Tag: FBYC

Fishing Bay Yacht Club

Friday

We’re all set for the District 11 Championship this weekend at Fishing Bay Yacht Club.  I got down to the club this afternoon, got everything unloaded and met some of the out-of-towners who were trickling in.  A few of us went out for some practice.  After sailing 21 of us went out to dinner and then we hung out at the club before calling it a night.

Tomorrow we’ve got overcast skies and 10-15 out of the south east.  We should have right around 40 sailors with about 12 or so in the Radial fleet.  It’ll be some fun racing tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it.

View from the top of the mast of our practice

Saturday-Sunday

This has been an awesome weekend both as a regatta organizer and as a competitor.  The regatta ran great, we had nice weather, we got in 8 races, we had competitive fleets and David Lee and the race committee did a fantastic job with the on-the-water part of the regatta.  Everyone enjoyed Alain’s dinner and we certainly couldn’t have made the regatta work with out the help of the many club members who pitched in – THANK YOU!

As a competitor I can’t say I had been thrilled with the sailing I’ve done this year.  I was sailing really well last fall and even though I was going to big time regattas this winter, I just never put together anything more than a mediocre regatta for myself.  With this regatta I was determined to put in a respectable showing and get my game back to where it was last fall.  What better a place to do it than on my home waters.

Saturday’s racing saw 12-16 knots of wind for the day.  That’s at the upper end of the range that I’m competitive in.  I set my boat up right and hiked my butt off and managed to have all top-10 finishes except 1 in 5 races putting me into 8th in the 25-boat fleet. In that kind of wind keeping up with the tail end of the lead pack was a good showing for myself.

Start of race 2 at the pin

Saturday night we had 55 people for dinner and had a great time hanging around the club.

Sunday, the wind was right in my sweet spot for speed and out of the south.  On the first race I had a great start, picked the shifts and led at the windward mark by a boatlength or two.  It was such a thrill to be out ahead of so many great sailors. But I knew they were coming for me and I did my best to stay out ahead of them. Dan Herlihy and I traded for 1st place on the next 2 legs and on the final beat, he just picked the shifts a little better than I did to take the gun leaving me 2nd.

In Sunday’s second race I had a good start, but didn’t have the boat speed to pull ahead of the fleet.  As a result I had a tough time going where I wanted, made way too many tacks and ended up really deep at the first windward mark.  Luckily about half of the top 6 sailors were back there with me.  Through the next 4 legs we picked our way back up to the front and I dug through about 10 boats to get back to 9th.

The 3rd and final race of the day was my best race.  At the start there was a big lefty enabling Rob Overton to port tack the fleet at the pin.  I had a good start in the middle and used my boat speed to get enough of a lead and clear lanes to start picking some shifts.  At the first windward mark it was me and Rob Whittimore.  I couldn’t have written it any better to battling for the lead with a good friend and fellow club member. I led Rob by about half a boat length down to the offset.  Rob had a great run and jumped ahead of me at the downwind mark.  The race committee changed the next weather leg to the left so I immediately went left on the 2nd windward leg and caught some great shifts to pull ahead of Rob and everyone else behind.  The next two legs I felt like I had good boat speed, caught the shifts well, and covered the fleet to take the gun.  That ended up being the last race of the day and it was such a thrill to sail my best and win a race against such a great group of sailors.  That really made my weekend.

Leading the fleet in the final race

After racing we handed out awards, cleaned up and got on the road.

All in all it was a great weekend and I can’t wait to do some more Laser sailing!

Read my write-up on the District 11 Website and check out the results.  I hope to have a video up later this week and I’ll link to photos when they are available.

 

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Saturday was my first time back to Deltaville since the Tornado came through last weekend.  I was surprised to see how much had already been cleaned up and put back together.  With last weeks racing cancelled, this was the first day of offshore sailing and I was aboard Wavelength. It was a bit cloudy, but warm and we saw 15 knots with gusts to 30. It was a bit wild at times with the kite up in winds over 25.

