Category: Video

Any posts that contain videos that I’ve created

With no prospect of wind for the second day of the Fishing Bay Yacht Club Annual One Design Regatta, racing was called off early and yesterday‘s results stand.  Being tied for first, it would have been fun to have another race to break the tiebreaker, but we wouldn’t get it and I wound up second after the tie was broken.  Congrats to Brad Squires for winning the race that counted and getting it done.  Results.

On Saturday I ran the GoPro cameras to do some time lapse around the club.  Here’s the video of it all put together:

After awards and sailing we took out a few of the junior opti sailors and their coaches in Lasers and 420s for some fun sailing in the very light winds.  I took a friend’s 9-year-old son, who is an experienced opti sailor, out on my Laser and after a few pointers he sailed the boat alone for the first time.  He then proceeded in the first race to crush his college-aged coaches.  He didn’t do quite as well in the subsequent races, but it was a thrill for him to sail anything other an Opti, even if it was only 4 knots of wind.

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing, Video No Comments Tagged with , , , , , ,

Saturday’s Cut Channel Race at Fishing Bay Yacht Club had a bit of everything from the weather.  Light air, heavy air, storms, chop, smooth seas, etc.  Lud Kimbrough, Mike Karn and I sailed the J/70 Nostalgia in the PHRF-B fleet of 6 boats out of 15 total for the race.

The race took us south and east and then due east across the bay before heading north up the shipping channel and back to the Piankatank.  We had a great start and did well on the first upwind and reaching legs.  On the 2nd downwind leg out to the channel we made a bad bet on the weather and fell back into the fleet.

After rounding the channel marker to head North we could see storms in the distance but with being so far out into the bay we didn’t have reliable cell service to check the weather.  We donned our life jackets and battened down the hatch – we really did this – and prepared for some weather.  We were also monitoring VHF 16 instead of the race channel so we could hear ships coming up the channel, etc so we didn’t hear any race announcements that the race was being shortened at the next mark.

Most of the storms stayed away and we could see lightning in the distance.  One frontal system did come through and as the wind hit the boats behind us, we quickly executed our emergency chute down procedure to get it in the boat just before we were hit with a 25-30+ knot gust.  We rode out the rest of the leg under jib and main still making 6 knots and as we approached the mark we saw Mr. Roberts there and saw the race was being shortened.

We didn’t save our time, but we had fun and got to try something different on a boat none of us had ever done a distance race with.  Unfortunately for us, we finished at the farthest point of the course from home, which meant we still needed to sail upwind back home.  We definitely didn’t have enough fuel aboard to motor the whole way, plus the boat goes faster under sail anyway.  2 1/2 hours later and after narrowly dodging another squall line and motoring from about 6 miles offshore once the wind died, we made it back to FBYC.

RESULTS | PHOTOS | VIDEO

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing, Video No Comments Tagged with , , , , ,

The forecast for today was for better wind and we got it. Out on the course in the same racing area, just north of the Newport Bridge, we started out with 8 knots out of the south and by the last race we had 12-13.

In the 4 races we had some decent starts and seemed to get a little faster and had better boat work as the day went on. While we didn’t have any great results to show for it – it was fun sailing in the J/70 fleet. And being my first time in Newport it was nice to see the town and New York Yacht Club. Thanks Noel Clinard for having me along for the weekend – it was a pleasure sailing with you, Jerry and Carrie.

By Posted on Posted in J/70 Sailing, Life, Sailboat Racing, Video No Comments Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Quite a day for the first day of the 2013 Laser Atlantic Coast Championship at Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club on Long Beach Island NJ.  Looking at the scores – everyone was up and down  and very inconsistent.  We had 4 races with 4 very different conditions for each.

In the first race I had a poor start, but picked my way into mid fleet.  Right at the end I tapped someone at a mark rounding and had to do turns.  Finished 41.

2013 Laser ACC Race 2 start

By the second race we had 6-8 knots of breeze.  I picked out the pin end to start and nobody was down there.  I won the pin and just punched out and kept going out to the left and stayed out front.  By the top mark only Eric Reitinger was just ahead of me.  On the downwind a couple boats caught me and on the 2nd upwind I found a hole and lost 10 boats.  I held there and finished 15.

2013 Laser ACC Race 3 -a

In the 3rd race we started under black flag and had what I thought was a great spot, but suddenly I found myself bow out, chickened out and backwinded so I didn’t get black flagged.  As we went upwind the wind continued to die and it started to rain.  That continued throughout the race and by the last leg we were barely going along and I finished deep.

In the last race the wind came up to 9-11 with clear skies and I had another terrible start.  I immediately tacked out and got bounced further to the right and found myself on the layline at the mark about 25th.  Both downwinds I went way right mostly just to stay away from the other sailors and picked up a spot or two on each.  On the 2nd upwind we had a course change with the wind shifting.  I picked the phase perfectly and picked up at least 10 spots upwind.  Finished 13th.

All in all it was a tough day but still a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to day 2 tomorrow.  Keep an eye on Twitter on @LaserACC for my updates.

RESULTS | VIDEO

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing, Video 1 Comment Tagged with , , , , ,

Friday’s Down The Bay Race (read my account of it here) kept my hands pretty busy.  I was only able to catch a few minutes of video during the calmer/clearer times.  In these shots you are looking at the backs of the waves, so it looks much calmer with smaller waves than it was.

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing, Video No Comments Tagged with , , , , , ,

Lighter winds and cooler temperatures for the final day of the Annapolis NOOD regatta. We gave it what we had, but just weren’t able to improve our score in the final two races.  With winds up and down and forming lanes up and down the course, we just weren’t able to string enough pressure together to keep us moving.  Despite the scores, it was still a fun weekend and I want to thank Craig & Susan Wright on Afterthought for having me along.

2013 Annapolis NOOD: Sunday - Trimming Spin
2013 Annapolis NOOD: Sunday - Looking for wind

Photos above courtesy of Carrie Russell

2013 Annapolis NOOD: Sunday - Watching Fleets start

Photos | Results

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing, Video No Comments Tagged with , , , , , ,

Front Runner

Got to sail a Front Runner in the One Design Opening day with Paul as crew.  Started out with winds reaching the low teens and it dropped from there through 3 races.  The first race was mostly getting re-acclimated to the boat.  In  the 2nd and 3rd races we had great starts and got around the course in 2nd.  We just couldn’t seem to catch the speed of David and Rob who had 3 bullets and won the day.

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing, Video No Comments Tagged with , , , , ,