Category: Life

Hurricane Arthur spoiled our plans to do the Annual Long Distance Race at Fishing Bay Yacht Club.  I was going to be sailing a Front Runner but the storm rolled through in the morning hours and so the racing was cancelled.  The Hurricane was well east of us and all we got was some rain and wind for a few hours.  We never saw winds much above 40.

Once the rain subsided much of the rest of the day was spent hanging out and doing a little bit a boat work.  By the afternoon the sun was out and it was a beautiful day albeit still a little windy.  We went for a boat ride, enjoyed the 4th of July party and band at the club  and then went out for another boat ride to watch fireworks 360-degrees all around.

By Posted on Posted in Life No Comments Tagged with , , ,

We started the July 4 weekend with some J/70 racing at Fishing Bay Yacht Club.  We had 6 boats out in 12-16 knots of wind for a few races.  I was on Nostalgia with Blake Kimbrough, Julia Page and Tommy Roper.

7/3 J/70 Fri Night Series

This photo was right after we finally got a correct spinnaker set.  It only took us 4 laps to get it right.  On the plus side we got a lot better at outside gybes.

7/3 J/70 Fri Night Series
By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing, Video No Comments Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Saturday was the Cut Channel Race at Fishing Bay Yacht Club and I was aboard Double Eagle with Sam Mitchener and 7 others for the race.  We couldn’t have asked for much better weather with 10-20 knots out of the East with sunny skies for the 29nm course.  We were among 2 other boats in the PHRF-A fleet and 18 total boats in the race.

We had a good start down by the pin right alongside the other J-109 Afterthought.  The first half of the race was a beat and for the first 2 miles Afterthought inched ahead of us to where they were 5 lengths ahead of us as we turned around C and headed for mark L.  As the wind built we had a better sail selection and a little more weight and were within a couple boat lengths by the time we got to L.

Afterthought crossing us on the way to Q:
Afterthought

From mark L we kept going south while Afterthought tacked and went North as we both made our way east across the bay to mark Q.  The current made all the difference pushing us closer to the mark and we were .8 mi ahead at Q.  As the wind eased and the conditions began to favor Afterthought for the 2nd half of the race they chewed some of that back and we crossed the finish line with a 3:15 minute lead and won our class and had the fastest corrected time of the whole fleet.

I ended up driving upwind and the reach for about 40 minutes which was good to give Sam a break and to see how the sails were affecting the trim.  Mayo, Bonnie, Ed, Matt L, Chris T, Holly F sailed well together and were fun to sail with.  All in all it was a good race and a good result – putting Double Eagle into contention later this year for the long distance series.

Pictures | Results

Our Course (blue) and our track (red dotted):

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing No Comments Tagged with , , , , ,

Such a great time to play some soccer at the end of the day.   Literally put blood, sweat and tears into this… after I got hit with a soccer ball while filming and the camera cut my forehead, and tears when I missed the sudden death penalty kick putting my team out of the final.  Was a fun video to make and there’s never been a better time for me to start a rap career on the side.

By Posted on Posted in Life, Participation Sports, Video No Comments Tagged with , ,

Having not planned on being in Deltaville this weekend I was a late add to Wavelength for the Moonlight Regatta following my Laser sail in the afternoon.  The weather was perfect for a night race – comfortable temperatures, clear skies and 12-19 knots of wind out of the north east.

We got a pretty reasonable start and were 2nd around the top mark behind Double Eagle.  On the 2nd leg out to mark E, Double Eagle went pretty low and allowed us to slip by while the Tartan 40 Nereid just waterlined us in the chop and was half a length ahead of us to leeward at E.  For some strange reason Nereid went below the mark, we didn’t, but we couldn’t turn right to go to G because they were there.  Eventually it was sorted out and Nereid went back to re-round while we led the fleet to G only to be overrun by Double Eagle once they caught up.  Below is a photo of Nereid (right) going back to the mark, while  Double Eagle tracks us down.

