We got two days of racing at the Capital City Regatta at Potomac River Sailing Association in cool conditions with plenty of wind on Saturday and not enough at times on Sunday. 9 races were sailed and James Jacob emerged as the regatta winner having won all but one race in the series in the 17 boat fleet.

Saturday saw winds in the mid-teens with gusts into the 20’s and temperatures in the mid-50’s making for a cold day. With 11 boats on the course we started a little south of the club on the Potomac River which had a lot of current that would rip down the course all day.

In the first 2 races I started slow with a bad start, but salvaged a 5th and in the second race I had a great start and stuck with the leaders to find myself in 3rd. While I was out of practice hiking, I did keep the boat moving well most of the time.  With the triangle course we had two broad reaches rather than downwind.

When it came to the 3rd race – I had a good start and was just behind James on the reaches. I passed him on the 2nd reach and shortly after turning to go upwind and was leading the race when I put the main sheet in the cleat to adjust the vang.  When I went to pull on the vang, the tail of it had been wrapped around the main sheet cleat and was underneath the cleated sheet.  As I grabbed the vang the tail lifted up popping the sheet out of the cleat (video). The main instantly went out and I immediately flipped over backward. After a few tries I was back in the boat, but definitely going to be too cold and called it a day and missed the rest of the race and the next one.

Sunday saw some lighter conditions and slightly warmer temperatures with now 17 boats out on the course. The current was still ripping down the course just as much as it was yesterday making it a challenge of knowing when to go right and into it and when to go left and avoid it.  In 4 out of 5 of the races I had decent starts and sailed with the leaders anywhere from 2 to sixth place.

In the 4th race I thought we were going to get a wind shift and I could port tack the fleet.  The shift didn’t come and Tyler defended it perfectly and after I parked it behind the line, I had to let everyone go. When I finally got started the wind did shift and it was a largely a parade with very few passing lanes.

By 2 o’clock w had sailed 5 races and the wind was getting really patchy at time making it almost impossible to made headway against the current and we headed in.

Thanks to Nabeel and the RC for getting as many races as we could get in over 2 days and thanks to all of the other PRSA volunteers for the food and everything else they did to make this possible. Congrats to James, Patrick and Thomas on a well-sailed event and their podium finishes.

PICTURES | RESULTS | EVENT WEBSITE | VIDEO

For this sailing season I wanted to add another modern action camera to my arsenal. In reviewing all of the cameras out there – the battery life left some to be desired in the cameras on the market with the best features. While the image quality, usability, mounting, and other features are important to me, none of that really matters if the camera has run out of battery. On a sailboat, oftentimes I can’t easily swap out a battery – either because when we’re on a big boat I’ve got a job to do in the middle of a race and can’t easily get away to get a new battery and swap it into the camera, or on a small boat – I simply don’t have any space to take a spare battery or even keep it dry.

Reviewing all of the specs and reviews online I settled on the Insta360 Ace Pro (buy on Amazon). On paper it got 10 minutes more battery life (100 minutes) compared to the latest GoPro Hero 12 (90 minutes). But the Insta360 Ace Pro hadn’t been on the market very long and none of the reviews really mentioned the battery life other than in passing. I bought the camera and still wanted to settle the question – how long can I expect the battery to last? I had also seen some after-market batteries becoming available and wondered how those compared to the Insta360 batteries.

So I set up some tests for 30 different batteries from 15 different retailers for over 544 hours to answer those questions and I wanted to share my findings.

How Long Does the Insta360 Ace Pro Battery Last?

On average across all of the batteries tested, the camera filmed for 97.6 minutes – just shy of the 100 minutes advertised. In only 26% of the tests did the camera film for more than 100 minutes.

Insta360 has produced two batteries for the Ace Pro- those that came with the original Ace Pro and have a capacity of 1650 mAh, and the batteries that came with the AcePro 2 rated for 1800 mAh. Here’s how both batteries did in the original Ace Pro.

Ace Pro 1 (1650 mAh)Ace Pro 2 (1800 mAh)
Average Duration97.2 min99.6 min
>100 min %15%18%

Which Battery Lasted the Longest?

