Fishing Bay Yacht Club
Served as the race committee for the first one design event of the year at FBYC. Ended up with a beautiful day for the Flying Scots and Melges 15. I also got to try out a new insta360 X4 camera.
Got 4 races before the wind died on us.
Thanks to Mason Chapman, Laurie Pierce, Jess Deutsch, John Koedell, Todd Blekicki and Frank Murphy for helping on RC.
EVENT WEBSITE | PHOTOS | VIDEO
As was the case in 2022, the club was short a PRO for the first spring series of the year and so I stepped in last minute to be the PRO. We had a small but mighty team and gave the racers the best we could given the weather, volunteers and equipment we had available.
While it wasn’t windy by windy standards- the conditions were still cool, the wind was up and the waves were a bit lumpy from this direction. We were able to set up a 1.5nm weather leg and ran two races for both fleets on that course. The cruising class intended to do a triangle derivative of this, but through some miscommunication to the RC, we sent them on a triangle that was way beyond what they were intending and weren’t finishing even the first lap of that until almost after the other fleets had done two laps and started their next race.
Thanks to Paula, Cathy, Mary and Paul for their help on RC.
This was also my first chance to try out a new insta360 X4 and here’s the 360 video in 8k of driving the boat out of the Jackson Creek Channel.
VIDEO | PICTURES | RESULTS | EVENT WEBSITE
This weekend the Battle Rhythm crew joined the Race Committee for the Opening Day race. The 3 fleets did a middle distance race out into the Chesapeake Bay and back. The wind was light and took about 3 hours to do the ~15nm. We had a 4-6 knot breeze in the Piankatank the entire time. The boats out in the bay saw much less than that at times and many of them abandoned when the current started taking them faster than the wind.
Being on Race Committee this was a perfect opportunity to get some video of the boats and try out a borrowed 360 camera.
It was the first weekend in December and the plan had been to race in FBYC’s winter series but fog and lack of good weather on future weekends for a delivery to Irvington for a haul out meant today was the day to make the trip.
With the winter series going on, we left the dock and sailed out into the fog in the mouth of the Piankatank where the other boats were racing. We could see maybe a 1/2 mile at time. We sailed by the other boats and then headed out to Stingray Point and around it and into the Rappahannock. The fog was a little denser out there and that was the only run in with another boat when a 25′ center console fishing boat went buzzing across our bow with barely visible lights.
The rest of the trip was smooth and the fog lifted as we closed in on the bridge.
Once in Irvington we pulled the sails off, did a few other clean up items and carpooled back to FBYC.
For the 2023 FBYC Frostbite Regatta we were short on RC and so I pulled the short straw to run races. Thankfully Allan, Rick and David volunteered to help. We had 10 ILCA and 5 other double handed boats out there too.
We didn’t have any wind when we planned on starting so we postponed about an hour. We could see it was coming out of the south and had the fleet out there and got started around 12:15. We ran two different course options and the final race included a 1mi downwind leg to the finish at the FBYC dock.
I also go to try out Allan’s big camera with a monster lens and he tried out my mirrorless camera. It was nice to have a chance to finally photograph some sailing from the water with the Nikon Z50 I had gotten a couple months ago. The other innovation we tried out was a starting countdown timer video connected to a Bluetooth speaker telling us on the signal boat when to raise and lower flags so we didn’t have to keep time ourselves. Needs a few tweaks, but worked pretty well.
Great end to the season and while I’m disappointed I didn’t get to sail, it was nice to make it a great event for everyone and I’m looking forward to getting back out there next year.
FBYC closed the regular season with the Closing Day Distance Race. The weather was absolutely gorgeous with beautiful fall foliage – it felt more like September than almost November. Except there wasn’t much wind. Knowing it was a distance race with little prospect of more wind later and oysters to be eaten this afternoon the RC chose to start us on time and let us make the most of what wind there was.
I was sailing on Battle Rhythm, we were the 3rd fastest boat and thus the 3rd to last boat to start. We were just behind Tradition as we came to the line and ended up underneath a bunch of boats who had parked up just above the line. It took us a long time to sail around them and after 35 minutes to the weather mark – we set a spinnaker and headed due east out of the river to the next mark of the course.
We soon passed a few boats that had rounded the first mark ahead of us. With the spinnaker up, we were a little low and eventually had to drop it and go back to a jib as the wind went a little south. By the time we reached the far mark we were around 7-8th place. On the way back to Stove Point we passed two cruising boats leaving only Afterthought, Nanuq and Goin’ ahead of us. We didn’t catch them, but had a good time to get at 4th and learned some things about how to make the light reaching spinnaker work in light wind and close reaching.
Following the race were oysters and we had a great time catching up with a lot of folks for possibly the last time of the year.
We had a really nice day for some practice aboard Todd’s J99 Battle Rhythm along with Kevin, Ron, and Ron’s wife Nancy. The wind was out of the NNE from 10 to about 16 while we were out there. We started with some compass and wind angle calibrations and then did some upwind sailing to the mouth of the Rappahannock where we could see all the boats up the river sailing in the Turkey Shoot Regatta while we tried different settings with the jib sheet leads.
