Saturday brought beautiful weather for Fishing Bay Yacht Club’sOne Design Invitational Regatta. Sailing were Front Runners and San Juan 21s with another boat sailing Portsmouth handicap. I sailed a Front Runner and had Alan Williamson crewing with me on his first time sailing.
The wind started out light – which was perfect for us as we found our way around the boat and learned the routines of the maneuvers to get the sails up and down as we went around the course. Luckily the other boats had some new crew too so we all were getting up to speed at the same time. As a result the racing was close throughout.
We did 5 races with winds building from 5-11 and staying pretty consistently out of the east. Our race course as a windward-leeward 1/4 mi legs set just west of the end of Stove Point.
In the first 3 races we were up and down putting up a 3-1-3. I won the boat a couple times at the start, but never seemed to be able to live there with the other boats below us out-pointing us, so we had to tack out and make more tacks making it harder to catch up. In the races we did well in, I was closer to the pin and was able to foot and go fast and do less tacks. We also made sure to setup on the laylines early to give ourselves plenty of time to prepare for the roundings.
Going into the last race we were tied for 1st and it was a longer 3-lap race. We were close to Matt Lambert all the way around the course and more than once he tried to stick it to us and almost succeeded. But we were able to get through the turns quickly and use the favored positions to stay just ahead and win the race putting us in 1st overall and 2 points ahead of 2nd.
It was a lot of fun having Alan aboard and getting to show him sailing and racing and the level of athleticism and effort needed to do it well. He was a quick study and really helped get us around the course fast.
Thanks to Parker Garrett and the race committee for running the races today! We could have asked for a better day all the way around. And thanks Matt Braun for loaning me the boat to sail.
We had 4 Front Runners among the dozen or so other boats for Fishing Bay Yacht Club‘s One Design Spring Series #3. After cutting my teeth on the boat in yesterday’s Open House Regatta I was racing against my crew yesterday as they found their way around a Front Runner today.
To start the day the wind was on the light side so most of the racers sat on shore and communicated with the race committee by radio until it looked like the wind was going to fill in. From there the wind began to build gradually throughout the day and really made for some nice racing.
Matt & A.L. Braun were once again stellar winning all 4 of our races. Mark Stephens and I traded 2nd and 3rd place with me getting the better of him to take 2nd on the day. My crew Jess Hardin learned quick and did a good job getting the chute up and down. All in all a very successful day on the water.
Fishing Bay Yacht Club‘s first ever Open House Regatta was Saturday. This year we tried something new and replaced a distance race for the bigger boats-only with declining participation with a shorter distance race for all boats held at the club and on surrounding waters. It was cooling being part of the group that came up with the ideas last November and seeing it carried out and how well it went and how great of a time everyone had.
The goal of the event was to have racing at the club – since it’s centrally located where we all like to go anyway, and it’s a holiday weekend so everyone is down at the river. We also wanted to involve all of our boats and to invite friends to come racing with us in some casual racing. We finished it up with a raft up and dinner/band in the evening. Caroline Garrett, Elizabeth Staas, Len Guenther, Mark Hayes and Matt Braun and all of the other volunteers did a great job making the ideas a reality.
I sailed a Front Runner and introduced fellow member Christin Lipscomb and her boyfriend Mike Walsh to the boat as my crew. It was my first time on the boat in nearly a year.
The race was a progressive start race – meaning the slowest boats start first and the fastest boats start last and whoever crosses the finish line first wins. The different start times handicap the boats based on their speed. There was a second progressive start for the >22′ boats which sailed an even longer course.
Our race went alright. We didn’t have the best first leg and weren’t able to catch the breeze that allowed the boats ahead to really stretch out and not get caught in a wind hole further back. We had fun and still managed a 6th place and 3rd Front Runner to finish. There were a few other fun moments like where we were unsure which side of the mark we were to round and had boats going both ways.
After racing we put up the boat and joined the raft up of the bigger boats as they finished. The goal was to make a sunflower where we complete the circle of boats, but we fell short a few boats and ended up with a crescent. Still it was a fun time having everyone rafted up together hopping between boats and catchup up with everyone and seeing how their races went.
Once we had most of the boats rafted up – I went up the nearly 70′ mast on Destiny to get a picture.
Post-raft up I bumped into a Flying Scot sailor at the dock and sprained my ankle which left me laid up icing it for the rest of the evening.
Saturday was Fishing Bay Yacht Club‘s Summer Seabreeze regatta. We had 7 Flying Scots and 3 Front Runners out. On those Front Runners 4 of the 6 sailors had never been on one before. We did 5 races in 6-9 knots of breeze out of the southeast. Marie Schacht was my crew and we put up 1-2-1-1-2 to narrowly beat out Front Runner guru Matt Braun.
