Deltavile Virginia
After yesterday’s Opening Day Race, Fishing Bay Yacht Club started the offshore spring series on Sunday with some buoy racing. We only had about half of the crew we had yesterday and had several new folks in new positions. Overall we held our own going 3-2-3 on the day. Results.
What a beautiful weekend to start the sailing season at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. The first race of the season was a middle distance race of 12.8 nm from the mouth of the Piankatank out to the entrance to the Rappahannock River and back. I was sailing on Wavelength, a C&C37, with Rob Whittet and Steve Utley. We were among the 20+ other boats gathered in the 8-10 knot northerly breeze and mostly sunny skies.
We had a great start in the 5-boat PHRF-A fleet that consisted of a J/109 Double Eagle, J/105s Corryvreckan and Shamrock, and modified Quest 30 Chilcoot. The first leg was a short upwind leg inside the mouth of the Piankatank. We then sailed close-hauled out to the entrance to the Rappahannock followed by a spinnaker run down to the entrance of the Piankatank. Up until this point we were hanging with everyone except Double Eagle who was starting to get away from us. At the turning mark the J/70s and the C and non-spin fleets were also using this as a turning mark.
Most of the fleet who had asymmetrical spinnakers went low on their way back to the finish up the Piankatank. They weren’t laying the mark, but making really good VMG. With a symmetrical spinnaker, we elected to take the high route with the #1 up. About halfway back we could see Double Eagle get significantly headed and then drop the spinnaker. They had to beat back to the mark, while we just cracked off and came back down to the rumb line nice and fast and closed the gap. We didn’t beat them over the line, but had enough to make up the difference and won the race on corrected time. What a great way to start the season.
This season will be bittersweet for Wavelength and crew – this will likely be the last spring series for the boat.
Following racing the club held their blessing of the fleet and opening day party. The food was great – as was the fun!
Here’s the rest of the video from Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship after the wind picked up and the paddle board competition was over.
Saturday at the Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship started out with the wind too light for sailing. So what did we do with 45 Laser Masters sailors while waiting for the wind to fill?
PADDLE BOARD RACES!
Lucky for us the wind filled a short time later and we got to go racing! Regatta Results | Sailing Video
Not too long ago I stumbled on 54 more photos from the 2013 Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship that never made it off my camera. I’ve now added them to the gallery starting here.
Saturday was the final day of racing for the offshore boats at Fishing Bay Yacht Club followed by an oyster roast. The race was a pursuit style race where the slower boats start first and the times are calculated so everyone should finish about the same time. I was aboard Wavelength and for once it was great having boats of all sizes all around us for most of the race. We ended up finishing 9th in the 17-boat fleet while sailing in winds that started around 8 knots and built to as much as 23 knots during the 1 1/2 hour race. On top of that we were short-handed with only 6 on board and flew the spinnaker.
After racing we enjoyed oysters! RESULTS | PHOTOS
It was a bit of a drifter for most of the Fishing Bay Yacht Club Fall One Design Invitational. We had 6 Lasers out for the 3rd of our 4-race series.
After a bit of a delay we finally started a race in about 4 knots out of the west. The course was just on the outer edge of Fishing Bay and still inside of Stove Point. The wind proceeded to die to a knot or less. Suddenly what is usually a very light current became a big deal. In fact – I’ve never even thought to play the current that much in that location so far away from the Piankatank channel.
Luckily I was far enough behind the leaders – Brad Squires and Luke Hayes on the downwind that I could see how they were getting swept out of Fishing Bay and out into the bay. I played it conservatively by heading up into the bay and letting the current pull me down to the mark. When Luke was swept past the mark and couldn’t go upwind against the current to get back to it, I slipped in ahead of him and finished the last upwind just behind Brad.
The .6 mi race took us over an hour. We sat for at least another hour and by 2pm we started to see signs of a sea breeze. We moved the course out into the river a bit more so the windward mark was just outside of Stove Point. It was still shifty, but at least we were able to sit out and almost hike at times. I didn’t have a great upwind and had to settle for a 4.
Since we were past the time limit for more racing and we still had some wind, Mike Toms and Ron Jenkins and I sailed out towards Gwynn’s Island to get a little upwind speed testing it.
It probably wasn’t the best day for racing, but since I haven’t sailed the boat in a month and I’m about to do 3 weekends in a row of racing, it was just what I needed to get back into the boat.
RESULTS (pdf)
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.
This year for the Smith Point Race at Fishing Bay Yacht Club I sailed on an Olson 911S called Mad Hatter owned by Bob and Lisa Fleck. We sailed in the PHRF-B fleet with close competition form a Tarten 40 and a Tarten 10. The Smith Point Race is a 57nm race starting in the mouth of the Piankatank River heading east across the Chesapeake Bay then North to the the Smith Point Light house at the entrance of the Potomac River and then back to the Piankatank leaving Stingray Point to starboard.
We started out at 2pm with the race expected to take about 10-12 hours. The forecast was for an east wind 12-18 all afternoon/evening with an outgoing tide starting shortly after the start.
On the leg across the bay we were close reaching and we stayed above everyone else in the fleet. When the wind went a little south, this helped give us leverage to round in second – behind only Chilcoot from the A-fleet. On the reach up the bay we were quickly run down by the J-105 Corryvreckan. The short choppy and confused waves made the going a little tough. Towards the end of the leg to Smith point we had the chute up reaching and all of the bouncing around kept collapsing the chute. We arrived at Smith Point just at sun down.
The way back in the dark was almost upwind and the wind slowly eased from 16 to about 12. Halfway back I helmed and we did a sail change up to the No 1. When we got to the Piankatank we turned west, put the chute up and finished the race as the 3rd boat over the line and 1st overall on corrected time by 10 minutes. Results.
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.