When we were off Windmill point it was pretty waving and choppy and as we were setting the chute we took one huge wave over the bow soaking Todd who had gone forward to get the spinnaker ready. We also sailed through a pod of dolphins at one point.
With the chute up we had some really nice running conditions and got the boat planning a bit hitting over 10 knots a couple of times. As we got close to the Piankatank we did a few gybes and headed in for the day.
This year we moved the Chesapeake Bay ILCA Masters Championship up to a September date to avoid some other masters conflicts in early October so it was a rare treat for the sailors not used to the pool being open to be able to hop in and cool off on a boiling hot Friday afternoon. I spent the afternoon getting things ready for the regatta by alternating between things I could do in the air conditioning and things outside and eventually joined the visiting sailors in the pool and later out to dinner at The Table.
On the Saturday, we arrived to nice weather and much cooler temperatures than the prior few days. There wasn’t much wind to start, but forecast to have some by mid-day and so the 32-boat fleet was sent out. We ended up having a 10-15 minute postponement before getting into a starting sequence. We would go through 2 false starts and finally a successful start under the Z flag. I didn’t have a great position at the start and was blanketed on the first beat. I was deep at the first mark and made up a few boats on the downwind and a couple more on the upwind to the finish on the short course. I would settle for 20th.
The wind continued to be a little shifty, still in the 8-10 range. In this race I had a fantastic start at the boat end with just a couple boats between me and the boat. Soon after the start I tacked and ducked a couple of boats to get out to the right. I continued to play a few shifts in the middle right and found myself out there in clear air with Dave Waiting near me. I would follow Dave into the first mark and on the downwind I went right thinking we were going to have a new breeze from the right. I was really wrong on that and 6 boats past me on the left by the time we got to the bottom mark. On the upwind I stayed to the right (facing upwind) side of the course while most of the boats ahead played the middle left. I got some great shifts and more pressure and by the time we got to the windward mark I had passed everyone and was just ahead of Dave. He has a lot more speed downwind than me and went by in pretty short order. I followed him to finish 2nd with the two of us well ahead of the bunch behind us.
While waiting for the 3rd race the wind started go to light and move around. We postponed on the water and then it became clear there were some storms to the south headed our way and so the fleet was sent in.
Alain wasn’t able to sail, but he brought food and the fleet had a good time hanging out and eating while it rained on and off outside.
On Sunday the forecast wasn’t very good and that’s what was delivered. After sending the race committee out to look for wind while the sailors waited on shore, they didn’t find any and with more thunderstorms coming – racing was abandoned for the day.
Congratulations to James Jacob on winning this event for his 7th time. Thanks to David Lee and everyone who helped on RC to make the most of the wind we had.
RESULTS | JON’S PICTURES | PAUL’S PICTURES | PETER’S PICTURES | EVENT WEBSITE | VIDEO
After missing Saturday’s racing while helping Todd deliver the boat – day 2 at the Stingray Point Regatta would be the first race of 2023 for J99 Battle Rhythm. As we were heading out to the course we were seeing winds of 8-11 and we used it to practice some maneuvers with our short-handed 4-man crew of Todd, Len, Ron and myself.
The first race started on time – still in 8-10 knots and we had a fantastic start. Other boats in the A2 fleet had better first legs and we found ourselves deep in the fleet at the first mark. We picked up places as the race went on and as the wind continued to drop. By the last downwind leg to the finish it was pretty light. We had past most of the boats ahead of us except Afterthought and Voodoo 2 who were just ahead of us drifting to the finish. Just as we got close the RC abandoned the race with all 3 of us just a couple hundred yards from the finish. It was disappointing to come all of this way and race through all of that, but wasn’t going to be a fair race and was the right call. We definitely learned a lot, started to get the boat dialed in and worked on finding the sweet spot on the new spinnaker we were flying.
After some time postponed motoring around to make some wind and stay cool – the sea breeze eventually filled in out of the south. The RC reset the course and sent us racing again. We didn’t have quite as good of a start this time and had to tack out pretty early and get away. That wasn’t awful as it was the right way for current relief and it allowed us to go in clear air. As the breeze built we spent the race getting back in the grove and taking our time in the maneuvers to not mess anything up. Sometimes we were pulling away from other boats, and other times they were running up on us. We got a 4th in that one.
In the last race of the day – now in the late afternoon, we had another pretty good start. This time we did better to keep up with Afterthought and Voodoo and they were just ahead of us for most of the first lap. The wind had built to 9-11 and we had to adjust modes for the wind and adjust our maneuvers with only the 4 of us to raise and lower sails a little slower to keep things controlled. Voodoo 2 and Afterthought did get a bit more ahead of us, but we held off the boats behind and managed a 5th.
I had a great time sailing with Len, Todd and Ron and it was fun to show all of these other fully crewed boats what we could do short handed.