Alberg 30 Racing

2012 WNR Series 1 Race 3 [LinGin]

noreply@blogger.com (Glen) — Thu, 10 May 2012 23:46:00 +0000

It was grey, high chance of rain, with likely thunderstorms. Light winds were promised for the evening, except "wind and waves higher in thunderstorms".

With Tim on work travel, crew was TimP, Garrett, and Brian. We made it to the start with enough time but not a lot of time. (We don't know how to act when we have a lot of time.) We got the new D1 course with four other Albergs: Argo, Asylum, Second-to-Nun, and Skybird.

We started comfortably on starboard at the boat end, which I fervently hoped was favored, with Asylum to leeward. Skybird got a good start, closer to the line, on port but tacked over close in front of us just after the gun. I think Argo started toward the pin. Winds were South at about 5kts.

The wind was light but steady for the beat to drop mark A. We got lifted slightly nearing the mark and did well on the fleet, including a close pass with Argo on port which forced them to duck right at the mark. I think they might have crossed cleanly but with light wind and short crew, TC opted for the safe option. We rounded in first and rolled into a bearaway set followed by a quick gybe. On the rhumbline to G5 we had clear air with Argo setting up shop slightly higher and 6-8 lengths back. After rounding G5 we found a boat slower than the Albergs. Unfortunately they were too far away, and the leg too short, to get above them but close enough to spoil our air and hold us back. Argo closed the gap a bit.

Rounding the red nun and dousing the spinnaker I did a poor job getting on course and we were slow. Argo rounded cleanly with good momentum and rolled over us while we trundled back up to speed. By this time the breeze had gone all shifty and I played catch-up trying to find a groove. Argo moved into a 3-4 length lead on our tack while Skybird split with us after rounding the nun. The breeze got shiftier and puffier and we gained some on Argo's double-handed crew. Halfway to the Academy seawall Argo tacked and we ducked them to continue on port. Further out Skybird was looking good, having crossed Argo and I think leading the race at that point. Getting closer to the wall we started to see big puffs swirling around, mostly coming out of the harbor, and generally increasing breeze. (This worked in our favor. Though we didn't know it then, the wind was busily changing its colors from S at 5kts to NW at 18kts.)

We tacked to starboard at the wall and soon converged with Skybird on port. They were slightly ahead before tacking back to starboard a length below us. We had just gotten back up to speed when the really big gusts came with gusto and the right shift showed itself in earnest. Within sixty seconds it shifted so far right that we were now reaching straight at the finish. With Garrett on the main and Brian, who happened to be on the jib at the moment, working hard to follow the 30 degree shifts and 15kt gusts we blasted through the harbor dodging a bit of moored traffic with Skybird close astern and Argo close to them.

We took the gun nine seconds ahead of Skybird, after only 50 minutes racing!

That's the quickest WNR I can remember. And we all finished within minutes of each other; thirty seconds separated 1st and 3rd.
Full results here.

We quickly dropped the jib and motored out of the fray. A few minutes later we also dropped the main and motored home in light rain, increasing wind and 23kt gusts.

Fun times!

Annapolis WNR 6/29/11 - Photo Finish

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:24:00 +0000

Once again we had good winds (8-10 knots) for the Wednesday Night Race in Annapolis. However this time it was from the Northwest, meaning a spinnaker start. Five Albergs were racing this night but apparently everyone had a different idea on where to start. Calliope won the start, running the line towards the boat with a smart turn downwind a quick spinnaker set at the gun while I was still turning the boat back downwind. By the time we crossed the line to leeward of Calliope and started setting the chute, she was several lengths ahead. LinGin started down by the pin but was on the line with her chute up and drawing at the gun, while Second-2-nun and Argo had their own spots on the line.

I felt good during the run, as we were gaining on Calliope. When I told my crew we were hoisting the jib at the next mark my spinnaker trimmer (Jen) at first didn’t believe me. To her it seemed the race had just started, yet we really were well past “A” and approaching the outer mark. Then I looked back to leeward and saw LinGin coming up towards us, closing fast. How do they do that? Approaching the mark I briefed the crew on the plan: gybe the chute, then hoist the jib and douse the chute. After watching LinGin hoist her jib before the mark and remembering how badly we screwed up that same rounding sequence the previous week [my fault, but that's a whole other story], I too decided to shift to the jib before rounding.

Calliope round first, followed by LinGin just ahead and inside me. We did a good job getting the jib up and chute down, but the jib hung up on the topping lift when we jibed. After cleaning that up we were several lengths behind Calliope and LinGin, in their bad air and that of a J/30, so we tacked away.

On the way back into the river the wind started to fade and got a bit spotty. Calliope and LinGin had tacked and crossed ahead, while I stayed on port, with a friendly wave across from a J/30 (thanks, Deck Works). After threading through the Etchells and other classes converging on the red daymark “4” from their own rounding mark, it looked like the boats far ahead were getting headed more and more the further in they went. Looking to stay in better breeze and not end up so far to the right of the nun, I took a hitch left shortly after passing the daymark. Also the fathometer, which had read over 20 as we passed the daymark, now suddenly said 8.7....

By the time we reached the nun LinGin and Calliope were well on their way to Spa Creek. LinGin had stayed on starboard towards EYC while Calliope went over to port and headed towards the Naval Academy seawall. As we approached the creek we seemed to be gaining on Calliope, but I couldn’t see LinGin. Why hadn’t they come back and crossed us yet? Finally, I found them. They were to the left of EYC and had been forced to hold an impromptu swim call....

Unlike the last few weeks when I went through the mooring field, this time the direct path from 1SC to the finish looked clear. Calliope had gone to the right through the moorings so I had a chance, if only I could make the mark without another tack in the fading breeze. I thought we were doomed when some waves hit us about a length from the mark, but we were just able to shoot up and around it. Now we just had to keep our speed until the finish. As Calliope and another boat came around the corner of the Annapolis Yacht Basin and headed up for the finish we were closing from astern and about half a length to leeward. Could we catch them in time? After what seemed like an eternity thinking “are we there yet? are we there yet?...” the RC called “550, over!” I never heard them call 287 over, it was that close. A crewman of mine sitting just aft of the mast said he was even with Calliope’s mast at the horn, so that’s a margin of what, 18 inches? Does AYC have the photo gear set up to record a photo finish? I have never been in a closer race. Oh, and if anyone thinks a clean bottom isn’t that important, Skybird’s hull had been cleaned that morning - there’s no way I could have passed Calliope without a fresh bottom. As Calliope and I headed back out there was LinGin heading to the finish, amazingly recovering to finish third. Tim certainly owes a beer to whichever crew member dove in to push the boat off the mud that fast.

Wow, what a way to head into the July fourth holiday and WNR off-week. Next comes the Race to Solomons. Who’s joining us?

A perfect day: 2011 Annapolis to Miles River Race [LinGin]

noreply@blogger.com (Glen) — Sun, 29 May 2011 18:05:00 +0000

Continuing the astoundingly sailor-friendly weather trend this year, the 2011 Annapolis to Miles River Race was treated to...well, astoundingly sailor-friendly weather. Here I make a distinction between sailor-friendly and race-friendly; we're often presented with race-friendly conditions that are uncomfortable, at best, for the sailor or sailor-friendly conditions that are difficult to race in. I might start calling this "sailing weather": our local prevailing breezes south-southeast at 10-15kts, air temperatures 70-75, water temperature 73, clear skies.

I was lucky to make it to the race. First, after a long ten days of "too much work and too little sleep makes Glen a dull boy" I was spent both mentally and physically. Second, thanks to Linda's generosity in driving down to pick us up it worked out my wife Emily was able to go with us, too. Along with Scott, we made it a fun family day with Tim and Andréa and their kids Mackenzie, Darcy, and David. Spending time with my wife and great friends is a way to recharge, no matter the depth of my zombie-tude. I was definitely sucking more energy out of the environment than I was putting in. I'm lucky to have these people in my life.

At the start, with no race preparation, I was below reading the Notice of Race, checking the course, searching for GPS batteries, firing up & figuring out the new chartplotter and generally playing catch up. It is saying something about my lack of mental agility when you realize I was struggling to keep up with the movements of a 9000 pound, full keel sailboat on a 17 mile race.

What I heard was that LinGin started not at the favored end but on the line with speed and going the right way. The ebb tide made the deep water on the left (east) side the place to be for going south quickly. We kept heading left until forced to tack by the large obstruction known as an anchored freighter, in this case named Vega Dream. This tack proved our lucky break. As the rest of the fleet was able to continue on starboard toward deep water, the separation/leverage from our tack put us significantly to right of the fleet when the breeze gave us a gift 10-degree right shift. This thrust us way ahead of the other boats and put us in the comfortable position of simply doing a loose cover of the nearest boats for the rest of the 7-mile beat to Bloody Point light.

After Bloody Point and the reach to the second mark we popped the chute and sailed in a relatively clear lane until the last turn. We two-tacked in increasing breeze up the Miles River and took the gun.

I went below and napped, i.e. collapsed, for the 45 minute sail into St. Michaels where we rafted with Calliope and Skybird. In the perfect weather and perfect anchorage we immediately commenced hanging out, chatting, swimming, eating, and the innumerable things that make up those times which we all look back on as perfect moments. I sincerely hope my comically ragged mental state doesn't affect the clarity and longevity of the memories I will keep of this day.

2011 WNR Race 4: Finally, a course that isn't A1...

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Thu, 26 May 2011 04:08:00 +0000

4 boats braved the expected light conditions to start race 4 of the 2011 AYC Wednesday Night Series. In a light 5-10 knot southeasterly, we started on course B3 which meant we were going to have a nice long sail out into the bay, giving us plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful evening. During the prestart, we determined that the boat end of the line was favored. We expected there to be a right shift during the first beat, so we wanted to be able to go right. We made a timed run at the boat and started with good speed. We had Second-2-Nun on our leebow with Argo on their leebow. Skybird started on port at the pin and was behind all of us, but going right. We quickly forgot our overlying strategy as we focused on driving the boat fast. We rolled Second-2-Nun and they tacked away and we were left trying to match course and speed with Argo. As soon as we felt that we could head back to the right without running into the shallow water off Bembe Beach, we decided to go, and Argo went with us. Well, the right had turned out to be the right side of the course after all as we came across, Skybird was now ahead of us by several lengths (they had been several lengths behind when we crossed them initially). The good news is we had good speed and had managed to work up on Argo and Second-2-Nun had not gained. We tacked on the starboard layline to the red mark and with a good tack and good speed, passed Skybird back to gain the lead at the first mark.

The course to the 2nd mark was about a beam reach. Rather than using the kite (we felt it was a little too tight for that sail to be good), we elected to stick with the jib and dropped our leads forward. Skybird had the same thought after rounding several lengths behind us. However, Argo and Second-2-Nun decided to go with their kites and this paid off for them as they were definitely faster than we were on the reach. Second-2-Nun was able to pass Skybird but didn't quite catch us, rounding about 2 lengths behind us.

The next leg was a beat. Skybird tacked out early to clear her breeze, while we went left with Second-2-Nun following close behind us. As the beat wore on we were able to gas them and work ahead. We went all the way to the port tack layline and came into the mark in first by several lengths. Second-2-Nun was next, followed by Skybird, then Argo.

The last leg was a broad reach in to the nun at the harbor. About 3/4 of the way down the leg, they announced that we would finish at the nun. No positions changed on this leg as the steady southerly breeze propelled us all through the gate in the order we had last rounded.

All in all it was a great night of sailing and a beautiful sunset! Look forward to seeing y'all at the Miles River Race this coming weekend!

Full results available at:

http://www.race.annapolisyc.org/RegattaModules/ViewRegattaResults.aspx?RegID=351&mid=281&tabid=10

2011 WNR Race 3: Finish at the Nun

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Fri, 13 May 2011 23:47:00 +0000

6 boats showed up for the 3rd edition of the WNR series of 2011. We were greeted by a dying southeasterly breeze at about 5 knots. The water was very high when I got to the boat, and I assumed the current would be ebb. However, I didn't detect much current in the pre-start. The line was way pin favored and all fleets before us started on port at the pin. On board Calliope we decided to do the same and because the air was so light we elected to do a Vanderbilt timed run start so as to avoid making any big slow-down maneuvers and killing our speed in the last minute. This would have been a good strategy if we had been more able to execute it properly. As it was we ended up early and to windward of Skybird and Argo who were coming from leeward and behind us. We arrived about a minute too early to the line and ended up having to sail down it while scrubbing off speed to keep from getting too far from the heavily favored pin. After what seemed like forever we were finally able to sheet in and go but meanwhile Argo and Second-2-Nun had snuk in to windward of us and had better starts with more speed. We were too late pressing the bow down and ended up getting rolled, never fun. Argo was looking very strong with her new jib she was pointing high and going fast. We were sailing lower but faster than Second-2-Nun in the drag race to the short starboard layline. We got there first and made a pretty aggressive layline call which had Second-2-Nun crossing about 2 lengths ahead of us. We were able to force Laughing Gull (who had started just behind Second-2-Nun) to duck us. We were barely able to stick the mark rounding and since Second-2-Nun overstood by several lengths they came in just behind us. Meanwhile, toward the top of the beat we came across LinGin who had inexplicably started the race on starboard at the boat (every member of my crew was scratching their heads to try and explain that one...) The tactic didn't work out too badly for them though as they managed to come into the mark looking not too bad at all. From starting deep in last, they had worked back into 4th place.

