Category: Sailboat Racing

Friday, I arrived in Muskegon Michigan and got some practice in ahead of the Laser District 19 Championship this weekend.  Dick Tillman was conducting a clinic with some of the sailors and I jumped in and did their practice races with them.

Today we raced with 16 Standard rigs and 9 radials at Muskegon Yacht Club which is a lake-like bay connected to Lake Michigan.  The wind started out around 6-8 and we did some short windward-lewards with a mid-course line.  In the lighter winds in the first 3 races it was all about winning the starting and getting the shifts right.  Everyone was getting to the windward mark at the same time which made for some interesting mark roundings.  Later as the wind increased to 10ish the fleet spread out a little more on the first beat.

I finished 6-11-3-5-8 and am tied with 2 other sailors for 4th.  More racing tomorrow!  Results.

After racing we went down to the beach at Muskegon State Park and got this photo of the sun setting behind the light-house:

Muskegon Light House Sunset

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Coming in on Thursday morning after we started a race and the wind died.

The plan was to get out early, get 2 races in to complete the regatta and get out of the heat.  The wind didn’t exactly cooperate with that and after going out at 9, starting a race only to abandon it 15 minutes later when the wind died, we were back on shore until the afternoon. With temperatures between 104-106 and a 6-10 knot breeze we headed back out to get our two races in.  We had a great start in the first race of the day, were OCS and had to restart in the second race and ultimately put up a 26 and a 24 for 27th overall.

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Wednesday was the first day of championship sailing at the Flying Scot North American Championship. We sailed two races in the morning, took a lunch break and sailed another. With the fleets now split the competition got twice as fierce. These may be Flying Scots but there wasn’t an inch given away anywhere on the course from the front of the fleet to the back. Needless to say we were fighting in the back of the fleet in all of the races and are sitting deep.

With very high temperatures forecasted for later this week, the final two races are going to be run on Thursday ending the regatta a day early.

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Tuesday was the second day of qualifying for the championship fleet at the 2012 Flying Scot North American Championship.  Sitting in 27th we needed a good race to stay in the top 30 and make the championship fleet.  The wind started out around 15 as we were heading out and by the time we had started dropped to 12 and continued to drop from there.  We were seeing pretty big swings in the wind and knew picking the shifts right would be key.

We had a ok start about a 1/3 of the way down from the boat and worked our way out to the left where we had seen more pressure.  We rode a nice shift back to the right and continued to pick our way through the shifts and the slow boats from the fleet ahead of us.  At the top mark we rounded in 1st!  Downwind we stayed just ahead of Kelly and Heidi Gough and went high riding a puff around over half of the fleet that started 6 minutes ahead of us.  At the gate mark, a clump of boats was rounding the favored gate just ahead of us so we bailed to the other gate and had a clean rounding in cleaner air. Upwind we continued to pick the shifts and wound up getting passed by two of the boats in our fleet.  We held our position downwind to take a 3rd and put ourselves solidly into the championship fleet.

Since we got off the water well before noon I thought it would be fun to spend the afternoon playing tourist in St. Louis.

I got a tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery.

Visited Forest Park and the St. Louis Art Museum.

Had a nice dinner and went up the Gateway Arch.

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This morning we had plenty of wind for the first day of the Flying Scot North American Championship at Carlyle Sailing Association on Lake Carlyle in Illinois.  We start by sailing 3 qualifying races over the first two days.  From there the top half of the fleet will go on to sail the championship on Wednesday-Friday, while the lower half will sail the challenger division.

After the skipper’s meeting this morning we headed out in 10-15 knots of breeze and sailed 2 races back to back.  We were one of the lighter boats crew-weight-wise and weren’t able to keep the boat flat in the breeze as well as some of the heavier boats.  We did what we could and settled for a 12th and a 15th putting us in 27th overall for the first two qualifying races.

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As a crew on a Flying Scot in breeze my job is to trim the jib and keep the boat flat.  Unlike a Laser a Flying Scot doesn’t have a hiking strap to hook our feet under.  All it has is a rope to hang onto while I sit back as far as possible.  I can sort of hook my leg around it, but it still requires a pretty good grip.

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And finally, here’s where we’re staying for the week:

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The prospect for wind today wasn’t very great. The RC initially postponed us for about an hour and a half before bringing AP down with the intent on towing everyone out in hopes of getting in a race or two before some showers moved in. Some of the locals weren’t too optimistic about it and with a 13-hour drive ahead of me I decided to get on the road. I packed and left just after 11am and found out later that racing was abandoned without actually sailing a race. 

So I spent the day driving to Lake Carlyle in Illinois where I will be crewing on Len Guenther’s Flying Scot Wind Dancer (5055) in the Flying Scot North American Championship this week. 

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Being late paid off a little bit this morning, I was going to be one of the last to launch when we saw that the RC was sending boats back in due to no wind, so I left the boat parked and hung around for the 40 minute postponement on shore.  When the wind filled we had a nice 8-10 knots out of the south.  On the way to the course my watch died, which would make starts today interesting.  Needless to say it didn’t help.  In the end it was another nice day on the water.

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6/22 going downwind.

It was a light air day in Toronto for the first day at the Laser Canadian Championship.  We sailed 4 races with the last one finishing just as the wind died.  There’s a lot of good sailors here so the racing is very close and nobody will give an inch all the way around the course.  I had some ups and downs and am sitting some where in the middle of the fleet.

6/22 rounding the first windward mark.

6/22 Toronto skyline

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Day 2 of the Selby Bay Summer Solstice Flying Scot regatta brought over cast skies, light winds and chop again.  The plan was for two races and we started the 1st race right at 10.  We thought we had a good start at the pin end, but the wind quickly clocked right putting us behind the boats who got right sooner.  We played catch up the rest of the race and settled for a 7th.  That put us into a 3-way tie for 2nd going into the last race of the day.  This time we protected the right after the start – a little too much- the wind went left and we were deep into the fleet at the first mark.  From there we slowly picked our way through 5-8 boats to get back up to 5th.

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Congrats to fellow FBYC sailor Rob Whittemore for winning it.  We wound up 4th overall.  Not the result we were looking for, but we accomplished our goal of getting some time on the water and being ready for NAC’s the week after next.  By the end of the weekend our boat handling on the spinnaker sets and douces was superb and we were getting close to nailing some roll tacks in the light air.

Results | Pictures

Jon Deutsch, Len Guenther, Barb Guenther, Rob Whittemore, Kevin Clark

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