no injuries but the damaged boat won’t be racing tomorrow.
With one race complete it was too late for another one and we headed in.
Following racing we boated over to the Deltaville Maritime Museum for a great dinner and entertainment.
And one of my photos was in the live auction raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It was cool to be featured alongside a couple of John Barbour prints.