Once around the mark, the breeze really shut off. There were two schools of thought. We decided to go high, stay above big boat wind shadows and hope for some pressure coming off the north shore of the river. Other boats gybed early and headed for the south shore, seeing a breeze line over there. Second-2-Nun followed us and we basically matched speed with them. We sailed just a little too far though and after the gybe they got the new pressure before we did. We tried to take them up and clear our breeze, but that didn't work and they just rolled us. In hindsight, instead of doing that, we should have sailed deep and headed for the boat end of the finish line (which was well favored) instead of the Nun. Hindsight is 20/20. Thankfully, the RC decided to finish us at the Nun instead of making us wait it out for the long slog into the harbor...

Congratulations to Argo who sailed an excellent race with only 2 people aboard. They won the start, had great upwind speed, didn't make any downwind mistakes, and led the race from start to finish.

The standings are quite tight right now, with a tie for first place between LinGin and Second-2-Nun, making the series interesting. Full series results at:

http://www.race.annapolisyc.org/uploads/results/2011_Wednesday_Night_Race_Series-2011/2011WednesdayNightRace.html

One thing that is different about the series this year is that we have our own start. I have mixed feelings about this, because I kind of enjoyed the bigger fleet tactics that got employed in years past when we have had multi-class starts. However, I think it's worth pointing out that we have this situation because we are kind of victims of our own success. We have a 7 boat fleet, which give us more than the Farr 40 class (4 boats), J/22 (4 boats), Herreshoff (5 boats), or Harbor 20 (2 boats). The Catalina 27's and Cal 25's have been assimilated into PHRF because they can no longer field a large enough fleet to justify their own start. The J/35 class has equivalent numbers to us. Only the Etchells, J/30, and J/105 fleets are larger than us. I think this really makes a strong statement about the health of our class and the vitality of our racing association on the Chesapeake Bay. Nearly 50 years after the founding of our association, we still have healthy active one design racing. We have a great reputation for camaraderie among skippers in our class, our racing is level - based on a one-design class rule, and our fleet is relatively deep with at least half of our race participants capable of winning any given race (looking at the NOOD scorecard will show you that). Folks, this is what great racing is all about - level, competitive, and fun. Our class association is doing a great job with it. Frankly I think that dollar for dollar, we deliver some of the best racing on the bay, and all in a boat that you can legitimately use for cruising as well!

2011 NOOD Regatta

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Tue, 03 May 2011 02:55:00 +0000

The 2011 NOOD regatta is in the history books. 3 great days of sailing in a wide variety of conditions saw 4 different boats win races. The regatta winner, Tim Williams, demonstrated an extremely consistent record, with no finish worse than 3rd. With the regatta's emphasis on consistency by not providing a throwout, there is a premium on being able to consistently place in the top of the fleet. Here is a race-by-race synopsis from my view which varied from way in the front to way in the back, so I got all perspectives.

Friday, April 29

Four races were sailed on Friday in a fresh breeze that started out over 20 knots, waxed and waned as the day went on and the last race was sailed with lulls below 15 knots and puffs in the upper teens.

Race 1: The course bearing was approximately 280 if I remember correctly. In the fresh breeze, we considered reefing but felt that we would be underpowered in the lulls, so we kept the full main and #1 jib. We dropped the leads all the way to the back of our tracks, and kept the traveler down most of the time. Cunningham and outhaul were both very tight and we maximized our backstay tension. In the pre-start of Race 1, we perceived that the line was extremely boat favored and there was a left shift on the course. So we elected to start on port at the boat. We were not the only boat that utilized this tactic as Laughing Gull and LinGin did the same thing. The tactic worked beautifully as we won the race to the top mark by playing the shifts in the oscillating breeze. Being the furthest right of the boats that started on port, we were both the furthest upwind (on the boat favored line) and the first to reach the right shift that we knew would be coming. This put us in an ideal position to control the first beat. The run was relatively square and we were sailing deep and trying not to deathroll or broach in the huge blasty puffs that came down the course. Keeping the keel under the mast was key and having a good astern lookout helped. With a relatively clean and early douse at the left gate, we again worked the right side of the course on the 2nd beat, covering our competition and being conservative. The last run was similar to the first, relatively uneventful for us although it did look like some other boats were having trouble in the puffy breeze. We got the gun in race 1.

Race 2: With breeze and course axis basically unchanged, we maintained our sail settings from Race 1. The line was still boat favored and there was still an early left shift. We basically copied our strategy from race 1. I was surprised that I think there was only one other boat who did this the 2nd time around. To me, it had worked so obviously well the first time, I was surprised more people did not catch on. But whatever, we took it and ran. Just as in the first race, there were 3 boats who started between us and the boat on starboard and we crossed all 3 of them. This time, we did not have as much a lead at the top mark as in race 1, but the boats behind us went around in a pack and ended up in a downwind fight which we managed to avoid. With a clean leeward rounding again, we went around the left gate in first and were in a position to control the 2nd beat. Our lead extended during the beat and the final run was uneventful.

Race 3: By this time, the RC had picked up on the fact that so many port tack starters might mean they should re-set the line and they'd done so. With a square line and no obvious reason for us to go either left or right, we elected to start on starboard with a timed run to the middle of the line. We had a decent start but were a little late and found ourselves in less than ideal position, receiving some backwind from boats on our leebow, and prevented from tacking by boats on our hip. Eventually we were able to work up enough that we forced the windward boat to tack and we were able to bail out in a left shift. For us, this beat was all about getting our wheels turning and trying to claw our way to the top. We went around the windward mark narrowly behind Argo with LinGin, Windswept, and Laughing Gull in a pack close behind. After the rounding we headed down hard and got the inside lane. With a better set than Argo, we managed to work even with them. We sailed the rhumbline as they sailed far out to the right. As we converged on the leeward mark, we had the clear inside lane, but the rounding was complicated by another race that had recently started and featured boats in the other fleet sailing upwind through the leeward gate. We had a disastrous mark rounding, with a delay getting our kite down taking us well below the gate and by the time we got the boat turned around, we had been passed by all but one boat. We managed to claw our way back past one boat but could not pass the pack ahead to finish this race in 5th.

Race 4: We were late getting ourselves organized for this start. By this time, the wind had died off significantly and we had decided to ease off on our outhaul and cunningham as well as dropping our jib leads forward a good bit. We were sailing mostly with the traveler on centerline and just playing the mainsheet. The line was square and by this point we were expecting the sunshine to cause a developing bay breeze resulting in a left shift going up the course. Therefore, we elected to go left on the first beat in anticipation of the big lefty. We made a timed run at the pin which we JUST BARELY were able to lay. Second-2-Nun started on our hip but we were fortunately able to extend underneath and start backwinding them early in the beat, forcing them to tack away. We went as far left as we dared without going all the way to the corner and as we came back out of the left corner, we could see that our strategy had paid off handsomely. Not only were we coming back right in a nice left shift, but we had better pressure than those on the right as well. We rounded the windward mark about a quarter mile ahead of Second-2-Nun who was our closest competitor. This time we favored the left side going downwind and actually managed to pull of a last minute gybe-douse to go around the right gate and head left again. Second-2-Nun clearly realized that this strategy had paid off on the first beat and followed us. Since LinGin was our closest competition in the regatta, we did not go as far left as we had on the first beat, electing to come back right and cover them loosely, we let Second-2-Nun head all the way to the left corner. By the time we reconnected with them, they had gained significantly but had not passed us. They were quite close to LinGin though, who was gaining on us as well. The top part of the beat was maddening as the finish boat kept moving around and I was very worried that we would be caught by LinGin before we got to the finish line. Fortunately, that didn't happen and we held on for the win.

Saturday, April 30

Three races were sailed on Saturday in a much stronger than forecast 15-25 knot northwesterly that shifted persistently further right as the day wore on. The first course of the day was set at 240 degrees, and by the end of the last race, the course axis was 020 and the pressure had dropped off to 5-10 knots. The bay breeze never developed as forecast.

Race 5: We had a terrible view of race 1 because we had a pre-start snafu with our VHF radio and while we were practicing sail handling, we thought that a postponement had been announced when in reality there was an on-time start. Suffice to say we were 10 minutes late for the start of Race 1 and never caught up. Sorry I don't have a better summary of what happened in that race, but it is what it is. We were finished in place in 7th position.

Race 6: As the breeze began to shift persistently right we felt that being on the right side was going to be the way to go. The pressure was still quite strong in general with sustained winds in the upper teens and some vicious puffs into the 20's that were still causing some folks (including us) to have trouble with downwind sail handling and occasional risk of broaching. My crew were nervous about using the kite, but we persisted. At the top of the first beat, we were in the hunt but toward the back of the pack. During the run we maintained position but a tough leeward rounding including an accidental jib drop set us back from the pack. In the end, we wound up 6th and we broke our kite halyard on the last downwind leg. Each beat of this race had to be shifted successively further to the right. So the right was definitely the place to be on the beats.

Race 7: With the breeze now shifted well to the right of the original course heading of 280 all the way to a new course axis of 020, we felt that the new northerly breeze had finally settled in and that we could expect some stability from the right shifts. Consequently, we thought that going left to get relief from the current would be advantageous. The pressure had dropped significantly and we had accordingly eased our outhaul and cunningham as well as dropping the jib leads back forward. Coincidentally with our decision to go left, we decided to start at the pin and we made a timed run on starboard tack with plenty of room to leeward and only one boat on our lee bow. We managed to obtain a good start on time and with speed and took the left side of the course along with Argo. Boats on our hip including Second-2-Nun, Laughing Gull, and LinGin all eventually bailed out and headed back right. This proved to be the wrong tactic as Argo, who had won the left side of the beat, ended up first at the windward mark, with us a couple of boat lengths behind them. Unfortunately, because we had broken our kite halyard and decided to use the jib alone, in the light pressure we were working at a significant disadvantage and were easy prey for passing boats. Fortunately, many of the boats around us had trouble with their sail handling and were not able to make up much distance because of their mark roundings. We elected to take the right gate and go left again because it had worked well on the first beat. Unfortunately, there was now more pressure filling from the right side of the course, coupled with a little more right hand shift and we were on the wrong side of it this time. So the boats on the right gained and we watched our chances to hang in this race disappear with the freshening right hand shift. We rounded close astern of Second-2-Nun and Windswept but watched them extend away from us on the run. We were able to hold off Laughing Gull for a 5.

After racing on Saturday, we all gathered to enjoy the spring rendezvous at the Bay Ridge Clubhouse. Windswept, Laughing Gull, and Calliope all were docked in Lake Ogleton, and many of our crew members enjoyed meeting folks from the A30 association and enjoying the food, drinks, friendship, and live music at the party. A good time was had by all, and many thanks are due to all those folks who helped to organize and put on the party.

Sunday, May 1

The final day of the regatta was cool and cloudy. The predicted bay breeze southerly was already in effect by the time the race started at 11 AM, but conditions on Sunday were much lighter than either Friday or Saturday had been. We expected a building bay breeze, shifting left through the day, with a strong current running down the bay and out of the river. Given the location of the course, we expected that being on the left side would be the place to be.

