Category: Life

We sailed 3 more races at the Laser North American Championship today after a 2 1/2 hour postponement on the water.  I won the second race of the day.  During the first race – in which I only beat 4 boats – I figured out the wind/weather pattern and used that to my advantage in the second race.  There were some dark clouds out to the left of the course and everyone was fighting for the pin and going left.  I knew by the pattern a righty was coming and was very close to the boat end at the start and immediately went right.

The righty started coming in and before I knew it I was on the lay line.  After I tacked it was pretty clear the fleet was well below me, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to go left and bring them back.  At the windward mark I had about a 20-boat lead.

It was great being all by myself up front because that meant I could sail the rhumb line and fast.  It felt like a 10-boat regatta where all I needed to do was not make any mistakes, go fast, and pay attention to the wind for any shifts.  I extended my lead on the next 3 legs and had close to a 40-boat length lead, on the boats behind me, after the second upwind.  By the last downwind the fast guys, like regatta leader Clay Johnson, had gotten back up to the front of the fleet and started to close in on me.

On the final upwind leg to the finish a rivet popped out of my gooseneck and fell to the deck.  I just kept racing and crossed the finish in first.  It was a relief I made it without falling apart or being caught and it was a thrill to win a race like that against such great competition.

As soon as I finished I set to work jury rigging my gooseneck to get me through the next race.  In the 3rd race I played the shifts pretty well and kept myself in the front part of the pack putting me in 29th for the race.

I’m currently in 39th with 6 races down and 5 races to go.  If I can finish half as well as I did in the second race today I should be able to stay in the top 40 and pick up some grand prix points.

Results

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Today was the first day of the Laser North American Championship Regatta at Brant Beach Yacht Club.  A few weeks ago I banged up my wrist so I had taken the last two weekends off from sailing other than just going out as ballast.  Yesterday and today were my first two days back out on my wrist.

We were racing with 70 Lasers in one start.  In the first race I had a pretty terrible start and took pretty much the entire race to get my wheels going and get back in the groove.  I finished in the 50’s.

On each start we had numerous general recalls and every start was ultimately under I over Z.  On the second race my tiller universal joint snapped right at the start.  I ended up spotting the fleet two minutes while I made a repair.  I managed to come back and wasn’t even DFL at the first windward mark.  I picked off boats on every leg and wound up 45th.

In the 3rd race I had a reasonable start, hung with the bulk of the fleet and mostly held my position to the finish ending up 44th.

Not my best day on the water, but reasonable given the level of competition.  My wrist held up and hopefully won’t be giving me any problems this week. With a little less wind forecasted  for tomorrow, I should have a better shot at keeping the boat flat and staying in the fleet.

Results

 

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This week the Laser North American Championship is getting underway at Brant Beach Yacht Club. I drove in yesterday evening and got the boat ready today and went for a short practice sail in 15+.  I’ll be sailing in the Standard Rig fleet with about 72 boats.  Another 142 boats will be sailing in the Radial fleet.

Follow updates throughout the regatta on the @LaserNAC twitter account – I’ll be contributing to the off-the-water updates.

Brant Beach Sunset

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I had an awesome weekend in Deltaville.  It started with the Inaugural Deltaville 5k.  With zero training I ran the whole thing and had a respectable finish of 26:07.

Jon at the Deltaville 5k

I took the weekend off from sailing to heal a minor wrist sprain and so  I went right from the 5k to doing race committee at Fishing Bay Yacht Club for the offshore Cut Channel Race.  I got a lot of great pictures of the offshore fleet here.

downwind during the Cut Channel Race

Saturday night was 4th of July partying, fireworks and swimming.  For Sunday’s racing we thought it was going to be a bit windy so I jumped on a Front Runner as a 3rd crew member, but halfway through the race the wind died and I sat out the next two light wind races and instead went sailing on a Byte in the afternoon.  Saturday night we again watched Fireworks.

Fireworks as seen from Fishing Bay Yacht Club. On the left is a firework from Stove Point while in the background are fireworks from Matthews County.

Monday was FBYC’s One Design Long Distance Race.  I normally would have sailed my Laser in this, but again I was sitting out to rest my sprained wrist.  I went out for the start and the first two legs to get some photos.  The entire collection is posted here.

Front Runners and a Mobjack sailing downwind in the One Design Long Distance Race

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Last weekend I was up in Brant Beach New Jersey for a Laser clinic.  I can’t say I am a better sailor just from being there, but I did learn a lot of things I need to practice and apply to my sailing that I hope will make me a lot better in the future.

One of the tenets of the training was to use practice to find where the ‘edge’ is.  Here’s plenty of footage of me ‘finding the edge’.

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I sailed on Wavelength for the 2010 Southern Bay Leukemia Cup Regatta and not only was our picture featured in a Leukemia Cup Ad in Sailing and Cruising World, but now we’re on the cover of this year’s regatta poster and flier.  Wavelength was the top fundraising boat at last years regatta.  We’re hoping to repeat and would like to ask anyone who would like to make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to do so via this link.  Thank you!

2011 Leukemia Cup Regatta poster

 

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This evening was our annual Parents Laser Race during Junior Week at FBYC.  The goal is to get as many parents as possible, after the kids activities are done for the day, and get out on the water for some fun short-course racing right off the dock. Tonight was a superb evening for it.  The wind started around 12 knots when we left the dock at 5:30 and died out around 7:30.  We had about 10 boats come out and we got in at least 7 or 8 races.

2011 Laser Parent's Night Races

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