We had a great first day of the District 12 Championship at Columbia Sailing Club in Columbia South Carolina. We sailed 5 races that at some point in each of the races we had 4 knots and 10 knots. In the lighter winds I did well on the first upwind leg most races and worked hard to hold onto my spot on the downwinds. I put up a 3-2-8-1-2 and am currently 2 points out of first behind John Potter from Beaufort SC. Tomorrow will be another light air day and hopefully I can keep up the top 3 finishes to have a shot at the title.
Provisional Results (the winner in race 3 will be RET and everyone moves up one)
We did 7 races today in light wind for the Laser Fall Regatta at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. I generally kept the boat moving and didn’t dig too far into any holes and maintained mostly top half finishes to end up 3rd overall.
This June while I was in Sayville for the Laser District 8 Championship I got to go watch a sunset with Ted Cremer. Ted is doing a photo project where he takes a picture of every sunrise and every sunset this year. We went out on the water from Sayville Yacht Club and here’s some video of our trip and Ted’s photography this year:
Memorial Day Weekend after sailing the Down The Bay Race on Sunday morning I watched and took some video of the Oyster Shell Triathlon. Last year I did the race with a GoPro camera on my head. So after combining the footage from both years, here’s the video:
After driving all afternoon and sitting in evening NYC traffic I arrived at Sayville Yacht Club on Long Island for the 2012 District 8 Championship. They hosted this same regatta last year which I attended and finished 3rd. Sayville’s got a great club with a nice beach by the water and a great sailing area and they do a great job with their regattas.
After I got to the club this evening, Ted Cremer and I went out on the water to snap a few photos of the sunset and then we hung around a fire on the beach. Racing starts tomorrow with 20 boats expected and 5-10 knots of breeze out of the west with a slight chance of rain.
Saturday
Day 1 of the District 8 Championship at Sayville Yacht Club and we had 13 Standard Rig Lasers for 5 races in 5-8 and sometimes fluky conditions. I went 3-2-3-4-7 and am currently in 2nd overall.
In the first race I had the best start of the bunch at the favored boat end. I rounded the top mark in 2nd and lost a boat on the downwind which turned to a reach as the wind shifted around. Held on to finish 3rd.
In the second race I tried again for a boat end favored start, but I was 5 seconds early and got pushed over so I had to go back behind everyone else and restart. As the fleet went out to the left I banged the right corner and rounded the top mark in 2nd and hung onto that for the finish.
In the 3rd race we had a port end favored line. Ryan Schmitz wanted to port tack the fleet, but I won the pin on starboard and made him duck me and get tangled up with a bunch of boats further up the line. Once again we traded tacks upwind and I rounded the top mark in 2nd. Both Brian Raney and Ted Cremer had great downwind legs and passed me as the wind began to die. I kept close to Ted at the mark rounding and managed to get more left of him on the upwind so when the wind went left I was able to get in ahead of him and behind Brian.
The 4th race started in good wind and was only 1/2 the distance as the previous 3 races. With the shorter upwind 1st leg I wasn’t able to use my speed to get ahead of the pack and rounded in 3rd with a lot of boats right behind me. I went right downwind while the boats that went left made out and I was 6 or 7th at the bottom mark. Heading up to the finish I closed it up and made a couple nice tacks right at the end to beat out 2 boats by mere feet to take 4th.
The 5th race started in some wind, but a few minutes later the wind had died. I had a terrible start, went to the wrong side of the course and spent a lot of time trying to make up ground – which was hard to do in ~3 knots of breeze. The RC shortened course at the bottom mark and i settled for a 7th
Day 1 results are here. I’m 14 points behind Ryan Schmitz who has put up straight bullets. I’m 3 points ahead of Brian Raney in 3rd and 9 points ahead of Matt Doherty in 4th. All in all it was a fun day and I’m looking forward to racing tomorrow.
Sunday
We started with a 1 hour postponement on shore before the wind finally filled in for us to sail. From there we sailed 3 more races in 7-11 knots in very choppy conditions. I had some crummy starts and great speed upwind, but wasn’t always picking the shifts right. In all 3 races I was back in the lead pack usually with a few boats ahead of me. The racing was close and so were the points. There were about 5 of us going at it with any of us having a shot at 2nd place. In the end I lost the tiebreaker on the last race to Lindsay Hewett who sailed some great races today.
I had hoped for a little more boring of a ride home, but unfortunately just ahead of me on the Goethals bridge a car caught fire. I was trapped in traffic on the bridge for an hour and thus hit even more night construction on the ride back.
All in all it was another fun trip to Sayville. I enjoyed the racing and want to thank Ted Cremer and everyone else at Sayville Yacht Club for putting on a great regatta.
On Friday the Annual Down The Bay Race starts in Annapolis, Maryland and races to Hampton, Virginia. I’ll be aboard Glenn Doncaster’s Sabre 42.6 Nanuq from Fishing Bay Yacht Club.
Here is the crew aboard Nanuq as we started the Down The Bay Race this morning. PHRF had a bit of a crowded start with some boats wanting to be in other boats space. The wind started out pretty light but we did get a couple hours of good wind as we passed Thomas Point light house. Later this afternoon the wind has died to under 4 and we are currently off Sharky’s Point lighthouse using all of the current we can find to get south.
This was shot over two days with the Nikon D7000, 3 GoPro Hero2, an iPhone 4s and a Canon SD-1400.
Sunday afternoon we made a GoPro mount for the back of a J109 that I’ll be racing in next week at the Annapolis NOOD Regatta.
We took a 8′ white wood curtain rod, fit it in the flag pole and added a GoPro to the top of it. I have yet to add a safety line and bungee tensioner to help keep it from bouncing around. Look for video from this next week.