Race 8: Although we thought the left would be the advantaged side of the course, as we watched the S2 fleet converge on the top mark, we noticed that boats who had gone right early had done really well. We therefore changed our starting strategy from our original plan of starting in the middle or at the pin to starting at the boat and going right. In the pre-start, we perceived a strong ebb current which was going to be pushing us over the line and would make things tough for us. The pressure in the pre-start was pretty light and we were caught trying to get down to the line just to make the start. Fortunately there was not a lot of traffic at the boat and we were able to squeeze in before Second-2-Nun could close the door on us otherwise we might have been caught barging. As it was, we ended up with a perfectly timed start at the boat end with speed and 3 of our main competitors having been called over early. We were then able to protect the right side and get there first. This tactic worked great as the right gave us ground on boats that had gone left and we managed to BARELY lay the windward mark in first place. Unfortunately, just after we had laid that mark, we got into irons and Skybird, capably skippered by Larry Morris, slipped by us before we got to the offset mark. Once we rounded the offset mark, things got crowded and there was a good deal of jockeying for position on the run to the gate. Getting through the gate was quite a challenge with the current again sweeping us down course it was difficult just to get through the gate at all. We ended up going to the left gate and taking the left side of the course again. This was a bad decision as by now the current had become the dominant force in the race and the left side was highly favored because of the strong ebb current on the left. In addition, the breeze had started to shift left, making the left side even more favorable. By the time we got to the 2nd windward mark, we were well in last and our only hope to hang on to 3rd place in the regatta was that neither Laughing Gull nor Second-2-Nun would finish in the top 2 places. Sadly, Laughing Gull finished 2nd and we finished last and were knocked out of 3rd by 1 point.

Overall, it was a great regatta, 3 amazing days of sailing. Congratulations to Tim Williams for sailing a consistent 3 days of strong finishes, and to Lanny Helms and Jonathan Adams also for great sailing. I would be lying to you if I didn't own up to the fact that watching the awards was bittersweet for me. Full results follow:

Division: Alberg 30 (7 boats) (top)

Pos Sail Boat Skipper 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total
Points Pos
1 244 LinGin Tim Williams 2 2 1 2 1 1 2 3 14.00 1
2 562 Windswept Lanny Helms 4 3 2 4 2 3 3 4 25.00 2
3 197 Laughing Gull Jonathan Adams 3 5 3 5 4 4 6 2 32.00 3
4 287 Calliope John Bergquist 1 1 5 1 7 6 5 7 33.00 4
5 484 Second-2-Nun Harry Gamber 6 6 7 3 3 2 4 5 36.00 5
6 247 Argo T.C. Williams 5 7 4 7 5 5 1 6 40.00 6
7 550 SKYBIRD Michael Nikolich 7 4 6 6 6 8/DNS 8/DNS 1 46.00 7

2010 Bruce Rankin Regatta

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:52:00 +0000

Skybird fends of Windswept and Calliope in a tight race on Sunday. (Photo courtesy Mike Lehman)

The Bruce Rankin Memorial Canadian Friendship Team Race Regatta went off last weekend with great breeze, excellent parties, and great company. A good time was had by all especially at the Friday night pot luck, which I described to one bystander as 'a very lucky pot luck' because there was a lot of excellent food prepared by the attendees! The sailing was great too, and yours truly did so much hollering that I ended up hoarse which was tough to explain when I had to do my case presentation at Family Medicine on Tuesday.... But I digress from discussing the racing.

Saturday was WINDY. There were some puffs over 30 and most of the day the wind was sustained in the 20's except near the windward mark where there would be lulls into the teens. There were big shifts as well and differences in pressure. With the westerly breeze, the south shore of the river seemed to have favorable pressure and angle for most of the day. 2 races were sailed on Saturday. Tim Williams won both of them going away. No spinnakers were used, which made sail selection a challenge because if you picked the #2 then once you went around the windward mark, you were underpowered. A variety of sail combinations were tried, but Tim stuck with a reefed main and #1 and that seemed to be fast. He was really able to keep the boat going even with being overpowered. I asked him and Glen about it afterwards and he said they felt like the #1 was the right sail for the day but that they had to drop the leads way back to flatten the bottom of the sail, they used a lot of reef tension to get good outhaul effect on the main, dropped the traveler down, and went super tight on the backstay. We tried using a #2 on board Calliope, but our #2 is small and the clew is high. We felt like it was not a good sail combination and we were not fast in the race where we used it. The one big loss we had on board Calliope was a winch handle which failed a float test. This would be a key problem later in the regatta.

Tactically, the racing on saturday basically involved keeping close to the south shore of the river (left side of the beat) because there was more pressure down there and fewer holes in the breeze. This was Team LinGin's tactic all day and it really worked as they won both races going away. Fortunately for us they were our teammate, but even their 2 bullets were not enough to salvage our lackluster performance and the team of Laughing Gull and Second-2-Nun were ahead of us by 1 point on Saturday.

Saturday's party was excellent with barbecue from Adam's ribs and the famous Alberg 30 bar. We had a long evening eating and drinking and chatting around the fireplace at PSA and I didn't head back to the boat until nearly midnight.

Sunday dawned bright and clear and after a breakfast of leftover coffee and apple pie and a shower in the AWESOME new heads at PSA, I was ready to take on the day! Jon and I had decided on Saturday night that we were going to focus on going fast from the time we left the dock so on the sail out to the course, we got the spinnaker up, did a bunch of practice gybes, practiced sail handling and got the crew comfortable with their respective positions. It was a good way to warm up. Fortunately we got to the starting area early, were able to get some numbers on different tacks, and figure out what the course was going to be like. With a much lighter 10-15 knots of breeze, we knew we would be using spinnakers and we felt like that was good for us. The breeze was still out of the west but was further to the left than it had been on Saturday, making the setting of the course axis a bit of a challenge for the RC. Once they got the line set we realized that it was highly skewed and nearly impossible to lay the pin on starboard even if you sailed close aboard the stern of the committee boat. We spent some time discussing start tactics because this was obviously going to be a challenge. We considered a port tack start because that was obviously going to be the favored tack, but I felt that if we did a really good job of timing the starboard run, we could do well by making a timed run at the boat, then hardening up on starboard and sailing down the line. If we could manage to win the pin we would get a favored start by several boat lengths and it would put us in control of the race. So this is what we decided to do. We spent a good bit of time sailing down the line in the pre-start and making timed reaches at the committee boat. By our watches, the line was about 1:30 on a close hauled course, so we wanted to go around the committee boat stern with that much time left on the clock. We managed to make this work out quite well in the pre-start. I thought for a second that John Maliszewski would be able to close the door on us at the boat as he was below us but it turned out he was too low and couldn't quite get there so we were saved from the barge. Then we had only Harry in front of us on starboard, but I knew that he was too early and he looked like he would not lay the pin anyway as he had not sailed close enough aboard the boat. TC was coming in from port, but he went below us so was not an issue. All looked perfect until Harry tacked at the pin. I yelled starboard, but he didn't tack back so we had to tack to avoid a collision, which was extremely close. No matter, we still won the pin, got the boat going on port, forced Harry to take a penalty and were in control of the race.

Calliope and Windswept approach a windward mark. (Photo courtesy Mike Lehman)

Beat 1 was highly skewed such that it was basically a one tack beat. Skybird was going fast and high and had a really high lane that we were not able to match. We went around the mark close with them and with Windswept. They both took a relatively high lane on the run which was also highly skewed and we never gybed. By the bottom mark, we had managed to gain the inside track and with a good takedown, we claimed the lead. The next beat was equally skewed. Windswept and Skybird would tack away to clear their breeze and we covered them all the way up the beat. As we passed the middle of the course, we noticed the committee boat had moved to the top and we thought that they would shorten the course and we would be finishing at the windward mark. This was not to be however, because they signaled a course change. Since we had assumed this was going to be a finish not a mark rounding, we were totally unprepared for the course change and had a complete Charlie Foxtrot getting around. Ultimately we got around the mark and got the kite up but not before Windswept and Skybird snuck past us.

The run was once again quite skewed and we had close racing with Windswept and Skybird. Toward the bottom, Skybird went very high and sailed pretty far from the mark, which confused us. We again got the inside track and were set to regain the lead with a good mark rounding which was all fine and good until we noticed that we didn't have a winch handle. It must have fallen overboard during the kerfluffle to get around the windward mark. Now we had a real challenge on our hands. We lost both Windswept and Skybird at the mark and we were sailing out to the left while I tore apart the boat looking for the winch handle and yelling at myself. We couldn't get the jib in all the way so our pointing was awful and we were in danger of being passed by LinGin, Laughing Gull and Rinn Duin. Something had to be done. At one point, while I was standing on the jibsheet to try and close down the leech, someone suggested that we use our adjustable jib leads to close down the leech. Bingo, we started dropping our leads to the back of the track, tacking, then pulling them forward, and this worked. We managed to hold on for a 5th place finish, which, combined with Tim's low scores, was enough to win us the trophy.

A huge crab feast after the awards hit just the spot. Thanks to Mike L for taking the awesome photos aboard Glory on Sunday. And thanks to PSA, Larry, Tim, John M and everybody else who made this year's Rankin Memorial Canadian Friendship Team Race Regatta a great success!

Close quarters on the run: Gentleman sailing at its best! (Photo courtesy Mike Lehman)

2010 NASS Race to Oxford

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 03:57:00 +0000

From 2010 Oxford Race

The NASS Oxford proved once again to me that you never know what you'll get. The race saw light winds out of the north for our start and a finish you'll probably hear me talk about for years.

Most of our fleet headed toward Thomas Point from our R2 start, trying to stay out of a flood current in the beginning of the race. We on LinGin timed the start pretty well and built a growing lead on Windswept, who was right behind us at the gun.

Laughing Gull headed to the Eastern Shore before most and was rewarded as the wind died down to the west. A tug pushing a barge forced us to make a decision a little sooner than we otherwise would have: stay west or cross over to the east?

We chose east and that turned out to be a good choice. Laughing Gull had came back east as the wind died and wound up in a huge hole with much of the other Albergs. Word is they became hot and bothered at one point and all jumped overboard for a swim. Jonathan said it was lucky the wind didn't kick up; it would have been a tough swim to catch her had she taken off.

Windswept and LinGin both got the wind first as it "filled" on the east. I say "filled" because it didn't last very long! In addition to more pressure it also shifted more to the west, giving us further advantage over those that were west of us. (We were all going downwind.)

The most bizarre (and most interesting) part of the race was the finish--and you can see this in the finishing times. As we came up to the finish in very light wind on a port tack reach, I noticed Rick Born on Windborn about 10 lengths from the finish, under spinnaker and heading parallel to the finish line toward Solomons Island.

Now Rick was an avid A30 skipper and racer when I was a kid and he was really hard to beat! For a couple of years it seemed like we were always chasing him. So, when I saw him doing that, I immediately said to my crew, "why would he do that?!" We checked the charts and GPS. No, we were pretty sure this was the right mark. Then it dawned on us: it must be the current.

The current bends around Black Walnut Point there and while many (LinGin included!) thought we were being swept into the Bay, it was actually exactly the opposite. There was a ~1 kt current pushing us into the Choptank!

We quickly gybed and set the chute and to our dismay noted that Windswept had kept a much better line to the finish line, having kept further away from the point. Here we came, ever so slowly under spinnaker on starboard tack heading parallel to the line that was maybe 1/4 mile away, trying to cross Windswept who is on port and heading, what appeared to be straight for the line.

Many times our foredeckman, who was focused on the sail, ask, "are you sure you don't want to tack and cover him?!" It was tough to trust what we knew to be true, but was difficult for our eyes to believe. We were inching toward the line and Windswept was being pushed past it toward the point at ~1 kt. There were plenty of other boats doing the same thing; some on starboard under spinnaker and other on port on a close reach.

In the end we crossed the line sideways. The current pushed us through. Windswept was swept toward the point and while we were moments before a boat length apart, it would take him the better part of an hour to get through the line. During that time, Second-2-Nun came from way back and crossed before Windswept. Lanny had a very tough race that day and we felt quite lucky that we figured out what was going on when we did.

Easily one of the strangest finishes I have ever seen.

Here are the preliminary results:

From 2010 Oxford Race

WNR Series 3 Race 4 Recap: Calliope Rumbles

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:02:00 +0000

The 5 boats who showed up for final race of the 2010 WNR season were greeted with a sweet northwesterly breeze at about 12-15 knots. With the course of A2 set, we had a downwind start. On board Calliope we elected to stay away from the favored pin end of the line, instead intending to shoot for something 'middle-ish'. We felt that because we have good downwind speed it would be better to try and stay clean and keep other boats off our breeze by keeping a clear lane to windward and we felt that would be easier to do by starting in the middle. We waited till inside of 30 seconds to the start to go for our hoist because there was a good bit of pre-start jockeying for position and we got taken up by a couple of boats. Once the monkey business was overwith and people started turning down to head for the line, we got our kite up and got things rolling. It looked to me like we might have been a bit late for the start and certainly boats that had started more towards the pin seemed to be ahead of us. However, with our clear lane of breeze to windward, we were able to put our rumble on. After a few lengths, we broke our pole bridle and had to jury rig a foreguy to keep the pole under control. I told the crew that it's not a good day of sailing if you don't break something. Once we got that fixed, we rolled the boats below us and by halfway to the first mark, we were showing the fleet our taillights as it was just us, a J/24, and a Pearson 30 out in front. As we approached the mark, we looked back and saw a beautiful array of spinnakers spread out behind us:

For some reason, it appeared that LinGin, who was our closest competition, was going to the wrong mark for a significant part of the leg as they sailed far to the left of the rhumbline and they certainly gave us pause to double check the SI's to make sure we were sailing the correct course.

