2014 J/70 Friday Night Series – July 25
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.
Category: Life
2014 Screwpile Regatta: Sunday
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.
2014 Screwpile Regatta: Saturday
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.
2014 Screwpile Regatta: Friday
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.
2014 Leukemia Cup Regatta: Sunday
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.
2014 Leukemia Cup Regatta: Saturday
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.
Weather Website Launched
I’ve launched my own weather website with data from from various weather buoys around the Chesapeake Bay where I sail. When I’m sailing and want to pull out my phone for a quick check of the weather, I wanted to be able to see it fast so I could get back to sailing. I also wanted to read it easily on a phone and to be able to check multiple buoys without having switch sites. Have a look: http://weather.jdeutsch.com
2014 July 5 Fireworks
Some photos of shooting off Fireworks by the Piankatank on Saturday night. All photos taken with a Nikon D7000 Fish eye 10.5mm lens F5 8-10 second exposures ISO 800.
2014 FBYC Summer Seabreeze 1 Regatta
Following Hurricane Arthur’s blowout of our July 4th racing on Friday we ended up with near perfect 8-10 knots and sunny skies for the Fishing Bay Yacht Club Summer Sea Breeze 1 Regatta. Tommy Roper was my crew for his first time on a Front Runner.
The ace Front Runner team of Matt and A.L. Braun were back for this regatta and swept all 4 races. The Garrett clan of Waddy and Parker sharing the helm with Caroline crewing just seemed to edge us out downwind to take 4 second places on the day. The racing was close and we didn’t make any major mistakes, we just couldn’t hang with the other two boats.
By the last race we had pretty much locked in 3rd place so I handed the tiller to Tommy who got to skipper his first race in a double-handed boat.
