Double Eagle sailing upwind.
Double Eagle sailing upwind.

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!

RESULTS

9/25 Indian Summer Regatta

I got to take one of Jess’ college sailing friends Michelle out racing on a Front Runner for the Indian Summer Regatta.  Once again we had a very competitive fleet of 4 boats.  Michelle did great to learn the boat very quickly.  In the first race we even had the spinnaker flying upside down (my fault).  With that sorted we picked shifts well and stayed competitive.

RESULTS

9/24 FBYC Offshore Fall Series 2

Today started out as a pretty light-air day and the wind quickly built for the 2nd race of the FBYC Offshore Fall Series #2.  We sailed with just 3 of us – Andrew, Nathan and myself and we sailed a good first race, picking the correct side and finishing 1st in the 4-boat fleet.

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As the 2nd race started the wind piped up closer to 20 and two of the teams dropped out and we knew at that point we just needed to finish the race to win the day.  Unfortunately for us we were late at the start having been doing some rig tuning and not being closer enough to the line.  Hotty Toddy had a 10-boat lead at the start, but by the time we got a mile upwind we had caught up and were neck and neck.  We pulled away for another 1st.

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RESULTS

9/18 FBYC Offshore Fall Series 1

Back racing the J/70 after nearly 2 months we had nice wind and clear skies for the FBYC Offshore Fall Series 1.  We had out Louise, Andrew and Patrick and it was Patrick’s first time on the J/70.  In the starting sequence Louise had a minor family emergency so we transferred her to the Mr. Roberts and had to sail 3 up.  Having practiced 4-up and with no time until the start, we winged it and did our best with only 3 of us.

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We weren’t able to quite keep up with E.L.E. but we did well nonetheless and were able to finish 2nd.  In between races Louise was back and joined us for the 2nd race of the day. In this race all 4 J/70 were a lot closer and we got behind early on the wrong side of the course upwind.  We came back downwind, but weren’t able to get back ahead of Spice to finish 3rd.  All in all a fun day back in the boat.  Thanks Louise, Andrew and Patrick for sailing!

RESULTS

For the 2016 FBYC Laser Fall Regatta we took a novel approach to running the races: since it was nice weather and light winds and we had no RC helpers – 7 of us took out 6 Lasers and a RIB.  We then took turns on the RIB to run races and I jumped on the boat of whoever was on the RIB.  We did two cycles so everyone missed 2 races and we got in 14 races.

All in all it worked pretty well, everyone had fun and it was good racing.

RESULTS | PICTURES

The first of the one design fall series I borrowed a Front Runner and took my friend Patrick Conroy for his first sail on a Front Runner.  Save one race we weren’t much of a match for the other very experienced Front Runner sailors, but we had fun and Patrick even got to drive the last race.

After racing we were joined by Jen and Patrick’s wife Lauren for dinner at Merroir.

PICTURES | RESULTS

Nearly a year in the making this would mark the first time I was the event chairman for the 77th Annual One Design Regatta.  With that role came a lot of additional responsibilities and unlike the single-class regattas for Lasers that I have often chaired – this one involved organizing for many different classes.  In the end I think we did the best we could to balance the wishes of the sailors vs the sailing conditions we had and the volunteers and resources we had available.

Being the event chairman I was focused on making sure the event ran smoothly and so I only made it out for two races.  I had a good first race and ended up in a bad spot in the 2nd race that I couldn’t get out of at a mark rounding and ended up fouling a boat and had to retire from the race.

PICTURES | RESULTS

No wind in the morning so we postponed onshore for 2 hours and then went out to catch the sea breeze.  The Braun family ran 5 races for us and we had 8 standard rigs and 4 radials out racing.  Generally I had good speed all around the course, but wasn’t as clean in transitions as I could have been.  Charlie Brewer sailed a superb day and wasn’t able to be caught taking 5 bullets.  I settled for 2nd scrambling to stay ahead of Rob W and Csilla Gal. Big thanks to Matt Braun and Doug Bendura for heading up the RC.

RESULTS

We made the 2nd of the Summer Seabreeze regatta a rookie regatta in the Front Runner.  Matt Braun and I both crewed for first time Front Runner skippers.  The wind came up around 1:30 and we had a light 8 knot sea breeze to race in.  2 races and my skipper Parker Davis took two bullets.  Nice work, Parker.

RESULTS