Coming into the mark, we owed room to the Pearson 30 on the inside. He sure took his sweet time making the turn, and we had a much more seamanlike rounding (in wide, out tight!) which put us in a higher lane for the first part of the beat back into the harbor. Our takedown was very clean and with the new long jibsheets that fit over the pole we were immediately ready to tack. Unfortunately, even though we were in a higher lane, they were to leeward and ahead and we had to contend with their wind shadow that forced us to hang in some less than ideal breeze. Nevertheless, for strategic reasons, we didn't want to tack out so we stayed on port and worked on keeping the boat rolling. After boats behind had rounded we looked back at LinGin and they seemed to have a higher angle as well as better speed than we had and it looked like they were gaining. We decided that pulling our jib draft forward might help and decided to tighten the backstay and jib halyard (during the tack). Once we started to get in close to the spider, we tacked out, cranked up the jib halyard tension, and headed back across on starboard. We had a tack snafu that slowed us down a bit, but once we sorted that out and got the boat rail-down-and-rumbling again, we had a full knot of increased speed through the water probably due to the increased jib halyard tension and better shape of the jib (draft more forward and powered up). This was satisfying as we could then hold the same speed/angle as LinGin and we felt good about that.

With the RN being a port rounding and well inside the starboard tack layline to the harbor, we decided that there was no real penalty for under-standing and tacked relatively early to head back toward the USNA annex seawall. We went all the way to the wall before tacking out to head for the harbor, leading LinGin by 8-10 lengths at that mark with Laughing Gull in 3rd about 3-4 lengths behind her. Unfortunately, we could not quite lay the can at the mouth of the harbor and so had to throw in 2 extra tacks as we worked our way in, but we still passed the can about 5 lengths ahead of LinGin and it was a close reach to the finish with enough pressure to keep the normal WNR flukeyness from stealing our victory. We crossed the finish line first for the 3rd time this summer and secured a win for the 3rd part of the 2010 WNR. All in all it was a great night of sailing, with excellent breeze, good competition, and a beautiful sunset!

Complete results at: http://www.race.annapolisyc.org/RegattaModules/ViewRegattaResults.aspx?RegID=325&mid=254&tabid=10

I was recently reminded that team Calliope has been a competitor in AYC Wednesday Night Racing for 8 years now. It has been a hugely rewarding experience and taught us many things about sailing and about building a team. In our first season, we competed with no spinnaker, a ratty cruising genoa, battenless main, and having almost no keelboat driving experience, with a motley crew of St. John's students, most of whom had never sailed before. Over the years, we have made many modifications to the boat, to the sails, to the crew, and to our style of racing. We've learned what's important and what's not. We've learned what driving techniques work and what doesn't. We've learned how to work together, and we've learned how to teach people and how to learn from them.

It occurred to me that it might be good to have a list of the top things that I think have made a difference in getting us from the back of the fleet to the front. Not that we'll stay at the front mind you, but I think we've made some really big strides, and I want to share what I think is important. For those of you seasoned racers out there, this is probably not news, but for some of the newer people, I thought it might be helpful, so here goes:

1. A clean bottom is a must. This cannot be over-stressed. It sounds obvious, but one of the big things I changed this year is I bought my own SCUBA gear and try to clean the bottom every week. It is amazing how much growth you can get even in one week. I used to use the Yellow Dick guy and I can't un-recommend him too much. I know of at least one case where an owner had supposedly had his bottom cleaned and then had an emergency haulout only to find the bottom was totally encrusted with growth. That guy is dishonest. Don't use him. My solution is to clean the bottom myself because that way I know it gets done and done right. But there are probably honest divers that can be found. Unfortunately, it sounds like Yellow Dick is not one of them.

2. Building up a good core team of committed people who may not always make every race but enjoy racing with you is so important. Once you have a core group of people who know your boat and know your style, you will really make big strides of improvement. It has helped me a lot.

3. Talking through maneuvers before you go into them is really helpful. We do this all the time on Calliope and it really helps new people, but even with experienced crew, discussing the sequence of events that's going to occur before you get to a mark rounding makes a huge difference and reduces costly mistakes. So talk about what side the kite will come down on, when you're going to set the jib, and when the gybe will occur. This allows everybody on board to think their part through before you get to the mark rounding and there's chaos all around you with other boats.

4. Always try to think one step ahead on the race course. So if you're going downwind, have your rear-view spotter look at the course and pick a side for the next upwind leg. The best time to make strategic decisions is when you have the boat settled down and moving and you can think. Don't waste this time by relaxing. Use the time to plan your next leg. If you're on a beat, discuss whether you want to gybe early or not on the next run before you get to the mark. Pick a strategy, analyze it after the fact.

5. As an owner, I used to helm all my races. This year, because of my school commitments, I had to relinquish this role to someone else because I simply could not be present for a lot of the races. As a consequence, in cases where I was in attendance, I would elect to trim or do some other job and work with the crew. For better or for worse, this has worked really well. I enjoy being able to get my head 'out of the boat' and I also feel like I can focus a lot more on getting the boat set up properly which I think makes a speed difference. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the helmsman that I have currently is at least as good as I am (probably better)... But even without a crack helmsman, if you can get a competent driver and dedicate your resources to focusing on tactics and making the boat go fast, it can help your performance. Also, you will learn something about the other jobs on your boat. As an owner and usual helmsman, it is both liberating and scary at the same time to put your boat in somebody else's hands during a race.

6. I think the importance of sails and furling systems is overstressed. Our main was built in 2002. Our kite was built in 2003. Both are stock off the rack sails. Our jib is 3 years old but was not at all fast in our first year using it. We use roller furling which I am convinced makes absolutely NO difference to Alberg racing except MAYBE in extremely light air (although we have been fast in some light air races this year). Don't worry about your sails. If they were made within the last 20 years they are probably fine. Improving your crew work in tacks and gybes and upwind/downwind driving will make a bigger difference than new sails.

7. I also think there is over-emphasis on bottom coatings, which is silly. I have ablative paint on my bottom. I have always had ablative paint. It works fine. I scrub it every week. It may wear off faster, but in my opinion it is certainly not slower around the racetrack than hard paint. I don't think that, for the speed, hull shape, and average roughness of our boats, there is any difference between ablative and hard bottom paint. So if you worry about your bottom, don't. Get it clean, but don't agonize over what kind of paint you have.

8. One of the biggest things you can do to improve is try to eliminate mistakes. Whenever we have a bad tack or sail change, I try to work through it with the crew. I ask what went wrong. We try to analyze and discuss what could have been done differently. We try to do this every time there is something that doesn't go right, and I think often we make improvements by going through this process. By eliminating mistakes, you elevate your game and you shave boatlengths off your total distance sailed. It allows you to hold lanes and keep your air clear, which pays huge dividends in the end.

9. Another thing we always try to do is debrief after every race. We discuss what decisions were good and what decisions were bad. If we did well, we think about what made the difference. If we did poorly, we look for reasons (excuses?). We replay the race in discussion and talk about where we could have chosen differently and what might have happened if we'd done it another way. By doing this we prepare ourselves for future races when we will be faced with similar decisions.

10. The last thing is we always have fun. On Calliope, we have 2 sailing mottoes: the first is when the skipper starts yammering too much, the crew should say: 'Shut up and drive.' The second is "We win by leaving the dock." If you take the attitude that simply getting out on the water already is winning and everything else after that is gravy then you are guaranteed to achieve your goal. It has worked for us.

We have enjoyed a great season of Wednesday Night Racing. I won't make either Oxford or Queenstown personally, but Calliope will be there without me. I hope y'all have a great time and I do plan on seeing everybody at PSA for the Rankin Regatta!

2010 WNR Series 3, Race 1: Worst to First!

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 04:49:00 +0000

After many weeks of lackluster attendance and no bottom cleaning, I finally was able to get it in gear and with my 3 PM lecture canceled and no commitments until Dermatology clinic at a lackadaisical 9 AM on Thursday, I bailed out of Baltimore at 2:30, picked up an air tank on the way south, and with dive gear in hand, I arrived at the boat around 4 PM with intentions to clean the bottom. It was a dirty job. I am not gonna lie. We had at least a 1/4" coating of uniformly thick sludge over the whole bottom with a particularly encrusted keel. 90 minutes later, the job was done and we were leaving the mooring.

5 boats showed up to race: Calliope, Skybird, LinGin, Asylum, and Second-2-Nun. In a reasonably brisk southerly, we started the race (course B2...finally something other than A0!) on a pin favored line with Asylum unquestionably winning the start at the favored pin end. The course was close hauled to the first mark. We were a bit late and other boats started further up the line towards the boat. Relatively early, Skybird and Second-2-Nun tacked out and started heading toward Back Creek. We felt fast, played the shifts, and managed to get to the mark in 2nd place. Unfortunately for us, we ran afoul of Lazy Ethel who seemed to think that instead of saying 'protest' and raising a flag, the way to do it was to hit us from leeward when they clearly could have avoided contact, and yelling 'contact, contact, contact, contact, contact, contact'. Clearly somebody needs to explain to them RRS 14 as well as that the word 'contact' does not validate a protest, but that only the word 'protest' does. But I digress. We sailed clear of the course, did our 720 degree penalty and since no damage was done, continued our race albeit in last place. But not by a whole lot. Kudos to Jon, Ken, and Dave for steering and trimming through a great 720 degree turn.

On the reach, we pulled our leads forward, powered up the jib and started reeling in. Once we got to the 2nd mark, it was a beat up to the E mark and we were starting off in a bit of a squall. It took us a minute to get everything situated, but once we did, we had some solid wheels. With the pressure up, we had dropped the leads back to flatten the foot of the jib and that seemed to be pretty fast. At least we were making trees on boats inland. For unknown reasons, the fleet tacked away and sailed in towards the harbor. Aboard Calliope, we were confused as to why people made this choice because the pressure seemed to be clearly better in the middle of the bay. So we stayed on starboard, put the bow down and rumbled. This tactic worked because by the top section of the beat we had passed everybody except Skybird. As we came to the mark (both of us overstood), for some reason they kept sailing high and so we just decided to power up, put the bow down, and punch through their wind shadow. I don't know if it was the clean bottom or our guts, but somehow this tactic worked. There was some discussion about proper course and 'taking us down' but clearly the proper course rule states that we are entitled to sail to the mark. It would not have been within the rules for us to take the windward boat above our proper course, but since that never happened, to my knowledge it was a non-issue. Either way, by the time we got to the mark, it was definitely a non issue as there was no longer an overlap anyhow because we were clear ahead.

The spinnaker set was its whole own fiasco (and sadly not the last one), as we had sheets led wrong, spinnaker hooked up wrong, and basically everything was rusty. Fortunately, Pat the HE-bow-man was able to manage a feat of superhuman strength and disconnect/reconnect the guy to a full kite while re-rigging it to be right. Lucky for us, he is both strong and long-armed. And it was not that windy. Bottom line: we managed to stay in front of Skybird during the set, and that is saying something, because aboard our boat it was not a pretty set. But we got-r-dun. And then we just sailed faster to the next mark. Amazing what a clean bottom will do for you.

We rounded R2 2 lengths ahead of the pack, spinnaker douse and jib set were clean and it was a beat to the harbor, except for one small detail. We had put the jib luff in the prefeeder, but not in the headfoil track. DOH! So we had a jib that was held onto the boat by the 3 corner points only. I was trimming and thought the leech looked funny until Jon the helmsman said to me 'Uh we don't have the luff in the track'. So then it was a quick jib douse and re-hoist in the track and with Skybird pressing us from behind I was a bit worried whether we could manage it before they passed us. Turns out, we did although Dave the pit man did pay a bit of a price with some skin sacrificed to the whistling jib halyard on the way down. In the aggregate, we got the jib back up just about the time skybird's bow was at our beam, with acceleration and wind shadow we pulled back ahead. In the light pressure, pulled the lead back forward to power up and put on our rumble caps. If it had taken us 5 more seconds to do the drop and re-set, they would have punched into clear breeze and been able to get ahead. Again, having a slick bottom makes some difference...

