Tag: Columbia SC

Woke up to a pretty thick fog this morning and little prospect of wind.  The race committee had bumped up the start time to 9am for a first warning hoping to get a few more races in.  Most of the fleet headed out into the thick fog and in the distance I could hear the horns of a race starting and later being abandoned.  In the picture above you can barely make out the lasers just behind the point.

Rather than race in nearly no wind, I decided to get on the road and get home at a reasonable hour, so I packed and headed out.  Turns out no races ended up being run at all and Saturday’s results stood.

Despite the lack of wind, it was still a fun time and I got to meet a lot of cool D12 sailors.  Thanks again to Columbia Sailing Club for having the Laser sailors back and putting on a great regatta!

At the Columbia Sailing Club for the 1st day of the the District 12 Grand Prix and South Carolina State Championship regatta and we had lighter than light wind to start the day.  We postponed ashore for about 2 hours before a wisp of wind appears and we headed out.

We sailed around the corner from the club on the North side of the lake.  This became important because those who sailed near shore got an incredible lift. Of course I didn’t learn that in the the first race and found myself out to the left on the first beat and deep in the fleet, settling for 11.

It amazed me how fast the top 10 boats were.  Even though it was only 5 knots of breeze, everyone had good speed.  So it really came down to picking the shifts right.

In the 2nd race I played the right a little better and climbed through the fleet for a 6th.  In the 3rd and final race of the day I was doing well as the 2nd boat clear ahead on the first beat, but I still didn’t play the right as well as some other boats and found myself deep again, especially after a couple sailors made the left work and came out of nowhere.

So I’m in 10th a good few points out of 9th.  They’ve moved up the start time to 9am in hopes of getting more racing in before the 1pm cutoff and before the remnants of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Karen come through late Sunday evening.  Tomorrow’s another day and hopefully we’ll have something other than light air and flat water for me to work with and climb up in the standings.

After sailing we hung out on the fabulous porch at the club watching football, sharing sailing war stories and singing along to guitar with the other campers.

The forecast for the last day of the Laser District 12 Championship was for light air and as we were sailing out to the race course we had great wind – 10-12 knots.  By our 10am start it had dropped at bit and it continued to go down from there.  Today was a basically a two-boat race.  Unless I put up two DFLs it would have been hard not to get 2nd place.  Once a drop would be factored in, I was effectively 1 point behind John Potter, so it would come down to today’s races as to who won the regatta.

In our first race today I had a crummy start – I just about won the boat, but had no boat speed at the start.  John was to leeward of me and was a boat length and a half ahead when I crossed the line.  I took a big duck and headed out right while he sailed to the left.  Wanting to consolidate I came back to the middle having made up some ground, but John tacked on me and forced me back to the right.   On the middle right of the course I had better pressure and got in front of John, but the boats who went left did much better than us putting me around 6th and John several boats behind me by the time we rounded.

Downwind John caught up a few boats and on the 2nd upwind I stuck to the middle of the course while John went to the left.   When we got to the top 3rd of the course a 50-degree righty came in and I laid the mark while John out to the left still had to tack to fetch it.  At the mark there was one boat between us and downwind I worked to  pass one boat on the way to the finish.  With two boats between us that put me 1 point ahead of John.

After the race we sat on the course for half an hour with no prospect of wind and the race committee abandoned racing for the rest of the day and I won the District 12 Championship Regatta.  Not only was John great competition this weekend, but so were sailors such as Rob Bowden who would have beat both John and I had he not been OCS twice.  All in all it was a fun regatta and I got to visit a an awesome club who put on a great and I got meet a lot of new District 12 sailors.

Results | My Photos | CSC Photos by Joe Reyes

All but the last photo courtesy of Joe Reyes