Thursday was July 4th and Fishing Bay Yacht Club‘s annual one design long distance race. I was able to borrow a Front Runner and a co-worker of mine – Stephen Boling came out to crew. Stephen had never been on a sailboat before. We headed out, got to practice each maneuver once and then the race started.
The race started right of the FBYC dock and the first leg took us south out of Fishing Bay 3/5 of the way across the river to the far side of the channel. We had perfect start, right at the boat, right at the gun and were able to pin some of the other boats to the left side of the course for a bit. Upwind we picked a nice lane of wind right up the middle of the bay and found ourselves 1st at the windward mark.
We set the chute on the 2nd leg which took us due east on a race about a mile to another channel marker. What we didn’t realize when we first set the chute was that it was very twisted at the top. After a few boats started to pass us, we had to take it up and down a few times to get the twist out. By the time we close-reached down to the 1/2 way mark, we were easily 300 yards behind the lead pack of 5 boats.
Sailing the next two upwind legs we had good speed and I picked good angles and we actually passed 3 of the boats. By the finish we were within 20 yards of the 2nd boat over the line. If only we had another 3 miles, we could have contended for the lead. Unfortunately, all 3 of the top boats owed the Flying Scot, sailed by John & Sharon Wake, time and they corrected over us, putting us in 4th overall.
I want to thank the Front Runner fleet for letting me borrow a boat and Stephen Boling for coming out to crew.
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.
I had an awesome weekend in Deltaville. It started with the Inaugural Deltaville 5k. With zero training I ran the whole thing and had a respectable finish of 26:07.
I took the weekend off from sailing to heal a minor wrist sprain and so I went right from the 5k to doing race committee at Fishing Bay Yacht Club for the offshore Cut Channel Race. I got a lot of great pictures of the offshore fleet here.
Saturday night was 4th of July partying, fireworks and swimming. For Sunday’s racing we thought it was going to be a bit windy so I jumped on a Front Runner as a 3rd crew member, but halfway through the race the wind died and I sat out the next two light wind races and instead went sailing on a Byte in the afternoon. Saturday night we again watched Fireworks.
Monday was FBYC’s One Design Long Distance Race. I normally would have sailed my Laser in this, but again I was sitting out to rest my sprained wrist. I went out for the start and the first two legs to get some photos. The entire collection is posted here.
Sunday was the Salsa Bowl Regatta and I borrowed a Front Runner from Mike Karn to take out and race. My crew was friend of a friend Bri Paxton, a recent William & Mary graduate who was on the sailing team there. Being my first time on a Front Runner since spring of 2010 and Bri’s first time sailing an asymmetrical spinnaker, we were a bit boat-challeneged for first couple races.
By the second two races we had most things running smoothly and were able to sail well upwind and hang with the fleet on the downwinds. We ended up 4th in a fleet of 5 in 4 races. It was a ton of fun and thanks Bri for coming and crewing!
More on-board photos from the day of sailing on the Front Runner can be seen here.
We started out bright and early this morning on our trip to Tampa for the Fireball and Friends midwinter’s. I am sailing a Front Runner along with 7 other boats based in Richmond from Fishing Bay Yacht Club. 5 of us left Richmond at 5:30am in a caravan heading south.
The trip started out fine, but about 150 miles into the trip the tire went on the trailer I was driving. Unfortunately the spare was a dud too, but thankfully Mark came to the rescue and loaned me his spare. The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful and we pulled into Davis Island Yacht Club around 7pm.
Most of the other boats in our group arrived around the same time and after unloading the boats we stopped for some pizza before heading out to find our house for the weekend.
Tomorrow, after getting some new tires we’ll set up the boats and get ready to race in the afternoon. The weather is calling for scattered storms and 12-15+.
Thursday
The plan for today had been to get the boat ready, do a practice sail and then a Portsmouth handicap race in the evening, but rain, a tornado warning, flash flood warning and lake wind advisory foiled those plans. Instead I got the tires fixed and joined the group for lunch at Ybor Brewing Company. In the afternoon we relaxed around the house and then Rick and Jen cooked up a great steak, chicken and sausage dinner with salad and baked potatoes. The rest of the evening was spent playing cards and recounting old times sailing at FBYC.
We’ll have to get an early start to the day tomorrow to get the boat setup and ready to sail. We’ve seen a variety of forecasts, but presently we’re expecting lighter winds with a possibility of some rain.
Friday
Today was supposed to be the first day of racing at the Front Runner Midwinters at Davis Island Yacht Club in Tampa Florida, but the weather definitely put a damper on it. We arrived at the club early to get the boats set up and the race committee had already postponed our noon first start. We took refuge in the club house and waited for a break in the weather that came around noon. The weather gave us a window just long enough to get the boats set up before another front came through.