Coming into the harbor, we couldn't lay the seawall, had to dive into the field, went to the wall and tacked, forced Skybird to tack as we came out on starboard, and led them into the finish for the horn. LinGin got the 3, Second-2-Nun the 4, and Asylum the 5. Overall it was a highly satisfying race. Well sailed by all involved. I feel lucky that we managed to win it. Only my second bullet in 8 years of WNR so don't give me any crap about being stoked over it. I have to say it did feel mighty good to go from worst to first though! Honestly, I think the difference was going into the bay on starboard when everybody else went to the harbor on port for the beat to mark 'E'. But also for sure having a clean bottom helped a heck of a lot. It was great to see everybody, and I'll be out there next week! Thanks to all my crew for an awesome race and a great dinner at Davis's Pub afterwards. Hope to see y'all out there next week!

A WNR Catch Up

noreply@blogger.com (Commodious One) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:08:00 +0000

I am missing J's eloquent missives from the racing front. I cannot do him justice, but .... we need some more racing chit chat on this blog!!! Apologies but this is decidedly from the Laughing Gull Perspective.

Check out the coverage on t2p.tv (http://www.t2p.tv/guide/wns10s2.php) you need to sign up, but the slow connection is free. They also have a good series - "Upside down is slow" which is most amusing.

Starting with the most recent one first as that was most interesting from our perspective...

7/21

We were a little bit off on this race until the very end. We started a little behind the gun. We arrived at the upwind mark kind of with the pack, and then tacked over onto the South side of the course from this point on we were about 200 yards too far south. Heading int the right direction, and feeling good as we were to windward of the fleet and sailing a little large and therefore had maximum boat speed. This was great until we passed in front of Calliope on her way back to the harbor, and J (much to his credit and our appreciation) brought to our attention that we were not headed for the right mark. Aaaaack - well who knows what happened. Its not like we have not been around that mark before! So while the whole fleet headed back to the harbor, we hung a hard turn, and headed wing to wing back to the red nun. Do you get the picture - some stupid Alberg approaching the mark from the wrong side and rounding in front of a couple of J105s and other speedy boats - in our defense, we did approach on starboard.

Anyway after that, we figured we were good and done, and we just kind of put our heads down and sailed. At some point we looked up and saw Tim in Asylum. He tacked in front of us by the Academy wall, and that was the last we saw of him. He got lost in the pack on that side of the harbor. The next time we saw an Alberg was by the finish line, and saw Harry not too far in front of us - whaaaa?! We were very surprised. Somehow J and Tim had become tied up in the mess of boats that is the finish on Wednesday night. We had short tacked up the academy side of the harbor, missing all the faster boats by the chart house. That will be the last time J helps us out! They say the harbor is a whole new race, but this is the first time we have actually come out on top in the harbour.

One key was that we really hussled on the tacks. By the time we got to the end, the team was beginning to gel, and needed a beer!! Ray and Mike did an awesome job on the job. Mike is a motor boat guy, but ... we will convert him yet.

6/30

I was watching this one on a motor boat - first time I have ever done that, and needless to say, the wind was great - why was I not on the boat?! Ray and Sandy from Viceroy joined us. They were in Annapolis harbor as this was the night before the summer cruise.

Anyway First comment. Did Lin Gin run aground trying to get to the race on time?? From our perspective both Ray and I thought it looked like she came to a grinding halt out by the tripod marker. It did not seem to matter, even though they must have got to the line late, by half way back to the harbor, it seemed as if LinGin was in the lead. How does that happen?

Interesting to see the race by spectator boat. We were out by the Bay Bridge when all the big boats turned around. it was a Jibe mark - do you take chute down first? carry it around them mark, and then take it down? T2PTV has some good footage - http://www.t2p.tv/index.php (Free for slow connection, but you need to sign up).

7/14 - Albergs get a good showing on t2p.tv - (when you see two kids n the foredeck, that is Laughing Gull; Julien is busy hooking up the chute)

I thought it was going to be another slow one, but the wind picked up nicely. Downwind start. I was chasing Harry thinking I was going to force him up the line to the committee boat, but he got by. I shouted at him to slow down, but you know how that goes. In the meantime, got nasty looks from some PHRF boat that happened to get between me and Harry and clearly could not understand why the leeward boat on Starboard was expecting him to get out of the way. Anyway we chased Harry all the way to the upwind mark, and rounded that with Lin Gin in the lead, Asylum right behind us, and Calliope and Skybird somewhere in the mix. The only registered boat that was not there was Argo, and TC is still nursing an engine back to health. He refuses to take our advice and take the thing out to make a mooring anchor!

All the boats immediately tacked over onto starboard and headed over towards Back Creek. Seeing as how one can never win following the crowd, we took off for the north shore. This seemed to pay off big time. By the time we needed to do a quick tack to make the nun and the turn into the harbor, we crossed in front of Linn Gin by a boat length or two - technically I think that put us in the lead. However, anytime you tack an Alberg that is 2 + boat lengths that you give up, so Linn Gin rounded the nun and took off into the harbor.

Coming back towards the red nun was excellent as the Farr 40s were making their way back at the same time. They were on starboard, and we cut right between two of them - close behind one, and just hoping we had enough headway to make it past the second. we tacked right on top of the second. We were close enough to talk, and I warned her I was tacking to cover, but all that got me was a good laugh from the folks on their rail.

Once we rounded the nun and were headed into the harbor it was clear that this was going to be a spinnaker finish. Was the wind going to hold? Would we be taking the chute down the moment we had it up? We headed upwind a bit to see where things stood, and to put ourselves at a better angle going into the harbor above all the other boats - there is nothing so pitiful as an old A30 getting stalled by all the big boats stealing all the wind - we were going to be upwind of that mess. Harry had the same idea - he was heading even further upwind than us. A few hundred yards past the turn, the chute goes up, and we are headed for the finish line. AYC had called the right race course for the various classes. They had sent the really fast boats on a long course, and the A30s on the short course. We were finishing with the J105, and presumably a few other really fast ones. We were sailing through the anchorage for a while alongside a J105 that had exactly the same color chute - it would have made an interesting shot to get the old and the new together. We were not alongside each other for long.

Typical downwind finish - EXCEPT we were right behind two big boats (105s) nose to nose for the line, and right behind us were two others fighting it out (I think for third and fourth). The moment the two in front of us crossed the line, they rounded up (so they did not hit the Eastport bridge for those not familiar with how these races end). I was spending all my time trying to get across the line with two big boats dropping chutes and cluttering things up. The moment we were called across the line - hard to port drop chute along side a J105 that had just done the same. Turned my head left, and damn those 105 chutes look big as they are heading for you. You can see this on t2p.tv - it felt closer than it looks there.

Whew good fun - about time too. Finish order was Linn Gin, Laughing Gull, Second 2 Nunn, SkyBird? and Asylum?

2010 Ted Osius Memorial Regatta

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Meinhold) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:12:00 +0000

I brought Rinn Duin down from the Magothy Friday night, dodging thunderstorms on my way to Lake Ogleton. In the morning I met my crew of coworkers Dustin Whipple and Tin-Guen Yen, A30 Secretary Rachel and her friend and 470 sailer Tori Graw. We set out early for a few hours of practice before checking in at R2 at 1100.

The race committee set up a 4 leg, 1 mile windward/leeward course in a light to moderate southerly and got started promptly on schedule, with the Albergs the 4th of 5 starts.

I had a poor start. We planned to come in from the left and tack to starboard on the best hole we could find, but I overpredicted our boat speed, and we crossed way last. We made pretty good time upwind . We crossed Second-2-Nun and Harry had to duck us, though he got well ahead of by the first mark rounding. We rounding in 5th place, having picked up Laughing Gull and Skybird. Then our lack of experience really started to show as the chute went up with a twist, and we struggled to get moving downwind. Jonathan took advantage of this and Laughing Gull moved up and passed us. Our foresail woes continued at the leeward mark with a halyard wrap that slowed our jib hoist, difficulty dousing the chute and then the topping lift lost up the mast!

By the time we got good close-hauled boat speed, Skybird had taken over 6th place. Mike Nikolich sailed both dowind legs without a chute. The wind had shifted westerly by this time, so had a single reach to the mark. We seemed to gain on Skybird but couldn't get close to catching her. The committee waited for us to cross, then canceled the second race due to predictions of thunderstorms.

The results below show that Tim was well out in front, but that the battle for 2nd was intense, with Windswept, Second-2-Nun and Argo all finishing within 25 seconds of each other.

Thanks to my crew for hanging in there despite our troubles. Dustin had only done foredeck once before, and was able to fix things once we figured out what went wrong. Just getting out there and around the race course is an accomplishment!

We could not make it to the race party on Sunday due to family obligations. I would be glad to hear any reports on the party, other views of the race, or any pictures from either.

Mike

Official Results of the 2010 Ted Osius Memorial Regatta from :
http://www.scc1944.org/CBYRA/osius_sat.htm

Pos Sail Boat Skipper Finish Delta
1 244 LinGin Tim Williams 14:11:23.0 0:00
2 562 Windswept Lanny Helms 14:16:09.0 4:46
3 484 Second-2-Nun Harold Gamber 14:16:23.0 0:14
4 247 Argo T.C. Williams 14:16:34.0 0:11
5 197 Laughing Gull Jonathan Adams 14:22:46.0 6:12
6 550 SKYBIRD Mike Nikolich 14:25:23.0 2:37
7 272 Rinn Duin Michael Meinhold 14:26:27.0 1:04

International Canadian Friendship Regatta

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:39:00 +0000

For the second year in a row now, we've held our annual International Canadian Friendship Regatta at Potapskut Sailing Association (PSA) on the north side of the Magothy River. I think I speak for most folks that participated when I say that this is a great venue. No fancy frills, just great people, great boats and great racing.

We've held this event for over forty years now. In the spring a group of Americans head up to Canada to race on Lake Ontario and in the fall a group of Canadians come down to Annapolis to race on the Bay. The regatta is held in a team racing format and the winning team takes home the Bruce Rankin Memmorial Trophy, which was donated to the class by Bob Chambers in memory of his good friend, and my grandfather, Bruce Rankin.

Having done this regatta on LinGin for decades now, I think we've seen a bit of everything. There have been races that we canceled due to no wind, and due to too much wind. There have been 2 kt currents to deal with and days of pouring rain. Mostly, however, we've had good weather and we've always had lots of fun. This year was no exception.

We set records for the lowest high temperatures on record during the regatta. It was in the upper 40s and raining with the wind out of the north. It rained heavily on Saturday and lightly on Sunday.

Saturday had a strong breeze with most boats reefing their mains and quite a few No. 2 jibs up. The beauty of racing on the Magothy in a north wind is that the seas remain quite flat even with a heavy breeze. Fast and fun. To give you an idea, you can check out a video Brian Palmer did from aboard L'Esprit:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=523834404969&ref=mf

The race committee decided against spinnakers on both days--not a surprise with the winds being so gusty and the weather so chilly. Two races were held on Saturday and one on Sunday, all windward-leeward.

Aboard LinGin, we lost our teammate on Friday due to weather related boat delivery issues, so we were paired up with Bill Jensen's Prudence at the last minute. And while we wanted to win this regatta, there was a subplot going on too: we were .003 points apart from Argo in the High Point standings and this was the last regatta of the season.

During each race, our plan, based on very similar conditions last year, was to have a clean start on the boat end and head right toward Gibson Island. We like the right because we found that with the wind out of the north, it bends around the island. If you head over there on port and then tack, you tend to get a nice lift heading up for the mark. This proved to be effective on all three races of the weekend.

For races one and two on Saturday, we had solid starts and quickly made for the right. Our setup, a full No. 1 and a reefed main, turned out to be just right for the conditions. It was strong enough that we considered the No. 2, but as the downwind leg was to be done without spinnaker, we opted for the No. 1 to keep our speed up downwind.

The marks used for racing on the Magothy are small. I mean really small, like not much bigger than a gallon milk jug. Add in ~20 kts of breeze and a generous helping of rain and I can attest that there were a few times when we were really searching for those marks! Thankfully we weren't too far off each time had to find them.

Unfortunately, Argo had a mechanical issue with their gooseneck which slowed them down a bit. Maddeningly, the same thing happened last year, although it was their main sheave that caused the trouble.

Due to the conditions, Prudence, dropped out after the first race and headed in for some warmth. With the forecast similar for Sunday, they decided to sit Sunday out as well. That took us out of contention for the trophy, so we decided to focus on High Point.

