This week I upgraded to a new Digital SLR camera. The Nikon D7000 finally does decent video with stereo sound at the right price. Last summer I bought the Nikon D3000 when my then 6-year-old D70 needed replacing. I knew that would only be a temporary camera until Nikon came out with the right camera for me. In addition to the camera I’ve also gotten the vertical grip and a Sennheiser shotgun microphone. I’m looking forward to both the better quality photos and the better videos this camera will make. The point-and-shoot camera really wasn’t cutting it for a lot of the videos I wanted to make. I’m going sailing this weekend and will have a great opportunity to try the camera out.
In the April edition of both Sailing World(p68) and Cruising World the The Leukemia Cup Regatta has an ad featuring the crew of Wavelength during the 2010 Southern Bay Leukemia Cup at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. Pictured: Anton Webre, Melanie Pelouze Schmidt, Chris Schmidt, Ed Walker, Steve Utley, Rob Whittet, Jon Deutsch, and John Watlington.
FBYC launched a new website for the Stingray Point Regatta this week. It uses a lot of the things we learned from the 2010 Optimist Nationals website and should serve as a good platform for promoting and providing information about the event. The regatta takes place each Labor Day weekend in Deltaville, Virginia at Fishing Bay Yacht Club and is sailed mostly around buoy courses in 23-40+ foot boats. Check it out at http://stingraypointregatta.org
This afternoon the James River crested around 15 feet according to the Westham gauge. The last time the water was up past this level was January of last year where it crested around 18 feet. Here are some scenes from Pony Pasture Rapids Park and Riverside drive earlier this afternoon.
The trip to Clearwater Florida for the 2011 Laser Midwinters East was an easy one. Ted brought brought my boat down last week when he came for Masters Midwinters and so this afternoon I was able to fly down. Once in town I settled into the hotel, got the boat checked in and went to dinner with Bob, Ted and Adam.
Tomorrow will be the first of 4 days of racing in the standard rig. The forecast is for lighter winds on Thursday with a little more on Friday and Saturday. There will be close to 80 other boats with me in the Standard rig fleet and over 200 total at the regatta. This is my first time at Midwinters and I’m looking forward to a great weekend of sailing.
Thursday
We had some light winds and chop for the first day of the Laser Midwinters in Clearwater Florida. They split the 78 boat standard rig fleet and I was sailing with the blue fleet with the 3rd start of the day. I was one of the last to arrive at the race course and after a quick postponement they got the fleets started. In the first race I had a bit of a slow start and was in the 30s around the first mark. As I got more comfortable in the boat I clawed back a few spots at a time and came back to 27th. On the last downwind leg I was going downwind on starboard with another boat sailing parallel to me on port. Our masts touched so I protested him. I normally wouldn’t follow through with a protest that doesn’t really affect my finish, but I wasn’t a fan of how the guy handled it on the water so he got tossed later that evening in the protest hearing that he failed to show up to.
We sat on the water for over an hour while the wind clocked around to the right and the course got reset. We started the 2nd race in about 8 knots of breeze. I had a good start and was on the favored side of the course. I had better boat speed than the first race and hung right behind the lead pack. Up until the last two legs I held my place pretty well, but by the last two races I made some positioning mistakes and let some boats sneak inside me and ended up 23rd.
All in all it was a good day of sailing. The weather was comfortable and the water is not too cold. I’m sitting in 50th and if I can put up some solid finishes tomorrow, I might be able to sneak into the top fleet going into the weekend. The forecast tomorrow is for more wind in the 10-15 knot range.
Friday
For the second race day at Laser Midwinters we had 12-14 knots all day. I sailed with the leaders all day long … that was the leaders of the fleet behind me. It was a beautiful day with warm weather and we sailed 3 races. It wasn’t my best day as I am not competitive in the top end of that range wind range. I’m getting more experience in that kind of wind and getting my muscles used to hiking again after a few month hiatus.
I was in the back of the pack so I’ll definitely be in the silver fleet. Looking forward to sailing with the back half of the fleet in what should be some laid back and competitive sailing at more my level.
Saturday
Light air day in Clearwater for the Laser Midwinters. To begin the day we were postponed on shore due to lack of wind at the racing area. There was a nice wind blowing through the sailing center which made it even that much harder to sit around. I did some sightseeing and walked across the street to see the beach.
Around noon the wind filled in enough at the race course for them to send us off. We waited around at the course for a bit while the wind settled and the Standard Gold fleet eventually started in 4-6 knots out of the West South West. Our fleet started under black flag and I had a reasonably good start towards the middle-pin end. I made my way to my left and kept my tacks to a minimum arriving in at the windward mark just behind the top 10 boats. I held my speed pretty well with the rest of the fleet and managed to stay ahead of the scrum of about 15 boats behind me. With 4 boats ahead of me black flagged, I ended up finishing 10th in the silver fleet.