There were 2 batteries of the 15 brands tested that hit the 100 minute mark significantly more than the other batteries test. While that looks like a big difference on paper, the real difference is only around 4 minutes of film time. The NBZZ and REYTRIC batteries lasted much longer than any of the other batteries tested by 4-6 minutes.

Here’s the average runtime for the different brands:

And here you can see the individual performance of each of the batteries. Note the range between the minimum and maximum tests along wit the average. The Insta360 batteries are on the far right and far left.

The Batteries

  1. REYTRIC Upgraded 2-Pack Batteries with 3-Channel USB Charger
  2. NBZZ 2 Batteries Pack with Dual Fast Charge Hub
  3. RORALMA 1800mAh Rechargeable Battery
  4. Insta360 AcePro 2 Battery (1800 mAh)
  5. Powerextra Ace Pro Battery 1800mAh and 3-Channels Charger
  6. Vemico Insta360 Ace Pro Battery Charger Kits
  7. FirstPower Ace Pro Battery 2 pack
  8. Topwowe 2 Packs Batteries with Dual Fast Charge Hub
  9. Burflo Battery
  10. Insta360 Ace/Ace Pro Battery (1650 mAh)
  11. Probty 2200 mAh Battery for insta360 AcePro
  12. JHTC Replacement Insta360 Ace Pro,1800mAh 2 Pack
  13. COOLSHOW Ace/Ace Pro Battery Replacement 1800mAh 2 Packs
  14. DONGNI 2 Pack Ace Pro Battery
  15. Rszfnjxry Batteries(2 Pack) with Fast Charge Hub
  16. Artman Ace Pro Battery (2 Packs 1800mAh) and Type-C Dual Fast Charger

How did I test?

Using the settings I’d most likely be using for sailing – 4k 30 fps with horizon leveling and HDR on – I set the camera up in my living room to look at my backyard until it ran out of battery. I did this at least 11 times for each battery to get the data. All of the batteries were charged using the same 3-battery charger and the Ace Pro firmware was 1.0.27 or 1.0.62.

To see my videos created with the Insta360 Ace Pro – check out No Quarter Sailing on YouTube.

If you are interested in the battery life of the Insta360 X4 – check out a similar test I did for that camera.

Disclaimers: I purchased the camera and some of the batteries myself. Other batteries were received through the Amazon Vine Voices Program. As an affiliate in Amazon’s program I may receive a commission for product links.

I recently digitized some old Laser Masters footage from the 2000 US Laser Masters. I was aboard the Judge boat for most of the event recoding on a Sony Hi-8 camera. It had been a while since I had seen this footage and it was great to be able to reminisce and remember the sailors who were there at the time and what Fishing Bay Yacht Club looked like with the old clubhouse.

As I processed the footage and spliced this together, I was amazed at the improvements to the software to be able to stabilize what was pretty shaky video at the time as well as the ability to clean up some of the audio.

I was also many years from being a master and yet I’m now older than many of the masters-age sailors at the time. Ooof. 

Check out the video and the event results can be seen here.

The second day of the FBYC Fall Open featured a distance race to mark located in the Chesapeake Bay just off Gwynn’s Island called 41a but otherwise known to FBYC Sailors as L. The course was an out and back following the same path back to the finish. 

In our fleet were 5  boats – Sting, Corryvreckan, Afterthought, Nanuq an Arcona 46 and us on J99 Battle Rhythm.  Aboard were Todd, Len, Ron, Anne and Jon.

We started in the mouth of the Piankatank and sailed out into the Bay on a close reach. Around us were the J109 Afterthought and the J105 Corryvreckan. Winds were 12 – 14 and we were sailing with the jib and full main. After rounding one of the entrance marks to the Piankatank we headed south on a broad reach down the bay. 

We arrived at Chesapeake 41a otherwise known as FBYC-L just off the southern end of Gwynns Island.  At the southern mark, we doused the spinnaker and came back upwind along the same course we had taken out there.  The wind had backed to the north north west making this an even more upwind slog back.

