It was another beautiful night for J/70 sailing and Brad, Dave and Ron were aboard for it.  There were 3 other boats out and with the lightish wind we were finding our groove and actually holding our own against the other boats.  And then the forestay came undone.  The spinnaker halyard was quickly lashed to the bow and the sails brought down and we were done for the day.  At least we got 3 1/2 races in and didn’t do any real damage.

We had a great night of sailing to start the July 4th weekend with 10 boats on the starting line and plenty of wind.  Aboard were Ron, Christin and Stuart.  With half of the crew being on the boat for the first time we focused on getting the maneuvers right and getting around the course the best we could.  We eventually got chased off the course as some rain started approaching. On the ‘race’ to the dock we had a great vantage point of the 5-wide racing in the channel with boats on both sides calling for water.

racing 5 wide in the channel

The rain threatened but never materialized and gave us a great night for racing in a 6-9 knot breeze with 6 boats out.  We sailed 2 races and then a 3rd to the dock.

In the first race we had a bad start and were behind the whole time.  The second race we led the first 3 legs and were passed by E.L.E. who hit the shifts better on the other side of the course.

The 3rd race was to the dock and after leading the first 2 legs we were just edged out to the entrance to the channel and then we motor-raced to the hoist.  Thanks again Brad, Mary and Jay for a great night of sailing!

We had another beautiful night of J/70 racing on the Piankatank River.  The wind was in the 6-8 range.  We had 5 boats out and started with 2 one lap races.  We had a bit of a slow start, but got our boatspeed a little better and really noticed the difference in speed on the balance of the boat.  By the 3rd and longer race we led wire-to-wire and were leading the 4th race to the dock when we put the afterburners(engine) on to beat the rush to the hoist.

6/5

We started the 2015 FBYC Friday J/70 Series with a nice evening to be out on the water.  The wind was a little light – but enough to make a race out of it among the 4 other boats that were out there.

On board were Ron, Brad and Borna and we sailed pretty well hitting the left corner on the first beat while most of the rest of the boats went right.  It worked out for us and we had a nice lead until E.L.E. was able to claw us back to pass us in the final boat length to the finish as a puff came from behind.

6/5

We started racing back to the dock and gave up when the wind died for good.

Photos