2013 Commonwealth of Virginia Junior Championship Regatta
Photographed the Commonwealth of Virginia Junior Championship Regatta at Fishing Bay Yacht Club on Sunday. Here are all of the photos, and here are some of my favorites:
Tag: FBYC
Fishing Bay Yacht Club
Hampton Team Racing & FBYC Moonlight Regatta
I started the day at Hampton Yacht Club where a team from Fishing Bay Yacht Club was invited to a scrimmage Team Racing Sonars. We started with a quick recap/overview/planning in a classroom and then the team of 11 FBYC sailors were split into 3 boats for our team and Hampton took the other 3 boats. We spent a couple hours doing drills and practicing team race maneuvers against the Hampton team. The wind was in the low to mid teens which made boat handling a little more challenging, particularly for the FBYC sailors who hadn’t had a lot of time together nor a lot of time in Sonars. But we still were able to put on a good showing and I think it was a very successful scrimmage for both teams. A big thank you to Gary Bodie and Hampton Yacht Club for having us!
Immediately after getting off the water in Hampton, I got on the road to Deltaville to sail Fishing Bay Yacht Club‘s Moonlight Regatta on Wavelength. The start was delayed 30 minutes while some weather approached the area, but never really came near us. Out on the water we had beautiful sailing conditions with mostly clear skies and a steady 12-15 out of the south. None of the overcast and occasional rain we had seen in Hampton earlier in the day.
We started at 8pm and sailed out of the Piankatank with the sun setting behind us just a short time later. I grabbed this shot of Mad Hatter just behind us passing in front of the sunset. Just goes to show that the best pictures don’t necessarily come from the best camera, but from the camera you’ve got. This was a 2-take photo taken with the iphone. Here’s an alternate version of it on Instagram.
The race went pretty well and we had a good group aboard for sailing at night. I was jib grinder for the first 3 legs, spin trimmer downwind, and drove the last 2 legs upwind. We finished around 10:30. While we didn’t make the podium, the ice cream smothered in rum after racing was reward enough.
Results | More photos from today starting here.
2013 FBYC Flying Scot Stew Pot Regatta
Following a late night at the Richmond NASCAR race I was off to Fishing Bay Yacht Club for the Stew Pot Regatta to sail on Rob Whittemore’s Flying Scot – Patriot. We had 8 other Flying Scots out with us and 3 Front Runners in 11-15 knots of wind out of the ESE. The first 3 races were 4/5 mi H course and the last two were a W4 and a G. We had good starts, great boat speed and kept to the favored side of the course. John Wake and his wife Sharon were close competition all day, but we managed to snip them at the line a couple of times. All in all it was a fun day sailing with Rob and great to get 5 bullets to win the day.
Top 2 photos by Karen Huddle
2013 FBYC Offshore Spring Series #2
This was the 2nd day of the Spring Series at Fishing Bay Yacht Club and I got to helm the J109 Double Eagle to two 2nd place finishes in the 6-boat fleet. With winds in the low 20’s the fleet was racing a 1.04 mile leg in the Piankatank up into Fishing Bay. Anytime the wind is out of the North in there it’s very shifty which made driving challenging.
In the first race we trailed Afterthought all the way around the course. They were shorthanded and sailed downwind without a shoot, but made good enough VMG that we had to stay in good pressure with a kite up to make up on them. On the 2nd downwind we picked it right and were able to nip them at the line. Unfortunately Nanuq was too close behind and was able to correct over us.
In the 2nd race we were a bit late at the start and were just never able to really make up the deficit to challenge Afterthought and wound up with another 2nd.
I just want to thank Sam Mitchener for the opportunity to drive Double Eagle and wish his family the best and am sorry he wasn’t able to sail with us today.
Photo courtesy of Carrie Russell.
2013 FBYC One Design Opening Day
Got to sail a Front Runner in the One Design Opening day with Paul as crew. Started out with winds reaching the low teens and it dropped from there through 3 races. The first race was mostly getting re-acclimated to the boat. In the 2nd and 3rd races we had great starts and got around the course in 2nd. We just couldn’t seem to catch the speed of David and Rob who had 3 bullets and won the day.
J/70 and Laser Practice
Couldn’t have asked for a nicer day of sailing. The day started with 15-18 and we took out 3 J/70’s for practice. We spent about 2 hours doing starts and laps around a short course. This time I was trimming the jib and spinnaker.
Then in the afternoon I spent 3 hours on the Laser just sailing 1mi-1.5mi upwind and downwind legs. One of the club’s junior sailors – Nina was also out there (pictured).
Early Bird Gets the Worm… and Frostbite
Went out this morning for an early-morning practice on the Laser. The air temperature was 44 when I launched at 7am with 48 degree water temperature and 14-16 knots out of the North.
Later in the morning I sailed on Double Eagle and along with 5 other boats, we took out the crew trainees for an on-the-water training sessions.
After lunch we took Double Eagle back out to have a couple of new sails fitted.
Laser Practice & J70 Nostalgia Chesapeake Bay Debut
This morning I got out on the Laser for some practice in a sunny 5-8 knot breeze out of the North in Fishing Bay.
In the afternoon I went out for a sail on the J70 Nostalgia for its Chesapeake Bay debut with Lud, Miles, Den and Durwood.
A Good Friday for Laser Practice
I got to get out on the Laser for the first time in 5 months spending 2 hours doing windward-leeward laps around an imaginary course. It was good opportunity to remember how everything went together and to get comfortable in the boat in the ~10kt breeze under overcast skies.
Demographic Shift of Laser Masters Sailors
Our yacht club has been working on a new long range plan and we’ve done a bit of age analysis to see how our membership has changed over the past 10+ years. For the past 8 years I’ve run the Chesapeake Laser Masters Championship and I usually skimp on awards for the Great Grand Masters (65+) because historically there have only been a handful of competitors in that bracket compared to the more numerous competitors in the younger age brackets. This was the first year that several competitors pointed out how many more GGM sailors there were and thus deserved trophies that went a little deeper. And that has gotten me thinking about the age demographics of our Laser Masters regattas.
Here are the demographics of the Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship for all of the years I have available. Laser Masters sailing starts at 35 years old and the brackets are Apprentice: 35-44, Master 45-54, Grand Master 55-64 & Great Grand Master 65+. I’ve broken down each year by % of the fleet in each of the age groups to show how that has changed over the years.
Here is the same type of data for the US Masters Championship:
Both regattas differ a little bit in what they show and which age groups are growing, but both clearly show over the past 3-4 years a smaller Apprentice category and slightly larger M, G and GGM categories. What’s causing this? It could be the aging Baby Boomer population who were in their teens-20-30s when the Laser became popular in the 1970’s and learned to sail on them. There’s always been a bit of a boomerang in sailing where people go away during and after college and while they are starting families, and then they tend to come back and involve their family in sailing. Could it be that the following generation (X) that was raised in Optis and spent less time in the Laser, is not returning to the Laser in the same numbers as the generation before them? Or are more boomers just boomeranging back into the class later in life and skewing the pot? Time will tell, but there’s clearly a change underway.
What are your thoughts? Leave them in the comments.
Raw Data:
Chesapeake Laser Masters
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US Laser Masters
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Why Chesapeake Laser Masters and US Masters? 1) Because Masters events are the only events where we know the age bands of sailors. While there are regattas that know the age of the competitors, it’s not typically published. 2) These are the events that I had the most and oldest data on.