We took a few tacks inshore towards Gwynns island to stay out of the current.  Once we were back in the Piankatank we close reached to the finish just off Stove Point.

After the handicaps were calculated our race was good enough for 2nd place beating the J109 by just under a minute on corrected time though we were still 5 minutes behind the Acrona.

PICTURES | VIDEO | RESULTS

Mr. Roberts in her new slip on Jackson Creek.
Mr. Roberts in her new slip on Jackson Creek.

Fishing Bay Yacht Club had a gorgeous day in April to open the season. After a flag raising 7 boats in 3 classes headed out for 10nm race out into the bay and back to shake out the cobwebs and get the season started. Sailing out on Mad Hatter we had 7-10 knots of wind out of the ESE. All of the boats were starting at the same time and even though Nanuq and Sting were technically in the PHRF-A class and we were in the PHRF-B/C class – we saw them as the boats to beat on corrected time.

We got into sequence and the race committee realized there was a mistake in the posted course so we postponed for a moment while they fixed it and went into sequence again. At the start we along with Nanuq, and Schiehallion were over early and all had to go back. This gave Sting a bit of a head start. The fleet could largely lay the first mark and the leg to the second mark was more upwind. We went right and inshore with Sting while Nanuq went left and out in to the bay. When we all came back together Sting was ahead and Nanuq just behind. By the time we got out into the bay the wind was much lighter and were were going just 3-4 knots. At that mark we turned and put up a chute and had a pretty straight shot past the mark we started with and then onto the finish. We wouldn’t have to gibe. Nanuq with the longer waterline and an asymmetrical sail was able to get ahead of us, but wouldn’t make up her time on correction. Wendas who was well behind us on the course would end up correcting over us by around a minute to win the B/C fleet.

I was pit and floater for the day, helping with tactics, monitoring the radio, trimming the guy and moving around to keep weight in the right spot. I also brought a couple cameras with me and got some footage aboard.

EVENT WEBSITE | PICTURES | RESULTS | VIDEO

I got a late start out of Richmond on Thursday night and finished the 2nd half of the drive this morning arriving at Brant Beach Yacht Club 45 minutes before the skippers meeting. We ended up being postponed on shore another 45 minutes before finally leaving around 12:30.

We would go out and float around another 2 1/2 hours without any wind really filling in. I tried making a GoPro video that made it look as if we really were sailing fast. Kind of glad I did – I took some underwater video and only after reviewing it later did I realize how bad the weeds really were despite not looking bad on the surface.  Also note how shallow the bay is.

Back on shore the sailors enjoyed a great dinner in the club house and watched the sunset as the club’s A-Cat Raven sailed by.

RESULTS | PICTURES

It was the 35th Anniversary of the Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship and the regatta is finally old enough to be a competitor.  The color coral commemorates a 35th anniversary and the shirts we designed turned out pretty cool:

Regatta tshirt

The first day saw medium winds just into the double digits with mostly clear skies.  In 5 races we had some close competition up top between Gavin O’Hare and Charlie Brewer who both finished the day tied with 20 points.  Mike Schmidt was close behind in the 41 boat fleet.

Alain and his kitchen crew prepared another fabulous me and a tent city popped up full of sailors.

Sunday started out with no wind and we waited ashore as it began to build about an hour later.  A little lighter than yesterday we ran a little shorter courses and made it through 4 more races.  Charlie and Gavin stayed close and Gavin managed to edge just ahead of Charlie to win the championship.

Thanks to Alain, Rick, Len, Frank and everyone else who helped make this another great Chesapeake Bay Laser Masters Championship.  And after 13 years of only being the event chair – I’ll be looking forward to next year where I can both run it and qualify to sail in it!

PICTURES | RESULTS | VIDEO

Friday

I completed the last bit of the drive to Austin and after a work meeting during the morning in town, headed over to Austin Yacht Club for some practice ahead of the Easter Laser Regatta.  This is an event that had been on my bucket list some time and everything worked out to be able to do it this year.

