This weekend started with Saturday’s Laser Spring Regatta. We had 11 Lasers and Radials out at FBYC for the first day of club racing this year. The wind was light – in the 4-8 knot range. I continued to have good upwind speed, but terrible downwind speed. We got in 6 races and I finished 2nd.
Check out more photos from the awards and the rest of the weekend here.
Tim Zimmerman is a writer for Sailing World and was a competitor at the 2011 Laser District 11 Championship we hosted a few weeks ago at Fishing Bay Yacht Club and he’s written a nice blog article about his experience at the regatta:
Don’t get me wrong. The regatta itself, the District 11 Laser Championships, was not terrible. In fact, it was fantastic. Hosted by the smoothly-run, beautifully-situated, Fishing Bay Yacht Club down in Deltaville, Va., on the southern Chesapeake Bay, the regatta was blessed with excellent winds, a great crowd of sailors, and a Laser-loving chef, Alain Vincey, who cooked up a spectacular Saturday-evening dinner. Even the camping was nice.
Read the rest of the article on Sailing World’s blog.
Winning the pin at one of the starts just a few seconds before the gun. More photos by Paul MacMenamin.
On Sunday for the second day of the Laser District 8 Championship Regatta we had 12-15 knots out of the east. We sailed three 2-lap windward-lewards just off the beach in front of the club. I stayed with the leaders and usually made the left side of the course work upwind. I had good upwind speed, but usually lost a spot or two on the downwind legs. I finished 3-4-5 on the day, good enough to hold onto 3rd place overall. (results)
The trip home went well considering I drained my EZPass account on the way up and had to stop at every toll booth on the way back. When I got into Richmond the warning lights on the dash started coming on and as I pulled into my driveway the car stalled. I’m glad to have made it home.
The forecast for today started out looking pretty dismal. 5 knots out of the North West at 11am building to all of 8 by the middle of the afternoon and then dying. We sailed out to the course in almost nothing. The committee set the line and right at the time we should have started the first race the wind started swinging around to the South. A 15-minute postponement later we had a 15-20 knot sea breeze.
My day consisted of some solid sailing with some moments of brilliance and stupidity thrown in to keep it interesting. I was able to stay with or in the lead pack in most of the races and I was pretty happy being competitive in the 15-18 knot range whereas I traditionally haven’t been able to keep up in that.
All in all it was good racing and a fun but grueling day on the water with 5 races. I finished 2-7-4-3-5 putting me into 3rd overall in the 14-boat fleet. After racing we relaxed on the deck of Sayville Yacht Club, ate burgers, met some new people and listened to some live music. I couldn’t have asked for a better day.
The regatta continues tomorrow with 3 more races planned. I’m really hoping for just a couple knots less of wind so I can show my speed and stay up front. Fingers crossed.
Today was my driving day to get to the District 8 Championship at Sayville Yacht Club in Long Island. I left Richmond at 4:30 in t he morning and arrived at the club around 2:30 in the afternoon. I lost track of how many wrong turns I made. It took over two hours to cover 40 miles transiting New York City.
Sayville Yacht Club is located about halfway out Long Island on the south bay near Patchogue Bay. The forecast for tomorrow is for it to be a little on the lighter side – under 10 knots. Sunday we should have a little more wind with the south west sea breeze blowing through.
Saturday I sailed on Wavelength in FBYC’s Race to Urbanna. I’ve been a member at FBYC for over 14 years and this is the first time I’ve done the Race to Urbanna. The fleet of about 22 boats started near the entrance to Jackson Creek and sailed out into the bay while rounding Stingray point and then sailed up the river to Urbanna. We had a good race that was mostly a reach and managed to finish (results) a little over a minute corrected time over our only competition.
The party was fun. Rosegill was beautiful and I had a great time. Here’s a few photos:
More photos from the racing and party can be seen here.
Last Sunday for the Offshore Spring Series #4 at FBYC I sailed aboard Wavelength and brought along Lauren and Patrick for the ride. We mounted the GoPro camera to the spreaders and here’s a couple of photos from that. I’ll put together a video in a few weeks.
Was at a beautiful ceremony and an awesome reception on Saturday for friends Beth and Chris at the King Family Vineyards. Here’s just a couple shots…. more to come.
Here’s my highlight film from all of the on board video I captured at the Laser District 11 Championship last weekend:
This has been an awesome weekend both as a regatta organizer and as a competitor. The regatta ran great, we had nice weather, we got in 8 races, we had competitive fleets and David Lee and the race committee did a fantastic job with the on-the-water part of the regatta. Everyone enjoyed Alain’s dinner and we certainly couldn’t have made the regatta work with out the help of the many club members who pitched in – THANK YOU!
As a competitor I can’t say I had been thrilled with the sailing I’ve done this year. I was sailing really well last fall and even though I was going to big time regattas this winter, I just never put together anything more than a mediocre regatta for myself. With this regatta I was determined to put in a respectable showing and get my game back to where it was last fall. What better a place to do it than on my home waters.
Saturday’s racing saw 12-16 knots of wind for the day. That’s at the upper end of the range that I’m competitive in. I set my boat up right and hiked my butt off and managed to have all top-10 finishes except 1 in 5 races putting me into 8th in the 25-boat fleet. In that kind of wind keeping up with the tail end of the lead pack was a good showing for myself.
Saturday night we had 55 people for dinner and had a great time hanging around the club.
Sunday, the wind was right in my sweet spot for speed and out of the south. On the first race I had a great start, picked the shifts and led at the windward mark by a boatlength or two. It was such a thrill to be out ahead of so many great sailors. But I knew they were coming for me and I did my best to stay out ahead of them. Dan Herlihy and I traded for 1st place on the next 2 legs and on the final beat, he just picked the shifts a little better than I did to take the gun leaving me 2nd.
In Sunday’s second race I had a good start, but didn’t have the boat speed to pull ahead of the fleet. As a result I had a tough time going where I wanted, made way too many tacks and ended up really deep at the first windward mark. Luckily about half of the top 6 sailors were back there with me. Through the next 4 legs we picked our way back up to the front and I dug through about 10 boats to get back to 9th.
The 3rd and final race of the day was my best race. At the start there was a big lefty enabling Rob Overton to port tack the fleet at the pin. I had a good start in the middle and used my boat speed to get enough of a lead and clear lanes to start picking some shifts. At the first windward mark it was me and Rob Whittimore. I couldn’t have written it any better to battling for the lead with a good friend and fellow club member. I led Rob by about half a boat length down to the offset. Rob had a great run and jumped ahead of me at the downwind mark. The race committee changed the next weather leg to the left so I immediately went left on the 2nd windward leg and caught some great shifts to pull ahead of Rob and everyone else behind. The next two legs I felt like I had good boat speed, caught the shifts well, and covered the fleet to take the gun. That ended up being the last race of the day and it was such a thrill to sail my best and win a race against such a great group of sailors. That really made my weekend.
After racing we handed out awards, cleaned up and got on the road.
All in all it was a great weekend and I can’t wait to do some more Laser sailing!
Read my write-up on the District 11 Website and check out the results. I hope to have a video up later this week and I’ll link to photos when they are available.