Sunday we found myself shorthanded on LinGin. Glen Becker and I doublehanded her for the day which was exhausting! Four tacks up the windward leg and I was completely beat. Thankfully Glen did most of the hard work from that point on.

We followed the same plan on Sunday and although our start wasn't quite what we had hoped, and our tacks were very slow, we did manage to have a hard fought race for fourth place with Windswept and Solstice. At the start of the last windward leg we were in 6th. We took a flyer to the right, trying our old "catch the lift on the island" trick and lo and behold it worked. By mere seconds we beat out the other two and took a hard fought and very satisfying 4th. We loved every minute of it.

Argo took first in that last race and although the official Hight Point standings aren't out yet, I think we came out on top. We'll find out at the annual dinner for sure, but either way it was very close and included a lot of fun-poking throughout the whole season.

That's the view from the race course as I see it. Maybe some of the other guys can add some colorful comments to the post.

--Tim

2009 Race to Queenstown and Back

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:08:00 +0000

9 intrepid boats registered for the 2009 edition of the Queenstown Race. We were greeted by a 15-20 knot northerly which had blown up a significant chop and some current as well, so for those of us making the trek up from Annapolis, this made for a bumpy ride. On board Calliope, the crew was out for her first day of sailing and also had some worries about seasickness, so the bumpy ride north was a solid indoctrination and all breakfast was kept where it belonged. I have to say that having a dodger was a key piece of racing equipment for this particular regatta. Unfortunately, we did manage to lose one participant due to propulsion issues getting in the way of a successful Saturday morning transit. So 8 boats started the race, one of which was a bit late... ;-)

The Morris Family getting their A-game ready during the pre-start.

There were 2 prevailing strategies at the start. I think most of us were in the dark as to the exact timing, but most boats decided to loiter in the area to the west of Baltimore light as the lighthouse was definitely the favored end. The start was going to be on port tack though, so a couple of boats decided to opt for the starboard tack approach sailing from the boat to the light house and this also seemed to work well as when the starting signal came, they were in a strong position to tack and be in the right place. Anyway, 7 of the 8 boats had a reasonably good start. Tim, Lanny, and TC punched out to an early lead with Jonathan, Larry, Me, and Mike fighting it out for 4th place. Almost everybody was sailing with the #1 genoa and some people had reefs in. We had elected to forego the reef and Ray Meyer later told me that he thought they had a speed advantage over us without the reef.

What we lacked in speed we made up for in tactics and boat handling. TC, who later explained to me that he had a GPS fail, went really high on the first leg, overstanding the mark by a significant margin. Fortunately for me, I was not using GPS, but only a chart book and a magnetic compass and whether by dumb luck or skill, I determined that we should be pointing about 20 degrees lower than the rest of the fleet. Fortunately for us, the rest of them did not realize that they were overstood until they had sailed a good deal of extra distance. We were not quite fast enough to catch Tim, Lanny, or TC, but we passed everybody else and rounded the mark in 4th, a couple of lengths behind TC.

Since we were racing in the 'white sail' division, we got to watch TC charge ahead after the mark rounding, which was unfortunate and we gave up trying to catch him. However, we did get a great view of some highly interesting spinnaker handling on board 'Laughing Gull':

Note skipper peering up into the rig, wondering how to fix this problem... Conclusion: Take down the colored sail and re-set.

After re-setting their spinnaker they did just manage to eek by us but it was not matter as after the 2nd mark, they promptly sailed into a hole and we passed them again on leg 3 of the race.

Here is the view from the front of the Morris family trying to catch us with their beautiful baby blue and white kite...

As we rounded Can 9, we had maintained our position in 4th and had the Adams family close behind. They went high for a bit and we stayed high to protect. For a minute I thought they were going to roll us but somehow we found just a bit of extra juice and managed to keep them behind us to hold on to position and finish in 4th. I told Jonathan that he should consider going to work for the godaddy.com advertising team as he had a cheering section on board that was chanting out 'go daddy' the whole way to the finish from Can 9, but unfortunately it just wasn't quite enough. Conclusion: you do not need colored sails to do fairly well. Smart white sail handling and a clean bottom can really do wonders for your scorecard.

Finish order for race to Queenstown:

Lingin #244 Williams (Tim)
Argo #247 Williams (TC)
Windswept #562 (Helms)
Calliope #287 (Bergquist) * White Sail
Laughing Gull #197 (Adams)
Rinn Duin #272 (Meinhold) * White Sail
Solstice #501 (Morris)
Tatus II #262 (Maliszewski) * White Sail

Official results are at:

http://www.cbyra.org/RaceResults/2009/211/211.htm

As you can see from the boat numbers, we were by far the strongest fleet present at this event.

After arriving in the harbor, you knew somebody had to run aground and I guess it was just not the Adams family's day as they were the ones who showed us where NOT to go:
Fortunately for them, they got off before we had a chance to get too many close-up pictures...but if you zoom in on this one, you can see skipper holding up his hands in exasperation...never a good sign...also note crew (erm...daughter) hanging from mainsheet over the water in an attempt to heel the boat off...

After a long and beautiful day of racing it was time for some cocktails:
We had a raft of 8 Albergs which is not something you see everyday anymore:
And a beautiful sunset after a great party on the workboat raft...
The Adams and Morris children made good use of their bow hammock for sleeping: Next morning dawned bright and beautiful and as the raft broke up we caught a good picture of the commodore's boat with his official burgee flying proudly:
On Sunday, everybody realized what a light air day it was going to be and so we had no 'white sail' participants. This was probably the right call for all involved as in the end only 3 boats managed to hang on and finish the race. My crew who had just learned how to trim the jib on Saturday was somewhat apprehensive about learning a whole new sail on Sunday, but in the end it worked out well and she turned out to be an excellent spinnaker trimmer. It was not without incident though as we mis-timed the start, barely laid the boat end of the line and looked down the barrel of the rest of the fleet having about a 5 minute head start on us on a very light air day.

This is the classic 'Calliope' view from the back watching the fleet sail away from us...

Fortunately, due to my bottom cleaning skills, we managed to make up ground quickly on the rest of the fleet. Also, the kite was the right starting sail choice and helped us to pass 272 and 197 on the first leg.

But we still were not making much distance on Lanny, Larry, TC, and Tim in the lead...

At some point, after the breeze kept shifting right, we had to change sails because we could no longer lay the first mark with the kite up. This was unfortunate but came off pretty well considering we had only two people. There were some catcalls from #272 something about wishing they had a camera. However, I explained to them that they would not be laughing when I was the leeward boat and as it turned out they were not able to lay the mark with the kite either and had to make a sail change of their own. The irony of the camera remarks was not lost on me as we had our camera at the ready:
Fortunately, they managed to keep their captain aboard during this sail change although I am told that was not the case for all of their sail changes.

After rounding the first mark, we went high while Helms, Adams, Meinhold, and Morris went low. High was the right call as breeze filled in from the south and we caught it first and held on to pass them all as well as gaining significant distance on the leaders. Solstice eventually decided that they wanted to get some of what we were in and headed up to join us which helped him to stay connected to us and the leaders. However, he eventually decided to continue sailing high all the way to Kent Island which wound up not being in the direction of the mark and eventually they got so far away that we could barely see them take their sail down when they decided to hang it up.

Ah how the view changes when you are in front! This is Rinn Duin and Laughing Gull duking it out with the Tritons for clear air.

And Solstice going high!

We were gaining on the leaders!

Jonathan shot this picture after they had decided to bail and head home. Not a lot of breeze at this point...
But we were at least having a good time. Note dodger deployed. That is a key piece of equipment for a race like this!

Breeze really starting to shut off on the boats behind...

Personally, I think I had the best looking spinnaker trimmer in the fleet! She also happened to be quite good as we managed to pass 4 boats from a 5 minute behind start (skipper's fault for starting late)!

We rounded R2 a few hundred yards behind TC who had rounded a few hundred yards behind Tim. After rounding, there was some breeze that was starting to fill in from the south. However, it was extremely light and flukey. There were large shifts in speed and direction and navigating the sail back across the bay was tough to say the least! TC opted to play a tactical game which paid off as he was tacking back and forth on shifts and managed to work his way somewhat further south and got into the freshening breeze coming out of the south. This proved to be a master stroke as he managed to pass Tim and in hindsight I cannot believe we did not think of this strategy as it was pretty clear that the wind was filling in from the south. In the end, it was a grudge match trying to get back across the bay in the super light breeze, but eventually they made it and took the gun. LinGin got 2nd place and we ended up finishing in 3rd without crossing the finish line as the RC gave us a Finish In Place (FIP) at 1600 when we were about a quarter mile from the finish. Full results are at:

http://www.cbyra.org/RaceResults/2009/212/212.htm

All in all, it was a wonderful event with excellent weather, competitive racing, great social, and a good time had by all!

The Bruce Rankin memorial regatta is coming up on 10/17-18 at PSA and I hope to see everybody there!

Queenstown races

noreply@blogger.com (Commodious One) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:10:00 +0000

This is what happens when everyone goes to the raft up party, and leaves these three back onthe boat! Out comes the wine, the martini shaker is loaded, and .... for the record, I was offered a martini on our return.

Oxford Race - September 12, 13

noreply@blogger.com (Commodious One) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:54:00 +0000

Well fall sailing has arrived with cooler weather and for at least one day some good wind. On the race down to Oxford it was good wind either directly astern or slightly off the starboard quarter. Once we turned into the Choptank, it was conveniently on the port quarter all the way to the rockpile marker at the mouth of the Tred Avon River. We were able to make it to the finish line on one tack. All the way from Annapolis to Oxford with one jibe in less than 6 hours – good fun.

The start was fairly non controversial other than a Catalina motoring through the box as we were making our final approach – about 15 seconds to go. Both Lanny and I had some choice words for him. LinGin, Windswept and Laughing Gull all went to the upwind side of the course. Argo, contrarian as always, took off for the lee side of the course. About a mile down the course, we all raised our chutes with a beam to a broad reach all the way down to Black Walnut point and the Choptank River. By the time we reached the north end of the Poplar islands. LinGin had the lead, followed by Argo, Laughing Gull and Windswept. This established the order for the rest of the race.

We all got moored at Cutts and Case, and went into town for the party at the Tred Avon Yacht Club, followed by dinner at the Masthead. By the time folks got back to the boats, the rain was really coming down. I fell asleep to the sound of a card game on LinGin, and the patter of rain on my fore hatch.

The following morning, TC and Lanny managed to convince me to register for the race. I had not planned it as I only had one crew, and I wanted to explore Knapps Narrows. This was not to be – TC reminded me that he and his pregnant wife had doublehanded back some years ago after a hurricane, and so surely I could do it that. In addition, and perhaps more importantl, it would be good to have another boat to keep our participation numbers up. Anyway we all left the dock rather late. Argo’s engine was not starting so he got the tow, and we arrived just in time to hear a gun (or a horn I cannot remember). This happened concurrently with the check in boat telling me that this was our start. I looked over to see LinGin heading across the line and down course. This created a panic – up goes the spinnaker , down goes the genoa, the boat is sailing wonderfully towards the fist mark. I look over and LinGin is headed back over the line. What devious cunning - he had feinted the start!! I thought about keeping on. In one sense I had not planned on racing, and was there to keep our numbers up, but that just is not me. Down comes the chute, up goes the genoa, and we hot foot it back to the start; flip around; up goes the chute; down comes the Genoa. There were only two of us aboard, and by the time this was done, we needed a beer!

The wind was 10 – 15 knots until we got out of the Choptank, and then the wind started to die. By the time we reached the bottom of the Poplar Islands, it was looking pretty grim. At one stage, we were thinking that we might be able to catch Windswept, but the wind kept falling. When it became clear that the six hour time limit was going to expire we called it quits. LinGin had anchored close to the island to make sure the current did not carry her away from the mark, and Argo had found herself anchored in the middle of the Bay in about 55 feet of water also becalmed. At that time, TC was still racing, and declined our offer of a tow. He later got the engine started. LinGin crossed the line at 6:05 – close but no cigar. The picture of Argo below shows how calm it was.

This is one of my favorite races. It is a long one especially if the wind is down, but the Choptank is a beautiful river and there are invariable less motorboats than other parts of the Bay. The Tred Avon Yacht Club is great fun. They run a good race, and invariably puts on a good party with a band and an excellent location. To top it all off Oxford as a town is pretty and unique. My preference would have been to take another day, exchange the racing crew for family and do the exploring I was thinking of; logistics being what they are this was not to be - perhaps next year.