Here’s some video of the damage and some highlights from FBYC’s Offshore Spring Series #2.

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Sailing World April 2011 Leukemia Society Wavelength Ad

In the April edition of both Sailing World(p68) and Cruising World the The Leukemia Cup Regatta has an ad featuring the crew of Wavelength during the 2010 Southern Bay Leukemia Cup at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. Pictured: Anton Webre, Melanie Pelouze Schmidt, Chris Schmidt, Ed Walker, Steve Utley, Rob Whittet, Jon Deutsch, and John Watlington.

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FBYC launched a new website for the Stingray Point Regatta this week. It uses a lot of the things we learned from the 2010 Optimist Nationals website and should serve as a good platform for promoting and providing information about the event. The regatta takes place each Labor Day weekend in Deltaville, Virginia at Fishing Bay Yacht Club and is sailed mostly around buoy courses in 23-40+ foot boats. Check it out at http://stingraypointregatta.org

Stingray Point Regatta website screen shot
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Fishing Bay Yacht Club won US Sailing’s Regatta of the Year award for hosting the 2010 USODA Layline Nationals.  A big part of what set us over the top was our online media and promotion of the event.  It was a fun event this summer and I’m glad to have played a part in it.  Kudos to the rest of the team that made it happen.

From US Sailing’s Press Release:

The Fishing Bay Yacht Club (FBYC) of Deltaville, Va. won the 2010 Regatta Award for the excellence in development, promotion, and management performed by organizers and sponsors of the 2010 USODA (United States Optimist Dinghy Association) Layline Nationals on July 17-25, 2010.

Co-chairs Noel Clinard and Jay Buhl, along with webmaster Jon Deutsch were recognized for demonstrating extraordinary individual creativity and contribution to the year’s most innovative one-design event of national significance. The regatta attracted broad national and international participation of 317 boats through persistent marketing and communication efforts. The small club located in a village maximized their resources through their entrepreneurial promotions, sponsorship development, community involvement, shore activities and creative dissemination of housing, tourism, historical and racing information.

The regatta site conjoined four nearby properties, including the Deltaville Dockyard, Jackson Creek Condominiums, Deltaville Maritime Museum, and Harbor House Community. The regatta consisted of three events: team racing, girls fleet racing, open fleet racing, plus a green fleet for novices. Despite its small size of about 330 family members, FBYC turned out different race committees for these events with over 50 volunteers.

The backbone for marketing the regatta was an effective, user friendly web site at http://optinationals2010.org. The web site was enabled to provide social networking through Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. A detailed media plan included the engagement of two separate video services, t2p.tv and Sailgroove, who provided ample coverage. FBYC facilitated the recruitment of Layline, a marine supplier, as the first ever Platinum level partner for USODA.

Also, 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist and US SAILING Team AlphaGraphics member Anna Tunnicliffe was in attendance and gave the keynote address for the opening ceremony.

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Friday

Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Trophy Plate
Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Trophy

The 2010 Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship is less than 48 hours away. This is the 29th Annual running of this regatta at Fishing Bay Yacht Club for Laser sailors 35 years of age or older. Since becoming the Laser Fleet captain in 2005 this is the 6th masters regatta I have been event chair for and my 7th laser regatta total.

As of this writing we have 38 boats registered. We’ve reached that number only once in the last 10 years and if we have 2 more boats show up – this will be the largest Laser Masters regatta since we hosted 91 boats for the US Laser Masters in 2000.

Most of the stuff to feed the sailors and Race Committee this weekend. ~35 cubic ft of gear plus me that has to fit in my car of only 90 cubic ft.

It’s amazing to think back at the last 10 years of Laser Masters regattas on how much has changed, yet how some of the traditions have remained the same.

In 2000 we hosted 91 Lasers without all of the new land we have today. We still had the old clubhouse and somehow everyone had a place to rig and eat dinner.

We still have all of the awesome traditions like Alain’s fabulous dinner, excellent race committee, and a fun group of masters sailors who come every year for a great time.