Tomorrow is the last day at midwinters. The weather has been great and the sailing has been fun. We have an earlier start tomorrow and are hoping for a little more wind than we had today. And as soon as we are off the water tomorrow, Ted and I will start the long drive back to VA/MD.
Sunday
We started the final day of the 2011 Laser Midwinters east a little earlier. We had to check out of the hotel and be out on the water for a 10am first start. Despite being one of the first to leave the dock, I was one of the few without a coach boat and therefore one of the last to reach the race course. It wasn’t much of a problem because we were postponed on the water for over an hour before the sea breeze finally came in with 5-10 knots of breeze.
The silver standard rig fleet only got to sail one race before we reached the mid-afternoon time limit. The first start was recalled and we restarted under black flag. I had a terrible start and was so far behind so fast I just ended up ducking a couple stragglers and banging the right corner. It ended up paying off as I was in the 15-20 range at the top mark. I did pretty well reaching and downwind but lost a few more boats when the right DID NOT pay off on the second beat. I finished somewhere in the low 20’s.
The sea breeze made it an easy sail in and Ted and I got the boats and car packed up in record time to begin the drive back to Richmond and then on to Annapolis.
I definitely enjoyed my first trip to the Laser Midwinters East Regatta. I learned a lot, got to sail alongside some great sailors, met some new people, and got back into the boat after a few months off. I’m looking forward to getting a little more practice and going ready to compete at the ACC’s and NAC’s later this spring and summer.
I used Sunday’s Laser frostbite as an opportunity to get some of the cobwebs out. Last weeks’ frostbite at Hampton was good for getting the boat together, but with little wind, wasn’t much of an opportunity to do the kind of sailing I’ll be doing at Midwinters in Clearwater Florida in a little over a week.
The temperature on Sunday in Annapolis was in the high 40’s and low 50’s with winds 13-16 knots, overcast skies and a water temperature of 38 degrees. Generally it was good sailing in wind that I had to hike in and I got some of the feeling back in how to sail the boat and make it go. With boat handling being my priority, results of the 4 races I sailed in were secondary and the scoreboard was not friendly – finishing 15 out of 17 boats on the line including two DFLs.
All in all it was a good day on the water and I’m glad to have gotten that past me now rather than on the first day of the regatta. This was also an opportunity for me to practice filming with the GoPro. I had gotten several mounting locations set up and today I mounted the camera to the bow. Check out the video:
Edit: A more comprehensive list of GoPro mounts and mounting locations for a Laser can be found here.
Saturday I got my boat ready for Frostbiting on Sunday and ultimately for Midwinters in a little over a week. I also put together some mounts for the GoPro camera. I had already mounted the camera to the compass mount that yielded this video from last weekend.
Pictured above is the GoPro mounted to the compass bracket just in front of the compass. This works because most of the time when I’m using the compass I’m hiked out and thus looking at the side markings on the compass. The few times when I actually want to look at the compass head on are usually when I’m checking the wind when I’m not looking and it’s easy enough to just look over the camera.
This picture is of the GoPro mounted to the Laser mast just below the goose neck facing aft on the port side of the boat. The ‘roll cage’ bracket is the right width, but the screws that come with it aren’t long enough to fit the width of the mast. A quick trip to the the hardware store for some longer screws and nuts fixed that.
To mount the camera to the bow I drilled a hole in the top of the bow eye and took one of the GoPro tripod mounts and used a bolt from underneath the bow eye to secure it. Pictured is are both the short and tall versions of the setup. The taller version gives a better perspective back to the cockpit, but being taller, it might vibrate a little more. I also plan to wrap both in tape to be sure nothing gets caught on them.
These photos show the clamp mount I made to fix the camera to the top of the mast. I used another tripod mount and bolted it to a hole I made on the side of the clamp. This mount could be used at the top of the mast, the aft end of the boom, or even on the rudder head during training.
The final location I mounted the camera to is the dolly. Normally the dolly rides upside down on top of the boat, so by mounting the camera to the side of it I can video scenes on the way to regattas to help frame the location. When the boat is on the dolly the mount can also be used to film while moving the boat around.
Made a trip to the ODU sailing center on Sunday to Frostbite with the Hampton Roads Laser Fleet. This was the first of two frostbite outings to tune up for the Laser Midwinters East Regatta in Clearwater Florida in a couple weeks.
