2014 White Tiger Tailgate – ECU Pirate Football
It’s been a great year visiting friends and seeing the ECU Pirates play football with the WhiteTiger. Here are some of the highlights:
Any posts that contain videos that I’ve created
It’s been a great year visiting friends and seeing the ECU Pirates play football with the WhiteTiger. Here are some of the highlights:
This year’s Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship was probably one of the best yet – good turnout, good weather and great food made for a smooth event. It was also the year FBYC hosted it as the Laser Masters Atlantic Coast Championship and with it, a few more folks from New England and Kansas.
For racing on Saturday we had 7-12 and clear skies. Ned Rennolds joined Mike Russom and me on the safety boat with his drone and we got some great photos and video of the fleet from overhead during the first and second races.
For the rest of racing on Saturday I did my usual of floating around and taking pictures and video. This year we even dress up the committee boat – Mr. Roberts as seen with the red lettering below.
By the end of Saturday we had gotten a good day of 5 races in for the sailors and we called it a day as the wind started getting light and fluky. We had a few visitors join us for dinner including past fleet captain and chair of this event – David Hazlehurst. Alain Vincey did another wonderful dinner followed by plenty of Laser stories and a viewing of some of the drone video for today. Sailors hung out in the club house and later by the fire at their campsite well into the night.
Sunday’s wind was much greater than Saturday and a number of sailors, didn’t go out, took advantage of the rig-swap opportunity, or retired before starting a race. Fortunately only one sailor needed any assistance and thankfully Mike R was onboard the safety boat and ready to get wet. Three more races were sailed as the fleet slowly dwindled. I didn’t get many pictures due to the waves and activities, but I did get some video of some screaming reaches.
Once again it was a very successful regatta. I really want to thank all of the folks on the race committee, Alain, Brad and all of the FBYC fleet for all of their help putting this event on. This was my 10th one and I’m looking forward to just a few more years when I can join in!
Another beautiful Friday night for some J/70 sailing at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. This evening I was sailing with Steve Quiriconi on his new boat Hotty Toddy along with Jerry Latell. Steve and Jerry had been out earlier in the afternoon to get everything setup and tuned and so the three of us got out to the race course a little early to practice some maneuvers.
In the 4 races tonight we did pretty well. The very short line made for very tight and late starts, but the shifty winds meant anyone could catch a shift up the beats. We did well to keep up with the leaders and got through our maneuvers pretty well without any major goofs. We even did some gybe sets and a Mexican take down at one point.
The final race was 2 laps and then the trip up the channel back to the dock. We were the first boat to legally complete the course and a nice way to end the night and the first time out for the boat.
Saturday started out as a nice day for sailboat racing at Fishing Bay Yacht Club for the 2nd Sea Breeze regatta before storms chased us off the course. I sailed in a 3-boat Front Runner fleet with crew Anna Matchett against Mark Stephens/Matt Braun & Kevin Cross/Matt Lambert.
In the first race we had a great start and won the boat shutting the other two boats out and forcing them to start behind us. Up the first beat we had good speed and worked the shifts on the right side of the course.
We made a few crosses just ahead of the other two boats but lost out to Mark who snuck ahead of us right at the mark rounding. Downwind Mark played the middle while we went hard right. The 2nd upwind leg was a little flukier. We again played the middle right while Mark played the left and Kevin went up the left. At the top mark we were in 1st, Kevin came way back to round in 2nd just ahead of Mark. The final downwind was a drag race with us about 4 boat-lengths ahead of Mark and Kevin and in the end Mark edged Kevin out at the finish for 3 and some close racing.
Right at the end of the race Mark had a gear failure so it was just at two boat race for the 2nd race. We had a terrible start, were slow crossing the line and lost a lot of ground to Kevin. Halfway up the beat we heard on the radio that the course was being shortened so we did our best to play the shifts, but knew we were being sent in and a 2 was good enough to win the day.
Thanks Anna for coming sailing with me today. And thanks David Hinkle and the race committee for running races for us.
What the wind left us wanting for on Saturday was delivered on Sunday. Perfect sailing conditions with 10-14 knot breezes out of the south west and comfortable temperatures and partly cloudy skies.
Three more races were sailed. We did as well as we could and didn’t make too many mistakes. We still couldn’t hang with the faster boats and found ourselves 5-6-5 on the day. All in all it was a fun regatta and nice to sail with Rob Whittet, Steve Utley and the rest of the Wavelength Crew as we helped raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Following Hurricane Arthur’s blowout of our July 4th racing on Friday we ended up with near perfect 8-10 knots and sunny skies for the Fishing Bay Yacht Club Summer Sea Breeze 1 Regatta. Tommy Roper was my crew for his first time on a Front Runner.
The ace Front Runner team of Matt and A.L. Braun were back for this regatta and swept all 4 races. The Garrett clan of Waddy and Parker sharing the helm with Caroline crewing just seemed to edge us out downwind to take 4 second places on the day. The racing was close and we didn’t make any major mistakes, we just couldn’t hang with the other two boats.
By the last race we had pretty much locked in 3rd place so I handed the tiller to Tommy who got to skipper his first race in a double-handed boat.
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.
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.
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.
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.