Fishing Bay Yacht Club
Last weekend was the 2010 Leukemia Cup Regatta. It was held in Deltaville at Stingray Point Marina/Fishing Bay Yacht Club. Above is a photo of the crew. After abandoning the first race on Saturday in a lightning storm, we only managed 1 race on Sunday before the wind let out. We finished 4th in our 7-boat fleet. We might not have gotten any hardware on the race course, but we were the top fundraiser raising over $11,000 to support cancer research.
This photo is from the 2010 Moonlight Regatta at FBYC last Saturday night. It shows the sun setting on the Rappahannock River as the PHRF A fleet sails east to our second mark. It was taken from aboard the lead boat Double Eagle.
Photos are posted of the 2010 FBYC Annual Junior Regatta. I had a prime vantage point on the Race Committee boat where I was the scorer. It was also a great opportunity to do a trial run of some new technology I’m getting configured. I’ll soon have the ability to take pictures and beam them via wifi directly from my new camera to a computer or website. More on that once I get it completed.
Saturday I sailed the Laser out of Fishing Bay and circumnavigated Gywnn Island. The wind was out of the South-South East from 8-12 knots in the Piankatank to 14-18+ out in the bay. I started with a 2 hour beat upwind heading first east, and then south down the Chesapeake Bay. Out a mile offshore sailing upwind in 15+ in the standard rig was great with steady wind and some good wave action. At the 2 hour mark I entered the channel at the south end of the island and sailed the 1 ½ hour mostly downwind sail back to FBYC. I ended up sailing roughly 20 miles and I could not have asked for a better day of sailing.
This past weekend was a ton of fun and I’m still in denial that it’s over. I spent almost 5 days living out of my car traveling all over eastern VA and eastern NC. I took off Friday and headed down to Figure 8 Island near Wrightsville Beach to spend time at a beach house with Dan, Lauren, Patrick and a few other Richmond friends. With a full house I ended up spending two nights by the beach in a tent. It was beautiful weather for sleeping outside and I preferred it over the house. Sunday I got to see a beach sunrise which I’m rarely ever up for when I’m at the beach.
Sunday I drove back to Deltaville for two days of practice with the FBYC Campaign for the NYYC Invitational Cup Team. I sailed on the Sonar Sunday afternoon. We had a good wind, but a storm loomed on the horizon and we had to head in early. The storm never came and it was a beautiful afternoon so I got in a little Laser sailing.
Our practice on Monday didn’t start until noon, so Maria, her friend and I took Lasers out in the morning and I sailed until I had to be back for practice. This time I was on one of the Colgate 26s. Despite being similar in size to the Sonar, there are quite a few differences in how the boat is handled. After practice I headed back to Richmond for a cookout before finally arriving home.
This has been one awesome weekend. I got to hang out with a lot of different people and had a blast with all of them. It’s going to be tough to top that weekend this summer.
Side Note: At this point I’ve already put 10,000 miles on my car this year. Compared to this time last year I was closer to 6,000. With trips to Deltaville and beyond planned for almost every weekend through October, I’m going to be doing a lot of driving this year.
I got to do a lot of sailing this weekend; first on Wavelength on Saturday sailing to a 2nd place overall finish in the Spring Series. Saturday evening five of us – mostly Front Runner sailors – went out on Lasers for a nice evening sail. Sunday morning was laser racing against Brad and Maria. And finally Sunday evening we took out the Sonar that we’ll be using for NYYC Invitational Cup Qualifying Series practice for its maiden voyage.
This weekend was Opening Weekend at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. We had two beautiful days of racing with winds between 10-20 knots. Between sailing the past 3 weekends and the unseasonably warm weather we’ve had – it hardly seems like opening weekend for me. It’s not May yet, but it certainly feels like it.
This weekend and the last 2 weekends I have sailed aboard Wavelength, a C&C 37 with ~9 other crew. It’s been fun sailing the same boat for a while and really learning some of the finer points of sail trim and boat handling. Let the sailing season begin!
Today we launched the website for the 2010 US Optimist Dinghy Nationals to be held by Fishing Bay Yacht Club and several other community organizations in Deltaville, Virginia.
The website we put together uses WordPress to help get news out about the event. We’ll also be utilizing twitter, facebook, SMS, and email to spread information about the event, engage parents and participants, and to report on the event for spectator parents, grandparents and others who aren’t able to be on site.
This past weekend was the 2009 Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Regatta at Fishing Bay Yacht Club. As the event chair it’s a lot of work to get everything together to put on an event like that. On one hand it’s a relief to have that behind me, but that also means the sailing season is over for the year.
The event turned out great and I got to take a lot of great pictures. The overcast clouds and periodic ran made it a little hard to get good pictures, but I did what I could.
This weekend I was at the 2009 Southern Bay Leukemia Cup Regatta in Deltaville, VA sailing about Wavelength in the PHRF-A fleet. Last year I took photos and did a regular video.
This year my experiment was to take and collect photos from the event and immediately post them to twitter via the Fishing Bay Yacht Club twitter account (@fishingbayyc). I had a couple people emailing me photos from their camera phones throughout the event. During every free moment I had while racing, I would download the pictures, edit them, and tweet/post them to twitter/flickr. Having image editing apps on the iPhone made this work so easily. The only downside was the spotty coverage out in the middle of the bay, so downloading/uploading went slow.
All and all it was a fun experiment. I want to thank Goeff Cahill, Gary Hooper, and Scott Turpin for contributing photos to the video. The event website including results can be found here.