The day was fraught with very little wind and thus we were only able to get in two short races before calling it a day. The video below shows just how light it was. This was also my first experiment mounting the GoPro camera to the Laser. It turned out pretty well and I can’t wait to try another mounting location next week when I’m frostbiting up at SSA in Annapolis.
Highlight film from the match between the Sloppy Chops and “A” Team in the River City Sport and Social Club Dodgeball League at the Richmond Volleyball Club on February 2, 2011.
We started the week with a bit of a bumpy ride to Key West on Saturday. John Wake drove, Tal flew out of Texas, and Rob flew AirTran. All of their trips were pretty uneventfully. Lud, Travis and I were on all of the same flights and we can’t say the same for our trip. Our first flight out of Richmond was diverted back to the gate while taxing to the runway due to a passenger having a medical emergency. An hour later we were on our way to Atlanta, but not with enough time to catch our connection to Key West. We relaxed at the sky lounge and caught the next flight to Key West. That flight was at the end of the runway about to take off, and they had a computer problem and returned us to the gate to fix it. An hour later we were on our way not arriving in Key West until about 5:30, 5 hours after we were originally scheduled to be there.
Thankfully the other guys got there on time and were able to register, check into the condos and pick up our rental bikes for the week. After getting settled we went out to a Brazillion Steak House for dinner and then went out on Duvall street.
Day 2: Sunday
Sunday was our day to get out on the water and practice. The boat had been brought down and set up earlier in the week, so all we needed to do was some final tuning and go sailing. We are sharing a slip with another J105, Max Power. The RC44s are just down the dock from us as well as a few other big racing boats.
After an hour of prep work, we were ready to go. 2 minutes after getting the sails up and starting to sail, I was down below and noticed water above the floorboards. It turns out there were 2 slow leaks on the boat and the bilge pump had not been turned on. Turning that on along with a couple minutes of bailing and we got the bilge emptied and went back to sailing.
Our practice went well. It gave us all a chance to sail together, we made sure all of the systems and equipment were race ready, and we got to spend time practicing some new positions for many of us. Mid-afternoon we headed back to shore and made a few repairs and got everything cleaned up for racing tomorrow.
We ate a late lunch at Turtle Krawls and Russell Coutts (BMW Oracle) sat down at the table next to us. Peter Holmgren (Alinghi 2003) was at another table nearby. In the evening everyone hung out watching the NFL playoffs. Rob went to the skippers meeting, we checked out the regatta party and after a pretty low-key evening, turned in pretty early. 8:30 dock call tomorrow.
Day 3: Monday
Monday was the first day of racing at Key West Race Week for the J105 Lucky Dog Racing. Last night a storm rolled through the area which left some lumpy seas around the course for the first part of the day. The cloudy skies in the morning cleared as the day went on and with them went the wind.
At the race course we did some practice to be sure everything was ship shape and ready to go. We were a half a boat length late at the start with Max Power above us. We worked our way out to the middle left of the course on the first beat and were about 6th around the first mark. We held our own downwind, but had a terrible takedown and lost 10-15 boat lengths at the leeward mark.
Upwind we were fast and clawed our way back a few spots. We ended up 8th in the 1st race of the day in the 15-boat fleet.
In the second race of the day the wind and waves had subsided a bit. Travis did a great job nailing the start and we hit the line on the front row and were able to get out in clear air. We were right with Ghost, Savasana, Wasabi and Masquerade. We had good upwind boat speed and led Ghost at the first windward mark by half a boat length. On the next three legs we had clean maneuvers, good tactics and extended our lead.
On the final leg upwind to the finish, Masquerade, who was in 4~6th place rounded the leeward mark and went way left. We covered everyone else in the fleet who mostly stayed to the middle right. Masquerade hit the left corner perfectly and was lifted ahead of us by 5-8 boat lengths. We continued to gain on the boats behind, but couldn’t catch up to Masqueraded leaving us with a 2nd place finish.
A second and an 8 put us in 4th overall. Tomorrow’s forecast is for a little lighter winds which will be a bit more challenging for us.
After racing we headed back to the condos and a short time later a storm rolled through the area. We headed over to Kelley’s for the J105 party and then went out to dinner.
Day 4: Tuesday
The second day of racing at Key West Race Week was a little warmer and had a little lighter wind than yesterday. We had a great start in the first race. Unfortunately, it was too great and the race committee called nearly half the fleet over early including boats that were above us and below us. We realized we were over immediately and were able to bail out and get restarted without loosing a lot of ground. With so many boats being called over meant many of the leaders were at the back of the pack right at the start.
The lighter wind we today than yesterday meant the racing was a lot more about being in the right spot. Our boat handling was a lot cleaner and we did a good job getting around the marks without getting into any drama with other boats. We managed a 6th in the first race.