 

From G to J was a close reach up into the Rappahannock River with the current coming right on our nose.  I drove about a mile and a half of the leg before we turned to go back to the Piankatank.   We put the chute up just before F and gybed around it.  We had a bit of a trouble with the jibe before we got settled to head for the finish.  About halfway down the leg to the finish our topping lift broke.  We took down the spinnaker and sailed bare-headed while we got the genoa sorted and hoisted.  We came so close to winning the A fleet… Double Eagle corrected to 34 seconds ahead of us leaving us in 2nd overall.

Below is the course.  The marks as sailed are labeled Moon Start-Moon-E-G-J-B(finish).  The dotted red line is the actual course we sailed.

20140615-153303-55983668.jpg

Results | Photos

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing No Comments Tagged with , , , ,

I spent most of today at Fishing Bay Yacht Club putting the new boat together.  After 4 hours and 3 trips to West Marine and I had it all tricked out like I wanted and ready to sail.

6/14 drilling holes in and tricking out the new boat.

6/14 about to launch the new boat for the first time.

What really surprised me when I was sailing was how much stiffer the mast seemed.  I haven’t sailed many boats and am pretty used to the feel of the old boat.  I’m guessing after 17 years the old mast has been flexed so many times it’s lost a bit of stiffness.  Couple the stiffer mast with control lines that are just a little thinner than I’m used to and I really felt like a wimp trying to crank everything in.  I’m sure it’ll loosen up a bit as I get used to it.  The other difference was the all Holt-Allen fittings which were just a little different than the Harken ones I’m used to.  I’m not sure yet which I prefer, but I’m sure I’ll be able to tell in time.

6/14 first sail in the new boat.

By Posted on Posted in ILCA Sailing, Life, No Quarter Sailing, Sailboat Racing No Comments Tagged with , , , ,

I was supposed to be on my  way to Cape May New Jersey today for the District 10 Championship Regatta at Wildwood Yacht Club and Corinthian Yacht Club of Cape May.  I was looking forward to visiting with NJ sailors and visiting a new club.  I was also looking to avenge a demon of the last time I was in Cape May and had a run-in with yacht in the harbor.

That wasn’t going to be.  Last night when I was loading the Laser I slipped with it and it fell off the car with the bow hitting with a thud.  It got a small crack in the gunwale and there were several inches of the hull/deck joint that separated where the boat flexed so it was clearly out of commission.  It’s fixable, but it will be a while. Me, the car and the ground made out with out any scratches.

159785 was one of the boats at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, has a great logo on the side of it and was a very well made boat.  I was fortunate that the boat was a spare for that regatta and didn’t get as beat up as the other boats.  We picked it up at the beginning of 1997 and it served me well for the 17 years since. But with any boat sailed that hard for that long – it was beginning to show its age and have little things go wrong with it from time to time.  Almost exactly a year ago I was in NJ and the traveler fairlead pulled out.  I had planned on getting a new boat in the next year anyway so might as well move that up and pick up a new boat to use while the old one is getting fixed.  Eventually, I’ll keep the old boat at the club for local sailing and keep the new boat in Richmond ready for travel events.

The name for this boat will be No Quarter.  That’s the beloved battle cry of my ECU Pirates and loosely means show no mercy, take no prisoners and accept only unconditional surrender.

I ultimately decided I had enough things go wrong for one weekend and didn’t want to temp fate any further by trying to race on a brand new boat… so I thought it best to sit this D10 Championship out and get the boat put together and take it easy this weekend.  I’ll have the boat out for it’s maiden voyage tomorrow.

By Posted on Posted in ILCA Sailing, Life, No Quarter Sailing, Sailboat Racing 1 Comment Tagged with , , ,

IMG_1945

I recently got a new Fujifilm FinePix XP200 Waterproof Digital Camera and just gave it to my friends while we were racing.  This is what they took and I’m pretty impressed with the camera and how it came out.

Some video and pictures from Fishing Bay Yacht Club’s One Design Invitational Regatta sailed in Front Runners and San Juan 21.

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing, Video No Comments Tagged with , , , , ,