2014 Snowblowing the Driveway
From the creator of ‘Shoveling the Driveway 2014’ comes the sequel: ‘Snow Blowing the Driveway’.
Category: Video
Any posts that contain videos that I’ve created
2014 GRSA Frostbite #1
This weekend Greater Richmond Sailing Association invited Fishing Bay Yacht Club Flying Scots and Lasers to join them for frostbiting out on Swift Creek. Dan and I were the only two Lasers; there were 10 Flying Scots and 3 Thistles. The goal for the day was simply get back in the boat and try a few things out. I tried a new GoPro Camera (Hero 3+) and a new stern mount for it. I got to try out some new boots and I got to try sailing at a club I had never been at before. Thanks again to GRSA for inviting us to come sail!
Photos courtesy of Sharon Wake.
Chris & Jaimie Wedding: Recap
This Columbus Day weekend I got to be in Destin Florida for my college buddy Chris K’s wedding along with a bunch of other college friends. It was quite a trip covering over 2000 miles with plenty of fun along the way.
We started out Go Karting when we arrived Thursday night. I had a little incident (video) which would scar my nose for the remainder of the trip.
Friday was the guys hanging out with bachelor activities. Most of the day was spent lounging on a pontoon boat at Crab Island and exploring parts of the Choctawhatchee Bay and inter-coastal waterway.
Saturday was a rehearsal cookout and watching ECU football.
Sunday was a beautiful beach wedding followed by the reception.
Congratulations Chris and Jaimie! Thanks for having me as part of your special day and what a blast!
2013 Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship
This weekend I was the event chair for Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. This is the 9th year I’ve been the event chair and by now I’ve gotten a pretty good gameplan and a great team of volunteers to help execute it. And of course it could not have gone more smoothly from the food to the race committee to the social activities – everything went off without a hitch for 42 competitors.
A complete wrap-up of the event can be found here including more pictures and results. I’ll have some videos of the sailing and the paddle board competition later this week.
Some of my favorite pictures:
watching the America’s Cup on the screen I rigged up.
2013 FBYC Cut Channel Race
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.
Sunset Laser Sail
It’s rare that I can get to the river for a weeknight for a sail. Len Guenther was there too and we got to get a little practice in before our races on Sunday at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. What a beautiful sunset!
2013 Screwpile Regatta
I got to sail my first Screwpile Regatta on Paul and Julie Wash’s S2 7.9 Cheeky Monkey along with Becca Wash and Mike Karn. We had a great weekend finishing 3rd in the 13-boat PHRF-C class (results). That included finishing out the regatta 2-2-1-1 in the final 4 of the 7 races.
Saturday
On Saturday I got a ride to Solomons Island Maryland with the Double Eagle crew. Cheeky Monkey was still being delivered so I got to go hang out with Double Eagle for some practice. That was followed by some pool time and then boat work when Cheeky Monkey arrived to get it ready – 1st for sleeping and 2nd for racing in the morning. The transition from sleeping quarters to race boat and visa versa would be repeated each morning and evening. After getting settled I went for dinner in Solomons Island with the Double Eagle crew followed by a trip to the legendary Tiki Bar.
Sunday
The first day of racing called for light wind – and it delivered. After a short postponement on the water the wind appeared to fill in and we got started. We beat the whole fleet off the start by 20 seconds and led the fleet up the beat as the wind started dissipating. Eventually we had nothing for wind and the race was abandoned.
Back at the starting line we threw the anchor out during the postponement and had fun yelling ‘starboard’ at all of the boats trying to stay near the course in the current while drifting into us. An hour or so later the wind finally filled in and we started a light wind race.
Most of the racing I’ve done lately has been on boats with 6-8 crew so coming down to a 5-person boat that I had never been on before was a bit of an adjustment. None of it was hard or really all that new, just the timing and coordination that were a little different.
When we finally did start we were a little late at the line and consequently spent most of the race just following the fleet around, ending up in 9th. In the second race we nailed the start at the boat and had options going up the course. We couldn’t quite hang with some of the faster boats, but we did well to stay engaged behind the leaders and found ourselves with a 5th putting us in 7th after the first day of racing. Not a bad start, but left room for improvement. By the end of the day we started to get a lot more comfortable as a crew and things started getting easier.
Post-racing was a trip to the pool and out to dinner with the Cheeky Monkey crew.
Monday
Racing on Monday got a lot better for us. In the first race we still had a bit of a late start and ended up in the middle of the fleet. On the plus side I think we finally got the crew work figured out among us. I was on the mast and my responsibilities were raising and lowering the spinnaker, raising and lowering the board, and calling wind. Now that we were coordinated, I got to pay a lot more attention to the wind, feeding that info back to Mike Karn and Paul in the back, and it really started to pay off for us.
By the 2nd race of the day we had a decent start, were one of the top boats around the 1st windward mark and kept playing it smart and fast to pick off a little more time on the boats ahead. We ended up being 2nd over the line to a much faster boat who only corrected out 3 seconds ahead of us – ie: 4 seconds faster and that would have been a 1 for us instead of a 2.
The 3rd race of the day went much the same. We had a good start, played the shifts upwind, had no major foul ups with the spinnaker at the marks and continued to chip away at the boats in front of us. Unfortunately, the story played out the same and we were over the line 2nd, but the boat ahead corrected to just 5 seconds ahead.
We were happy with a 7-2-2 on the day bringing us up to 6th with a 4 point spread between the 3 boats ahead of us.
Tuesday
Today was our day and our wind. With a more steady pressure of 8-10 knots and partly cloudy skies we were poised to sail well. We had a good game plan and a good read on the weather that proved out to be dead on by the end of the day. Mike and Paul got us a good start and having watched the fleets ahead of us and the wind, I picked out a pretty distinct pattern in the shifts and clouds. From there we punched out, stayed ahead of the shifts and lead wire-to-wire. Right at the finish a few boats rating either the same (Spinster) or faster than us (Easy Button) came up pretty close, but we managed to get over the finish line just ahead of them.
The 2nd and final race- this one a 5-leg race was similar to the earlier race – only the shifts got even more dramatic. But the pattern remained and after winning the boat at the start, we got out to the right, picked a couple shifts while covering the fleet and lead at the first mark. Downwind we got caught by some boats who brought pressure and we found ourselves rounding the bottom mark with boats right on our tail. We played it a little more conservative up the middle-right side and Easy Button hit the right corner when a big righty came in, and just went right by us. The 4th leg-downwind kept everyone about the same as the wind began to give out a little bit. Many of the boats played the middle left where there happened to be pressure at the beginning of the leg. We knew it was going to go away and eventually come in from the right – just as it had in the previous leg, so we kept ourselves to the right side of the fleet. When it finally came in from the right and with pressure, it came way more than we were expecting and we went from being in the middle of the course to laying the finish while all of the boats out to the left were hung out. We took the gun and our second bullet of the day.
We were really thrilled at how we did in the last 4 races to string together a solid set of 1s and 2s. That jumped us up to 3rd overall and were definitely the best boat on the day with 2 bullets. Congrats Paul and Julie Wash – you’ve put a great program together and it was a lot of fun sailing Cheeky Monkey to a podium finish.
RESULTS | PICTURES | SPINSHEET PICTURES | VIDEO
Top photo from Spinsheet.