The second race was light and lumpy which required much better technique going up wind to keep the boat moving. We were in the lead pack up the first beat, but fell off on the next two legs and ended up 6th when the race was shortened down to 3 laps from the 5 that were planned because of the dying wind.
After racing we packed up the boat and headed back to the Condo. Lud and I went for a bike tour of the western part of the island and rode by places like the Hemmingway House and the Southern Most Point. Later we all stopped by the regatta party to see the awards given. Following the party we went to the Rum Barrel restaurant and had a nice dinner with some live music.
Tim Wilkes posted some photos of Lucky Dog from the first day of racing here. Overall results from the first two days of racing are here.
Tomorrow’s forecast is for less wind than today. We were reminded numerous times while at the party to listen to the 8:30 and 9am announcements to find out if we will be postponed on shore. Tomorrow could be a good day to be a tourist.
Day 5: Wednesday
Today was a light air day just on the verge of being sailable. We headed out to course not knowing if we were actually going to race or if we were just going to be sitting out there for a while. The wind was just strong enough that the Race Committee started us on time on a course with just 1-mile legs.
We won the start but ended up on the wrong side of the course when the first shift came down. We were mid-fleet around the first windward mark and caught a couple boats downwind. On the next upwind we held our own, but boats that banged the corners came out ahead. On the final downwind we had clear wind heading downwind and picked up a boat, but got sniped at the line by another boat putting us in 7th.
By that point the wind was dying and wouldn’t be enough to get another race in so the Race Committee called us off and we were back at shore by 1.
Most of us rested or did some sight-seeing for the rest of the afternoon. At 6 we headed over to the regatta party tent to see the awards. Unfortunately for me something I drank didn’t agree with me and I went from feeling fine to feeling like I was going to be pretty sick in just a matter of minutes. I booked it home and rested up for the rest of the night hoping to be back to normal tomorrow.
Day 6: Thursday
Today was a rough day on the water. It started out with an intense fog that limited visibility to only a couple hundred feet. We were postponed on shore for 30 minutes before finally being sent out. Initially the fog was lifting as we were heading out of the channel, but once out in open water it came in even thicker. We didn’t have a chart plotter onboard so we ended up using a plotter app on my iPhone using coordinates radioed by the race committee to find their position. One unlucky Melges 24 ended up several miles away on the Division 3 course.
The Race Committee postponed us on the water until the fog lifted and then got racing started. The wind was light in the 6-8 knot range and by the time we were actually racing it was rarely over 6. At least the water was pretty flat so we weren’t bobbing around.
I can’t say much else about the racing because I didn’t see any of it. To best position our crew weight while sailing upwind, Lud and I sat down below. Being out of the sun with a slight breeze was more comfortable than being on deck. If only we hadn’t tacked so much causing me to switch sides, I could have actually caught some zzz’s.
At the last minute before the mark rounding, Lud and I would spring onto deck and raise the spinnaker. We’d be on deck until it was doused and then we were back below. Results-wise it wasn’t the best day for us. We put up an 8 and a 13 in two races dropping us into 8th.
After racing we did some packing at the condo as many of our crew are hoping on a plane immediately after racing tomorrow. We hit up the regatta party, grabbed some sea food for dinner and called it a night.
Day 7: Friday
Friday was the final day of racing and having had a day with only 1 race, the race committee bumped up the start time so that we could try and get in 3 races. Out on the race course the wind was light and out of the same direction as it was on Tuesday. In the light sloppy stuff we just didn’t have the horsepower to keep up with the fast boats. By the 3rd race there was weather on the horizon and we played the side we thought the wind would fill in to, but it didn’t come in time and we were hung out there. We ended up going 9-8-9 for the day putting us into 8th for the week.
After racing we had a few of our crew needing to catch a 5:30 flight so we got the boat completely packed on the water so that we could dock and dash. Tal and I were the only two left so we caught up with the crew from Solaris and went to the regatta party and dinner.
Day 8: Saturday
With racing complete, I had one final day in Key West for sightseeing before my flight out at the end of the day. I visited the Hemmingway house and saw the 6-toed cats and the studio where he wrote most of his books. I also visited the Key West lighthouse and walked up it to see the views of the area. I made another stop to the shipwreck museum.
My trip to Key West wouldn’t have been complete without more problems with flights. All week the winds hadn’t been over 10 knots which didn’t make for great race conditions. But today there were high wind warnings and so the plane flying in to fly me out wasn’t able to land because of it. My flight was cancelled and Delta didn’t have another seat on a plane out of Key West until Monday. So they put bunches of us in cabs and drove us 190 miles to Miami where I was put up in 2-room king bed suite at Embassy Suites. My trip goes on another day…
