We had a rainy, wet and cold day for the FBYC Fall Series #3 and I jumped on Double Eagle as none of the J70s were going to go out. We had a good first race, solid crew work, picked the right side of the course and led Nanuq all the way around the course.
The 2nd race didn’t go so great for us – on the second upwind leg we were going through a tack. As we were switching to the other side and the boat started heeling over, one of the crew who was switching sides over the cabin top, lost their footing and went right under the lifeline and into the water. I quickly jumped to the back of the boat and threw the heaving line while we stopped the boat. We pulled the crew in and took them down below to warm up. That didn’t take too long, but even after a few minutes we were so far behind that we just took a DNF instead of going around the course again.
In the last race of the day we had a little trouble at the start and ended up a couple lengths late at the line. We weren’t able to recover our time on Nanuq and otherwise sailed a solid race. Thanks again to Sam and crew for having me along!
It was a cool, light air day for the 3rd installment of the Fall Series for the Offshore Division at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. Without many J/70s on the line and both my boat and Double Eagle short on crew – Andrew and I jumped on Double Eagle and I got to drive the day. All in all it was a fun day and we finished 2nd in both races. Thanks again to the Double Eagle crew for having me along!
Saturday’s Cut Channel Race at Fishing Bay Yacht Club started out with extremely light wind and a postponement on the water. When the wind started coming in – it never stopped and slowly built to 25+ by the end of the race. It was no trouble for us on the J109 Double Eagle – we were well on our way to the finish by the time the wind really piped up.
With the wind out of the south east, the first leg was a beat to the south in order to get good leverage on the trip across the bay and across the current to the cut channel 3/4 of the way to the other side of the bay. Unfortunately, we over stood just a little bit and our competition – J/109 Afterthought was a able to sneak just ahead of us for the trip up the channel.
On the final leg back to the Piankatank we made ourselves comfortable on the rail for the hour+ close beat complete with sunscreen and beer while watching porpoises alongside the boat. We managed to claw back the lead Afterthought had put on us but couldn’t overcome it enough and were beat by a few seconds at the finish.
Two regattas down this weekend and the 3rd (of 4) would be FBYC’s Moonlight Regatta sailing aboard Double Eagle. It’s rare that I’m running the pointy end of the boat – but what better than to do it in the dark! Sam, Mark, Mayo, Holly, Melissa, Mary Paige, Katie and Mark(2) all made a great team and made for a great night.
For the first time in my memory we were sent on the longer A course and we were able to correct over all of the other boats sailing that course. The cloudy conditions and a moon that didn’t rise until we were back ashore didn’t make for great picture taking so these will have to suffice.
The course was a 13nm route that took just south and north of the Piankatank River entrance. In our class were Bad Cat, Nanuq, Wairere, Voodoo 2 and Pursuit. The wind was 8-11 out of the NNE with comfortable temperatures and mostly sunny skies.
Our race went pretty well particularly on the upwind/close reaching sections, we lost a bit on the downwind, but still wound up with 3rd place overall. I got to do some bow work which was a change since I haven’t done that in quite a number of years. All in all a great day on the water.
The final day of racing at the Screwpile Regatta and hallelujah we had good wind for sailing! Today’s schedule was 2-3 buoy races under partly cloudy skies and high 80’s temperatures.
The racing today was really pretty fun. We were right in the thick of it with boats all around us all the way around the course.
Upwind it was a choice between better pressure on the left and a right trending wind along with adverse current on the left. Downwind we had great sets and worked for clear air.
We sailed well, didn’t make any major mistakes and closed out the final two races with a 5-4 putting us in 6th place for the regatta. Thanks Sam for having me aboard. It was great sailing with you, Mayo, Mark, Melissa, Chris, Bonnie, Lauren and Ed.
Saturday was distance race day at the Screwpile Lighthouse Challenge Regatta. The regatta has a new format for this year where we buoy race on Friday and Sunday with a distance race in the middle. The conditions were good for racing – about 8 knots with mostly overcast skies – a little atypical for this regatta this time of year when we’re used to sunny skies, scorching temperatures and no wind.