Throughout the day we either had wet and windy or cloudy with no wind. Late in the afternoon a couple of Fireballs did get out on the water. At times they were just sitting there in the drizzling rain. That hardly looked like fun sailing. Our group stayed inside and played cards for most of the afternoon. Late in the afternoon the RC postponed the first race until tomorrow. We’ll have to be up nice and early for a 9:30 first start on Saturday. The weather for the rest of the weekend is supposed to be beautiful.
Saturday
We arrived at Davis Island Yacht Club on Saturday morning hoping to get in our first day of sailing. The wind was up around 15-18 knots when we arrived and white caps were beginning to appear. By the time we got the boats launched the wind was sustained 18-20.
This was my first time helming a Front Runner and we headed out to the course with the rest of the fleet. A few boats who had gone out ahead of us, passed us going the other way, and I just figured they were doing some upwind practice. Once we made it to the starting area we quickly realized we weren’t going to be able to compete in this wind, and having only been in the boat once before, it was probably going to be best for us not to remain out long. So we headed back for the dock.
Turns out we had good company. The boats I thought were practicing were already rafted up and within 2 minutes we were joined by another boat making 4 out of the 10 boats already at the dock. After we tied up, we went up to the deck at the yacht club where we had a great view of the race course. We watched the carnage as boats were towed back in. The crash boat at DIYC did a great job recovering boats and getting back to the club.
One boat in our group ended up nearly sinking and it ultimately took us 2 hours to drain. 3 boats ended up getting in 3 races. The rest of us hung around the club in the sun and put the boats away for the night.
Tomorrow the forecast is for a little less wind. If it’s the right strength then we’ll make a go of it, otherwise if it ends up being too much, we’ll probably leave a boat behind and triple up on a couple boats.
Sunday
Our group was a little slow getting going this morning. Many of us were up late at the Ybor St. Patrick’s Day parade and the time change didn’t help either. The conditions were finally what we had been wanting all week. 10-15 knots out of the west.
Since three boats sailed in 3 races yesterday and the rest of use had DNSs it wasn’t much of a boat race for the rest of us. Most of us just considered today to be the real race and wanted to finish as well as we could in whatever races we sailed today despite not being able to get on the podium.
We didn’t have much time to tune up before the first race and only got through each maneuver (tack, jibe, hoist, douse) once. The goal at the start was to be conservative and just stay with fleet as it went up the course. My conservative start worked out; in fact we ended up with the best start in the fleet hitting the line right at the gun with clear air and full speed.
I had been told that a Front Runner is ‘just a big Laser.’ Not having much familiarity with larger boats, I didn’t have anything else to go by, so I just sailed it like a big Laser. I focused on some of the basics in a laser like sailing the boat flat, neutralizing the helm and keeping the main sail trimmed as well as I could.
The west wind in the area just south of Davis Island is very similar to the wind on many of the rivers along the Chesapeake. The chop is small and the wind is puffy in phases. It turned out that our boat speed up the first beat was as good as any other boat and by picking the shifts right we found ourselves first around the windward mark with a 2 boat length lead over Mark H’s boat that won all 3 races yesterday.
Downwind I did a terrible job sailing the right angles with the a symmetrical spinnaker, but like a laser, I was able to keep it moving through the waves and even managed to pump the main on some puffs and surf some waves. We held the lead into the leeward mark as we made the turn for the second and final lap. On both legs we continued to match the boat speed of Mark H’s boat and managed a 6 boat length lead at the finish.
It was great feeling to win the first race I ever sailed in a new boat; particularly in such a deep fleet with so many boats. My crew Sue and I were pretty psyched. We took that enthusiasm into the second race and sailed very well to a 2nd place finish. At that point the wind started picking up and a little water had leaked into the boat changing the handling characteristics and it took me a race to relearn how the boat handles.
In the end our finishes were around 1, 2, 7, 5 putting us into 5th place overall. That definitely hits the goal of sailing competitively and sticking with the fleet. And the sailing conditions were great which added a nice ending to a week of difficult and un-sailable conditions.
Even though the sailing wasn’t as good as it could have been, the trip to Florida has been an incredibly fun time. I want to thank the Front Runner crowd – Matt B, Jen, Mark, Melissa, Kevin, Matt L and everyone else for bringing me along as well as Mike K for loaning me the boat. You’ve all been telling me for years how great of a trip this is and now I’m a believer. Thanks for the great time!
Monday
Monday we began the journey back to Richmond from Tampa. We made good time and I happy to report the trip was entirely uneventful. Later this week I’ll post the photos and a video from the trip.