Late in the afternoon, me and Forest Atkins, from the Dallas Laser Fleet, headed out for some practice.  The wind was a perfect 10-12 with mostly flat water.  This was my second day out with the MkII sail and nearly 5 months since the last Laser regatta I sailed.  And it showed.  I spent most of the first hour just remembering what the boat felt like and getting the new sail tuned correctly.  The more we sailed the more speed I found.  2 hours later we headed in and then met up with some more of the Dallas Laser Fleet members for dinner nearby.

Saturday

The first day at the Easter Laser Regatta at Austin Yacht Club started out as a beautiful morning.  Granted the night before was quite cold and I woke up in the van shivering a couple times even in my sleeping bag.  After registering and a quick skippers meeting we were rigged and heading out to the course in light but definitely sailable conditions with 21 standards and 9 radials.

In the first race I had a great start, picked some shifts up the first beat and rounded the first mark in 3rd.  That rounding was a little tighter than it should have been with Doug K tacking under me and Griffin at the mark and fouling us.  I hated to have to protest him for it, but it was a clear foul and he didn’t do his turns – leading to a DSQ for Doug. The course was an 8 leg race with a windward leeward, a triangle followed by another windward leeward and a final windward leg to finish.  It was a long race, but I managed to get passed by one boat and pass another boat to stay in 3rd.

After another good start in the 2nd race I was in the top 5 or 6 around the top mark and then just worked on passing boats upwind while not loosing any downwind and managing a 4th.  The conditions continued to be very up and down requiring a lot of mode changes to keep the boat tuned.  I was also sailing with the mkII sail and getting the hang of tuning it.

By the 3rd race the wind was starting to fill in more consistently.  On two of the upwind legs I managed to miss a couple shifts and could never seem to get around the 5-10 clump of boats and wound up in 11th.

We headed ashore for lunch and returned in the afternoon to see the wind a little stronger and varying between 8 and 15 knots.   The course was a little shorter and the shifts were fewer and while I don’t feel like I sailed any worse – I could definitely tell that the rest of the fleet was sailing a lot better and making the races a lot more competitive.

In the 4th race I got behind on the first leg, but had a great 6th leg picking shifts to come back and get ahead and finished 6th.

The 5th race I found myself mostly in the trailing pack after a not so great started and managed to pick some folks off upwind.  By the last leg we had light hiking conditions and I was starting to figure out more of the modes in the mkII sail.  I made it work for me when I pinched off Jody S in a mkI sail as we went into the finish to leave me in 5th for the race and tied for 4th overall.

Following racing we all had dinner at Mexican restaurant followed by drinks on the porch at the club.  I mostly hung out with the folks from the Dallas Laser Fleet and enjoyed meeting them and feeling like a member of their group.

Photos of me by McDonald Photography here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, & here.

SUNDAY

Sunday at the Easter Laser Regatta started with very light winds and the race committee postponed us ashore.  Before we knew it, it was blowing stink and we were headed out on the course to start a race.  I won the boat and immediately went right while the entire rest of the fleet went left.  The name of the game was just gritting it out and when we came back together at the top mark – it didn’t seem to have mattered which way folks went.

As I rounded the top mark with about 5 or 6 boats  ahead of me, I misjudged it and hit the mark with the boom.  Given the wind speed, my conditioning, the boats ahead wiping out all over the place I knew there was no chance I was going to successfully execute a jibe in doing my 360 to exonerate myself.  Knowing it was only going to get worse on the day – I made the decision to just call it a day.  9 other boats followed.

Two races were sailed and the event rules for DNF were actually a little more favorable than Appendix A and because so many other boats bailed – I was still able to finish in 8 after not having a finish for either of the 2 races sailed.

Landing the boat at the club was a little tricky with the wind shooting right down the dock into the ramp, but after pulling up on a floating dock and de-rigging, the naked hull was easier to get out of the water without banging anything up.  Onshore I got packed up and got on the road.  I was bummed to miss the awards – glad I got to sail the Easter Laser Regatta and thanks Fred for everything you do to put this on.

RESULTS | PICTURES