In this race we were a pinch late at the pin end of the line and watched a few of the faster boats in the water drive to windward of us. For the most part we were low enough to keep a clear lane, but they put some distance between us. After the first mostly upwind leg, the course took us on a couple of close reaches down the bay. Some of the boats with sails that were close reachers or windseekers were able stretch out in front of us a bit. We put up our spinnaker late in the leg once the angles were right.
Once we made the turn back in to the Patuxent River the wind started to get lighter allowing us to catch up to the boats already in the river. We rode the wind down the right side of the course as we converged with the smaller boats that had been sailing various courses. There were plenty of crossing situations and boats to be on the lookout for, and it probably made for some great pictures from the helicopter taking pictures of all of the spinnakers in the river.
One thing that worked really well for us was having me sitting on the rail with an iPad around my neck doing the charter plotting. We had the boat instruments working as well, but having real time information where we were without having to go below helped keep us on track and out of trouble.
When the leaders in our fleet were about a mile ahead of us at the last turn to the finish, we saw something unusual happen. Bad Cat – a local boat with a little over a 7′ draft had run aground in the channel. A minute later VooDoo 2 was rafted up next to them hard aground. A third boat from another fleet wound up next to them as well. We just sailed right on by and were pretty happy with a 6th place finish.
Following racing we had a great cookout with the crews from Persuit, Horizon, GOIN’, Cheeky Monkey hosted by VooDoo 2.
Here’s what we sailed today. The blue line is the course and the red dotted line mostly right along side the blue line is our plot.
We had some pretty light winds to start the Screwpile Lighthouse Challenge Regatta in Solomon’s Maryland. I am sailing on Sam Mitchener’s J/109 Double Eagle this weekend and we are rated as the slowest boat along with the other J/109 in the 10-boat PHRF-A1 fleet.
In the first race on Friday we got a good start near the pin in clear air. We worked our way up the 1-mile leg and rounded in the middle of the pack. On the downwind leg the wind started to go from light to lighter. We rounded the leeward mark and started making our way out to the right side of the course following most of the rest of the fleet. Three boats behind us rafted up at the leeward mark and the wind completely shut off.
For the next hour and half we would float around trying to make distance towards the now-shortened coarse at the windward mark. At one point we had the anchor down to prevent us from being swept away from the mark by the current. Many other boats did the same. Ultimately, the boats rafted up at the mark came from behind everyone to catch just enough of a breeze on the left side of the course to finish. 4 boats got across the line before the timeline, and the rest of the fleet took at TLE/6. Quite a frustrating day of sailing being out on the water with no wind, a lot of current and not being able to even sail the course. With two more days of racing ahead lets hope the racing only improves.
Saturday was the Cut Channel Race at Fishing Bay Yacht Club and I was aboard Double Eagle with Sam Mitchener and 7 others for the race. We couldn’t have asked for much better weather with 10-20 knots out of the East with sunny skies for the 29nm course. We were among 2 other boats in the PHRF-A fleet and 18 total boats in the race.
We had a good start down by the pin right alongside the other J-109 Afterthought. The first half of the race was a beat and for the first 2 miles Afterthought inched ahead of us to where they were 5 lengths ahead of us as we turned around C and headed for mark L. As the wind built we had a better sail selection and a little more weight and were within a couple boat lengths by the time we got to L.
Afterthought crossing us on the way to Q:
From mark L we kept going south while Afterthought tacked and went North as we both made our way east across the bay to mark Q. The current made all the difference pushing us closer to the mark and we were .8 mi ahead at Q. As the wind eased and the conditions began to favor Afterthought for the 2nd half of the race they chewed some of that back and we crossed the finish line with a 3:15 minute lead and won our class and had the fastest corrected time of the whole fleet.
I ended up driving upwind and the reach for about 40 minutes which was good to give Sam a break and to see how the sails were affecting the trim. Mayo, Bonnie, Ed, Matt L, Chris T, Holly F sailed well together and were fun to sail with. All in all it was a good race and a good result – putting Double Eagle into contention later this year for the long distance series.