All of the pictures are on the web at http://picasaweb.google.com/sven.finnis/20090913Oxford?authkey=Gv1sRgCKqf-O-_obzhDg&feat=email#

WNR 8/24/09 - The Last Four Races

noreply@blogger.com (Commodious One) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:43:00 +0000

Wednesday night series have been a true variety of experiences. Four races ago,we had an incredible storm. If you have not seen the picture check it out here - http://picasaweb.google.com/jreadams6.yahoo.com/WNRStorm#5372590092911119762. Lin Gin was the only one that got around the windward mark in time to be going downwind when the storm hit. I believe Harry Gamber stayed in the race, but Laughing Gull went directly to Pussers, and had a few of their rum drinks. The wind may have reached 50 knots. I know that there was a period of time when the boom was sitting in the water. It hit right as Argo, Second 2 Nun and ourselves were at the windward mark. There was a 30 second window when we could have tacked and got pointing the right way, but Second 2 Nun was sitting right there, so until the initial blow was over, we all just headed further out to the Bay.

This was followed by a race where the committee set the course slightly long, and only one boat finished - all the others time limit expired. We were sitting staring at the judges when they called TLE - bummer. The committee at least logged me as TLE rather than DNC – not that this buys you anything. Laughing Gull was having a good race too. Not that we caught up to Lin Gin, but someone has to be giving that guy a run for his money.

The following week, the race committee over compensated and set the course incredibly short. On top of that, the Committee decided that the Alberg fleet's windward mark was going to be just above the turning point for the faster boats. We were rounding the windward mark and cutting through the Eschels, and the larger boats that all had their spinnakers up - chaos. We all got back into the harbor, and it was anyone's race. On the way into the harbor, we had our chutes up. As we got in - drastic wind shift - our genoas went up and we were close hauled. Some boats went left and Lin Gin and Laughing Gull went right (towards Pussers - for those that need a reference point involving a drinking hole). All was going reasonably well until the wind shifted drastically once again and Lin Gin and Laughing Gull went from somewhere in the front of the pack, to fighting it out for last place. Laughing Gull won that fight for last place.

The last race was just right - we could have used more wind, but ... at least it did not rain. Laughing Gull went wide on way to the windward mark, and kept to the Hackett point side of the course. This put us first at the windward mark. On the way back into the harbor, we got tangled up in some Catalinas and Cals, and had to jibe twice to get clear. Towards the mark, we were in the middle of some J105s that were duelling it out. This was interesting, but not good for speed. We rounded the mark in a pack, and right behind us, Lin Gin caught up in clean slice of air unconfused by a herd of 105s with their asyms up. Going into the harbor, the wind dropped, and it was agonizing. At one point Lin Gin was way ahead, and Calliope was catching up nicely. .After a few more tacks I looked up, and Lin Gin was closer, but Calliope was lost in a crowd somewhere off the Chart House. There was not a chance of catching Lin Gin especially after I did not listen to the crew. I even ignored my 10 second rule (when you feel like tacking count to 10). That put us in a position where we had to pinch to finish. We were given a break by one of the fast boats. Laughing Gull was on port. I had the tiller over hard, and was not doing anything there was so little wind - he ducked me on Starboard - which is a good thing as I was a) in the way, and b) completely the burdened boat!

There are three more Wednesday nights left. For those that might want to consider a night on the water in the middle of the week, contact J Berquist at jbergqui@gmail.com, he has a good handle on who is doing what. We often have a spot on Laughing Gull, so feel free to ping me as well.

WNR 6/16/09

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:22:00 +0000

After 3 consecutive weeks of canceled Wednesday night racing, last night we were blessed with a strong easterly breeze and cool temperatures in the mid 60's. Under a steelhead sky that was full of foreboding clouds, and reefs in all our mains, the fleet set off in 15-20 kts of breeze for the first mark. The beat was pretty shifty in both velocity and direction. Tim Williams made it to the mark well in first place and with a pretty smooth spinnaker set, he had a strong lead. We traded places with Brian and TC and somehow managed to pass both of them from behind to round the mark in 2nd. I think this was due in no small part to the wicked good scramblas on my crew who scrambled back and forth always to the windward rail. With a crew of 9, we had plenty of beef to keep her upright. Also, I had a cracka of a main trimma in Rachel Meinhold who was workin the sheet and the travla like a masta.

After the mark rounding, we all turned downwind for the run back to the haaaba. Brian and I elected to forego using the kite by choice. TC elected to forego it because he had a little shrimping expedition during the beat and I'm not sure whether his kite or his crew was more damaged. Anyway, he also decided to forego using his kite, so the 3 of us were in a white sail race for the can, and we rounded in the same order: me, Brian, and TC. Brian was hot on our tail at the mark and went higher, but we were able to scrape him off by the time we got to the harbor can. However, he went high on us again and somehow (we could not figure out how for the life of us!) he kept being just a little faster than we were. He managed to get an overlap on us and was entitled to room at the bulkhead (a subject about which I had some discussion with one of his crew who I later realized was Geoff Becker the sailing coach at Washington College who knows a lot more about rules than I do...) but somehow he slowed down immediately after establishing the overlap and decided to change tactics and go low. In the end, we had a close photo finish with Me narrowly nipping Brian for 2nd and Brian narrowly getting TC for 3rd. I think we all finished within about 15 seconds of each other. But you can see for yourselves as complete results are available at:

http://www.race.annapolisyc.org/uploads/results/2009_Wednesday_Night_Races-2009/2009_Wednesday_Night_Races_Series_2.html

Congratulations to Tim Williams on his win!

Division: Alberg 30 (8 boats) (top)

Pos	Sail	Boat	Skipper	1	Total Points	Pos
1	244	LinGin	Nurco, Virginia	1	1.00	1
2	287	Calliope	Bergquist, John	2	2.00	2
3	288	L'Espirit	Palmer, Brian	3	3.00	3
4	247	Argo	Williams, T.C.	4	4.00	4
5T	152	Andante	pipkin, mark	5/DNC	5.00T	5T
5T	197	Laughing Gull	Adams, Jonathan	5/DNC	5.00T	5T
5T	308	Asylum	Adelman, Allan	5/DNC	5.00T	5T
5T	484	Second-2-Nun	Bluntschli, Ralph	5/DNC	5.00T	5T

Here are some pix:

Julia manages the winged-out jib with Brian P over her shoulder.

Not a view I often get...TC so far behind me I have trouble reading his sail #. Note crack main trimmer Rachel Meinhold keeping an eye on the competition for me.

2 of my wicked good scramblas keeping the boom where it's supposed to be.

Syronelle 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Meinhold) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:41:00 +0000

The Great Lakes Alberg Association ( www.alberg.ca ) hosted a wonderful weekend in Toronto full of racing, touring and Canadian hospitality. The weather was good, the winds were fair and the competition friendly.

Although we were team racing, and our American team came in third of three, Harry Gamber had the best overall single boat record in the three races. Sailing The Answer with owner Rick Kent aboard and his crew of Hans Jorgensen and Jim Davis, Harry had two seconds and a first in the five-boat, three-race regatta. Mike Meinhold, Sandy and Ray Meyer and Rachel Meinhold were aboard Viva II with owner Janski's (Jan Grodinski) boat, and at least were consistent with fifth place throughout. This was Janski's first racing experience, and he is already planning on loaning his boat next year and has ideas for improving performance! Janski does a lot of single-handing and his boat is very well set up for that. I saw a lot of improvements that I would like to apply to Rinn Duin. It's great to spend time sailing other Alberg 30s -- it seems there is always something to learn about the boat.

Also there for the weekend from the Chesapeake were Sandy Davis, Jacqueline Burke, Pat Meinhold and Max Meinhold. Phoebe Campell gave the Meinholds a fantastic tour of the town, and all these visitors took in the "Sound of Music" production at the Prince of Wales theater. We were treated to an excellent pot-luck dinner at Rick and Selena Kent's home on Friday night, and to dinner at the Mimico Cruising Club with grand views of the lake on Saturday Night. Mimico was a lovely venue for the regatta, and our thanks go the members for allowing us to use it, and the race committee for a well-run regatta.

Thanks go to Rick and Selena Kent for hosting the Friday night get-together, to Phil Birkenheier for hosting Ray and Sandy Meyer at his home, and to Phoebe Campbell for guiding Pat and the kids through Toronto. Special thanks to Don Campbell for all of his coordination and efforts in making a wonderful weekend all around. We look forward to seeing our Great Lakes friends here on the Chesapeake in October.

Here are the results of the 2009 Syronelle races sailed 13 and 14 June 2009 at the Mimico Cruising Club in Toronto, Ontario, as compiled and tabulated by the MCC Race Committee . Team standings were done by Don Campbell.

The teams were Gemini (Birkenheier) and White Opal (Campbell) as GLAA 1 LindisFarne (Watters) as a wildcard GLAA 2. Viva II (Meinhold) and The Answer V (Gamber) as the Chesapeake 1

Course indicates the numbers of the octagonal buoy system outside of Humber Bay. Buoy 9 is in the center, with the 8 others evenly spaced on a 0.75 NM radius circle

Saturday June 13th

Saturday June 13th:
10:30 Marine forecast: Winds light, Chance of showers, Waves <1m.
Conditions: Wind 350° -010° 4 - 7 knots seas flat

Course 9-6-5-9-5
Start time: 11:30

Gemini 12:39:00 1 1:09:00 00:00:00
The Answer V 12:39:50 2 1:09:50 00:00:50
White Opal 12:41:30 3 1:11:30 00 02:30
LindisFarne 12:50:52 4 1:20:52 00:11:52
Viva II 12:53:56 5 1:23:56 00:14:56

Sunday June 14
Wind 170°-192° 4-7 knots seas flat
Course 9-6-5-9-5
start time 13:30:00

White Opal 14:34:43 1 1:04:43 00:00:00
The Answer V 14:37:24 2 1:07:24 00:02:41
LindisFarne 14:47:54 3 1:17:54 00:13:11
Gemini 14:53:59 4 1:23:59 00:19:16
Viva II 14:54:53 5 1:24:53 00:20:10

Team results

LindisFarne drew 1 card from a group of 8 (4- 10s and 4 - 2s) three times. White Opal was 2 and Gemini was 10. Each draw was a 10 so the second GLAA team was LindisFarne and Gemini

Team	Race 1	Race 2	Race 3	Total
White Opal /Gemini	3+1	1+4	2+4	15
LindisFarne / Gemini	4+1	3+4	3+4	19
The Answer V / Viva II	2+5	2+5	1+5	20

Notice of Race: Orioles White Sail Race

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:28:00 +0000

1. Rules:
1.1: The regatta will be governed by the 'rules' as defined in the 2009-2012 ISAF Racing Rules of Sailing including the prescriptions of US Sailing (RRS) and the class rules of the Chespeake Bay Alberg 30 One Design Association, except as any of these are altered by the Notice of Race, Sailing Instructions or any amendments thereto, provided however that as between any boat which is racing and any which is not, the inland rules shall apply.
1.2 RRS 63.7 is replaced by: "If there is a conflict between a rule in the Notice of Race and a rule in the Sailing Instructions, the rule in the Sailing Instructions and any amendments thereto, shall take precedence"

2. Organizing Authority:
2.1 The Organizing Authority for this regatta is the Chesapeake Bay Alberg 30 One Design Association.

3. Eligibility and Entry
3.1 Eligibility for the Alberg 30 one design class is limited to any Alberg 30 sailboat that is in compliance with the Chesapeake Bay Alberg 30 One Design Association class rules. Eligibility for the ‘everybody else’ division is restricted only to sailboats of sufficient construction maintaining adequate safety gear.
3.2 The entry fee for CBA30ODA members will be $10 and must be submitted by check or cash to the Racing Commodore by 7/7/2009. Make checks payable to 'Chesapeake Bay Alberg 30 One Design Association'. The entry fee for non-CBA30ODA members is $15.
3.3 There will be 2 classes of entrants: Those having class legal Alberg 30's, and everybody else. The 'everybody else' division will be scored by handicap determined by the whim of the organizing authority.
3.4 Only upwind 'white' sails may be used. Spinnakers are not permitted. Whisker poles are allowed. For the Alberg 30 one design class, sails are limited to the main, number 1, number 2 and number 3, as defined in the class rules. For ‘everybody else’ sails are limited to a main, mizzen, and headsails with a mid-girth of less than or equal to one half of the foot dimension.