Saturday

Today was the first day of the Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship at Fishing Bay Yacht Club and what a wild windy day it was.  Unfortunately it was so windy and so wild that I was unable to get my camera out.  With all the spray and having to get in the water to help out tired sailors, I just wasn’t able to get too many shots of the racing.

Read about the day here and check out the first day results.  Tomorrow’s forecast calls for less wind and will hopefully enable more photos to be taken.

Start of race one
Start of race 1.

Sunday

I want to thank all of the sailors who came out for the 2010 Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship at Fishing Bay Yacht Club last weekend.  We had a record turnout since 2000 and it was by far the best and most fun FBYC Laser Masters regattas that I’ve been a part of.  I also wanted to thank the race committee, our fleet members and all of the other volunteers at FBYC who helped make this regatta what it is.  All of the competitors enjoyed it and got some great sailing, and that would not have been possible without the help of everyone involved. Congrats to John Bertrand on winning his second straight Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship.

2010 Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Group Shot

The complete write-up of the regatta and results can be read here. With 25+ knot winds on Saturday, the boat I was on was just a little too wet to get the camera out.  I was able to get a few good shots from shore and a bunch of great photos on Sunday.

Mr. Roberts and Lasers on Fishing Bay

I hope to see everyone back at FBYC for 2 Laser Regattas next year: The District 11 Championship and US Sailing Singlehanded Championship Area C Elimination in late May or early June, and the 2011 Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship in October.

PICTURES

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Another great weekend in Deltaville.  Saturday was probably the last regatta I am going to sail in for the year.  It was the Sail Against SIDS/Indian Summer Regatta and we had 3 lasers out.  I can’t say I sailed very smart, missing things like the number of laps and major wind shifts.  But I made up for it by being fast and won 5 close races.  It was fun sailing with Mike and Steve and I want to thank Allan’s crew for putting up with me always wanting our fleet to sail a different course than the other fleets.

FBYC Fall Series #2 Upwind

Sunday was the Offshore Fall Series #2 at Fishing Bay Yacht Club.  I ran the mark boat with Miles.  With a strong, cool north wind, we sailed the races in Fishing Bay.  Occasional light rain added a little misery. It’s always a sight seeing 15-20 twenty to forty footers racing in the shifty conditions in the Piankatank.

Lining up the marks
My only real responsibility as the mark boat: making sure the marks all line up with the committee boat.

Despite the bad weather, I was able to get some pictures of the action that can be seen here.

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This year I’m the event chair for the Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Regatta on October 16-17.  This is the 6th year I’ve chaired the Annual Regatta which will be held for its 29th year.

The shirts will be printed on a wicking shirt and the  design is a stencil of a photo from last year.

2010 Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters T-shirt Design

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Jon on the Bow of Mr. Roberts at the 2010 USODA Layline NationalsFollowing up on the USODA Layline Nationals – the event went fantastic.  I was out on the water each day for the entire week with one part of the race committee or another.  The social media experiment went very well with a lot of traffic hitting the site, and a lot of people following on twitter and facebook. Being able to quickly post information to the web was great for both the RC and organizing authority to get information out, and for parents/coaches to see the detailed stuff.  At some point I’ll be writing up something of a case study to share what I learned with those who want to replicate some of what I did with this regatta.

Shot of Mr. Roberts at the start of a race on WednesdayMy vantage point with the RC also enabled me to get some incredible photos.  Some of those include a fisheye photo of the start from the bow pulpit, and photos of the start while standing on the goal posts.  And event photographer Dave Hein was nice enough to swap spots with me for a race so I could get a few shots from around the course.

Opti Nationals Start from atop Mr. RobertsI did get some photos of the racing action, but I mostly focused on photos that highlighted the club and community effort to put on the event.  Those photos were rolled into a scrapbook that is now in the club library.  All of the photos that I took can be found here.  These collections are about 93% mine and the rest were contributed by other club members.

For more videos, pictures, results and all of the writing done for the regatta.  Check out the event website which will remain up for some time as an archive.

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