4. Schedule
4.1 The event will take place on 7/11/2009.
4.2 All boats must start at a time of their choosing but between the times of 0900 and 1100 EST (GMT+5) on 7/11/2009.
4.2 All boats must finish before the hour of 1500 EST on 7/11/2009.

5. The Course, Start and Finish
5.1 The course will use government marks.
5.2 The starting mark shall be rounded or passed to starboard and will consist of GC "3" near the mouth of Swan Creek.
5.3 To start, each yacht shall sail within two boatlengths of the starting mark, taking the starting mark down her starboard side, and shall take and record her starting time at the point when the imaginary line through her traveler crosses the starting mark.
5.4 The finishing mark shall be rounded or passed to starboard and will consist of the Red, White, and Blue 'Francis Scott Key' buoy just upstream of Key Bridge in the Patapsco river.
5.5 To finish, each yacht shall sail within two boatlenngths of the finishing mark, taking the finishing mark down her starboard side, and shall take and record her finishing time at the point in time when the imaginary line through her traveler crosses the finishing mark.
5.6 Skippers may choose any course they wish between the start and finish marks.
5.7 Skippers are responsible for recording their own start and finish times using GPS time. All start and finish times must be reported to the Organizing Authority by cell phone no later than 1600 on 7/11/2009.

6. Protests
6.1 Protests may or may not be heard or acted upon at the discretion of the Organizing Authority.
6.2 Protests must be reported by cell phone to the Organizing Authority by 1600 on 7/11/2009. The Organizing Authority will direct any protesting boat as to when and where to file, and when and if any hearing will be held.

7. Penalty System
7.1 Per RRS 4.1, A boat that may have broken a rule of Part 2 while racing MUST take a scoring penalty.
7.2 RRS 44.3 (c) is replaced with: "The race score for a boat that takes a scoring penalty shall be":
(a) At the time of the incident, by taking a 20% scoring penalty calculated as a percentage of her elapsed time and filing an acknowledgement with the Organizing Authority within the protest time limit.
(b) After racing and before the start of a protest hearing involving the incident, by taking a 40% penalty calculated as a percentage of her elapsed time.
However, if the boat caused serious damages or gained a significant advantage in the race by her breach she shall retire."

9. Scoring
9.1 Scores will be calculated using the elapsed times as reported by the participating skippers.
9.2 Boats will be ranked in the order of their elapsed times with the shortest being the winner.

10. Prizes
10.1 Prizes will be awarded separately in each class. A prize of some kind will be awarded to ALL participating boats.

Contact:
John Bergquist
Racing Commodore
Chesapeake Bay Alberg 30 One Design Association
410.507.3107
jbergqui_at_gmail_dot_com

2009 Ted Osius Regatta

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:08:00 +0000

A beautiful late spring day greeted the 6 Albergs who showed up for the 2009 Ted Osius regatta on Sunday. In the beginning, it was not totally clear that there was going to be good breeze and the race committee postponed the first start, but once racing got underway, we were blessed with an excellent southerly at 8-12 knots and perfect racing conditions. Two races were sailed in a relatively steady breeze. There was a pretty strong ebb current during race 1 which gradually abated over the course of the day. TC Williams put on a clinic, leading both races from wire to wire and honestly he pretty much did a horizon job on the rest of us. Full results are reproduced below. Note that the finishing order was exactly the same for both race 1 and race 2. Congratulations to TC Williams on the convincing regatta win!

A couple of things I would like to highlight in addition to the racing. First, Jonathan Adams was pulled away at the last minute because of a death in his family. I am sure that I speak for everyone in offering condolences to him, his wife, and his family. We missed you out there on Sunday Jonathan, and I hope that you all are doing okay. I am sure it is difficult.

Second, I want to highlight Mike Meinhold for putting together a team to come out and participate in this race. Mike has a lot of experience racing with me as a bow crew, but I believe this is only his 2nd or 3rd race as a skipper. He did a great job of getting around the course, and I hope that we will see more of Mike out there on the race course.

Third, I want to highlight the party that SCC puts on Sunday for this regatta. I believe that TC and I were the only people from our fleet who attended the party (I did not arrive until very late). I spoke with Mrs. Osius-Zimmerman at the party and she was very nice to me, but lamented the fact that not more of the Albergers make the effort to come to the party. In particular, she said that she wished that Harry would come to the party as she said that she has not seen him in many years and would like to catch up. So Harry I hope you will consider going next year. I was ashamed to admit to her that of the 5 times I have done this regatta, this was the first time that I had attended. I think it's important for us to keep in mind that Ted Osius was an Alberger and that we should try and make an effort to attend the party. I hope that those of you who did not attend this year will try and put it on your schedule to attend not only the sailing, but also the party afterwards in the future. I think it is a nice gesture for us to say 'thanks' to Mrs. Osius-Zimmerman for hosting the event.

Fourth, I want to highlight the Luce Creek Cruise which was hosted by Vicki Lathom on Saturday before racing. Unfortunately, despite my best intentions, I was unable to attend because of an emergency boat mishap. However, Mike M attended and it sounds like it was a great party. I think that having a Luce Creek Cruise the same weekend as the Osius regatta is an excellent opportunity for Magothy boats to come down and split their travel time up so that they don't have to come all the way from the Magothy on the day of racing. It's also a great chance for everybody to socialize together. I want to thank Vicki for hosting this crusie, and I hope that she will host it again on the Osius weekend next year.

Finally, I got a couple pix from my boat to share with y'all. Sorry, no pix of the fleet, although in pic #2 you can just make out Harry and Lanny in front of me :-(

Despite our obvious focus, we still managed to be relatively slow...

We were lucky to have an excellent bow and mast crew! I think the main problem with boatspeed was that the nut on the end of the tiller needed adjustment...

Overall Results:

Pos	Sail	Boat	Skipper	1	2	Total Points	Pos
1	247	Argo	Williams, T.C.	1	1	2.00	1
2	244	LinGin	Williams, Tim	2	2	4.00	2
3	562	Windswept	Helms, Lanny	3	3	6.00	3
4	484	Second-2-Nun	Gamber, Harold	4	4	8.00	4
5	287	Calliope	Bergquist, John	5	5	10.00	5
6	272	Rinn Duin	Meinhold, Michael	6	6	12.00	6
7	197	Laughing Gull	Adams, Jonathan	8/DNC	8/DNC	16.00	7

WNR Race 6

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:51:00 +0000

Another week of no racing. :(

An impending thunderstorm coupled with light air caused the race committee to cancel the race. After watching the storm roll in later in the evening (and recalling the epic storms last year), I think it was probably the right call.

Next week here we come!

WNR Race 5: 5/27/09

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:34:00 +0000

The story for WNR this week is simple: there was no wind. Fortunately, those of us on the win-by-leaving-dock program had plenty of food & drinks aboard.
So as the fleet left the racing area, we came upon a motley crew of like-minded sailors...
Formed a raft and enjoyed the sunshine. It was all great until a powerboat wake caused a little bit of rig knocking and we had to send a man aloft to inspect everything.
In the end, it was fine and a good time was had by all on the water, despite the lack of breeze. We'll do it all again next week. Hope to see you out there!

Miles River Race

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:49:00 +0000

From St. Michaels 2009

The Annapolis to Miles River Race turned out to be a beautiful day for sailing. A nice ~10 kts. out of the south stayed steady all day and the current was with us down the bay.

We had four Albergs out on the line: Argo, Windswept, Laughing Gull and LinGin.

One thing that was key in this race was to recognize that the current was pretty strong and it was sweeping us over the starting line. Unfortunately for T.C. Williams and Argo, they were victims of this and wound up OCS (On Course Side) and had to loop back around (against the current) and start over.

Once started, we all headed for the deep water in the channel and worked our way down the bay. I've race enough against these guys to know not to give them an opening, so our goal on LinGin was to do our best to stay in the deep water while keeping near the fleet so they couldn't get any leverage on us and slip by.

We were successful in doing this, but there was a moment of great concern that took place as we rounded Bloody Point and headed up into Eastern Bay. We knew we need to sail 75° to get to the first red mark we had to honor and I looked a my digital compass (TackTick) and it showed 75°, but oddly enough only one J30 ahead of us was going the same direction. I looked up ahead there appeared to be a mark where we were headed. Why was the rest of the fleet heading much higher than us? Didn't they have the same course? Scramble...scramble...check race particulars...yes, they did have the same course here...note that Argo is now around and heading toward everyone else....!!! We decided that the wisdom of the crowds was at work and headed up with everyone else. Shortly thereafter the J30 did the same.

A little while later, I recognized the problem. Somehow we had changed the mode of the TackTick to "Tactics", which changes the information it shows. Coincidentially the number it happened to show was the number I was expecting to see. Luckily we figured it out before anyone passed us.

From that point, it was more of the same: keep in front of the guys behind us and don't make any mistakes. Thankfully we had a smooth spinnaker set and take down as well as a good mark rounding.

We were happy to take the gun. Next year, we need more A30's out there. It's a fabulous race and the post race party and facilities in St. Michaels are great. I highly reocmmend it to everyone.

I can't seem to figure out the link to the results. You can get to them at CBYRA's website and clicking on "Results". Here are the A30 results.

Division: Alberg30 (4 boats) (top)

Pos	Sail	Boat	Skipper	1	Total Points	Pos
1	244	LinGin	Tim Williams	1	1.00	1
2	247	Argo	T.C. Williams	2	2.00	2
3	562	Windswept	Lanny Helms	3	3.00	3
4	197	Laughing Gull	Jonathan Adams	4	4.00	4

Notes

⁽¹⁾	Scoring System is ISAF Low Point 2005-2008

Tim

LinGin #244

WNR Race 3: 5/13/09

noreply@blogger.com (J Bergquist) — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:35:00 +0000

The evening of 5/22 brought a gusty southeasterly breeze at about 15 knots (with some puffs higher). Temperatures at WNR start time were in the 70's and the racing conditions just don't get much better than this. Unfortunately (for me), my neuroscience final exam was at 8:30 AM on 5/14 so it was not a good night for me to be out racing sailboats. In anticipation of a night spent studying, I corraled my regular crew into representing the fleet in my absence. However, after a solid day spent studying, I decided that I could afford to take a break for a couple hours and go along. However, I also decided that I would forego the driving responsibilities in the interest of getting my crew ready so that they could participate in future races in my absence. Therefore, I had Mike Meinhold take the helm and all I did was make polite suggestions to everybody from the companionway (well, that's mostly what I did anyway...)

The start was highly boat favored there were at least 2 boats who were caught barging and had to peel off. We were a bit late, but we got a decent start at the boat with clear air and I said to Mike that clean is better than on time. We tacked a bit early for the layline to the cone, but it wound up being fortuitous as we were able to watch Brian Palmer go too far on port until he ran aground at which point I politely suggested we should tack before the same thing happened to us. I was able to get 2 choice photos of Brian trying to unearth himself:
I guess they thought dropping the jib was going to help them get off more quickly?
Note to self: don't sail past the Back Creek channel. It gets mighty shallow in there...

Well fortunately we did succeed in avoiding Brian's fate, but unfortunately we were inside the starboard tack layline. No matter, we proceeded ahead and were close to Harry at the last cross. He did manage to hold us off at the mark, though, and the 2 extra tacks slowed us down as well.

We elected not to use the spinnaker on the way down due to the puffy conditions and the fact that we were making hull speed anyhow. Tim Williams did use his and clearly it worked to his advantage as he managed to pass TC who led at the first two marks to take the bullet. Harry came 3rd, we came 4th and Brian (after extricating his keel from the mud...) came 5th. I will let Tim comment on what he thought was particularly fast getting around the course, since he won the race, he clearly knows better than I do. I am sorry that I didn't get a picture of him broaching after he came around the windward mark. It was impressive...next time I will not be so slow on the shutter...

All in all, it was an agreeable night on the water, with fresh breezes, agreeable temperatures, and even a little studying squeezed in between. Thanks to my crew for driving and operating the boat so that I could study! And for those of you who are curious, I did manage to pass neuroscience. I did not achieve the 90% that Don C suggested before, but I learned a ton, and I actually really enjoyed the subject...maybe because I got to do some sailing while studying it. Maybe I'll become a neurologist...who knows?

WNR series results are online at:

http://www.race.annapolisyc.org/uploads/results/2009_Wednesday_Night_Races-2009/2009_Wednesday_Night_Races_Series_1.html

We will do it all again next week at 1835. Don't be late! (Actually, I will be out of town next week, so y'all will have to enjoy it in my absence...)

What a great crew, huh? Note the barbecue. That is the extra secret sauce on the S/V Calliope program...