June Series 1 - A Tough Evening

I don't mean that the winds were challenging, although they were. While we were racing I saw some ambulances and emergency vehicles on shore. I had assumed someone at the turtle club or the marina next door there had a medical problem. We come back on shore, ahead of some lightning, and de-rig as quickly as possible. I got to the club for the awards, and heard it was a J/24 sailor who apparently had a heart attack and fell overboard. No word on his condition, The PRO announced we should keep him and his family in our thoughts and prayers. He did not sound at all hopeful, and was a bit emotional about it. A tough night on the lake.

Arlington Yacht Club Regatta race #2 mark rounding

This video shows a mark rounding incident that happened at the AYC regatta. I got pinched out at a leeward mark, tacked, rounded the mark, gybed and came up on the wind.

Arlington Yacht Club Video - Race 1 Start

Producing this has taken me a lot of work, and it's not that great except for the fact it catches the RC prep flag going down, the start horn, and A.K.'s boat can be seen to leeward of us for good amount of time, then he tacks away, and passes under our stern.

For reference, here's the GPS track of the race. This video is the last part of the magenta track and the first part of the red track near the top of the image.

Arlington Yacht Club Regatta- part II

Sunday at AYC showed the storms of Saturday had passed and we began racing on time.

At the start we had a close fleet. I was behind A.K. on Starboard tack with M.L. behind me and to leeward. I forget the details, but at some point during this time, I dove below A.K.'s transom, and M.L. was coming up. I heard him warning me, but I knew I had room and I made it through the opening between them, and started to luff A.K. Then I lost my nerve and stopped, focusing on getting speed up. In retrospect, I should have luffed him up over the line because I could have used that time.
At the leeward mark, I chose the right hand gate. A.K. was ahead, and took the left, as did M.L. I rounded the mark and realized I had not been watching for downwind boats, specifically Catalina-22's. I rounded on Starboard and came up against a boat. I hailed I was coming up, got a response that they couldn’t; there was another boat above them. For a second I was nonplussed and then I spoke my mind - "Well, make them go up!" He began talking to them, but by this time I realized it was too late. I bore away and gybed onto port, and came up close-hauled, below the gate mark. No justice here.
We tacked away and came back up on Starboard and continued to race. I could have protested, but to what end? No way to prove what I really lost, and having them DSQ'd wouldn't help me. (It's sort of the same way I feel about raising someone else's taxes; it does me no good.)

So, we worked our way up the course, managed to pass ML to get into 2nd and barely held him off for a downwind finish.

At this point we were in Second, but if we could beat A.K. we had a chance for first, but it was not to be. The third race turned out to be uneventful. We had a reasonable start, but we made some bad choices. And this time, M.L. caught us going downwind. I gybed at a bad time, and he got by.

Such was our fortune. Some really close races, a lot of fun, and some interesting times.

I have spent some time working on the video recorded on the first day. There's some interesting stuff. I will post it but not today.

May Series #1

Winds were not so strong tonight, I estimate 10-12, lulls into the single digits. Temperatures were arms in the 80's, a little warm going downwind.
Winds south by east, to south. Course was a trapezoid, rounding the offset weather mark four times, then reaching to the finish.

Placed the new boat cam on top of the starboard spreader looking aft, with the cable running down the mast to the deck then across the starboard cuddy to the underside where the pelican box was stowed. Taped cable down at foot intervals using electrical tape. I must remember to bring something to remove the residue.

Problem with this set up was the main often blocked the view. I have not yet looked at the video, but I'm certain it's going to be of limited value.

At the start, we came in on starboard. I dug down low to get under JW who was coming along on port. He tacked around and I did not come up hard as I should have and he got above me. Need to be more aggressive at the line, especially when there is no one below.
RC set a longer W-L offset leg which was good, the shorter ones made for a lot of quick work. Good practice in setting, dousing and gybing, but not much time to use the spin.

Repair items: Cable for trailer lighting is faulty, believe the problem is at the cable junction near truck jack. Will need to repair using either solder and shrink tubing or some sort of connector.

April Series #4 Videos

Video of our first tack

The Starting Sequence

First Mark rounding and spinnaker set

Arlington Yacht Club Regatta- part I

Once again, we traveled to Arlington Yacht Club for their annual regatta. Once again it was a great time.
We arrived about 2 minutes after the GPS predicted we would, at 6:04pm.
Did the usual Friday night arrival ritual - say hi, park the boat, disconnect the truck, move it out of the way, get a beer, chat, register, have a beer, rig the boat, have a beer, relax, have a beer, snacks, head to hotel.

The next morning, we got to the club, got breakfast, finished rigging the boat, went to the competitor's meeting. Our first race got kicked off about 11:26am.
Winds were out of the south at 10-15. course was two windwards, two leewards, with a gate and offset mark.

I don't remember much about this race, but we were a close fleet and we were in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places during the course of the race. At the end of the race, however, we ended up 2nd.

The second race, was more eventful. Coming to the first leeward mark rounding we were close to A.K. we entered the three boat length mark and established an overlap to his port side. He called we had no room to round, and I hoped that he would sail to his mark so I could just follow. He was sailing above the mark. I replied that was true, but he needed to sail to his mark. Not out of any rules, just because it was not profitable to miss the mark when you are ahead, and I didn't want him to make me miss the mark any more than I was going to. He headed up, and I knew we wouldn't be able to follow behind. I luffed up to port, tacked, bore off and rounded the mark. As we came up to closehauled, I saw that AK had dropped his spinnaker sheet over his bow, and was not moving very fast. We were able to pass him during that incident, only becasue(as he admitted later) he got preoccupiedwith fxing sometihng that could have waited. We held on to first place for the rest of that race.

We headed into the club for lunch and learned that some strong T-storms were coming. We pulled the boats, and got them ready for heavy weather.
The storm arrived justafter we finished putting the boats away. A white squall coame across the lake, drenching everything and blowing 60kt winds. We watched it from the safety of the clubhouse and spent the rest of the evening socializing.

More on Sunday's races tomorrow.

April Series #4 -rough video

This is the first time I've used a small video camera system I put together on Surprise. Editing it and getting something worthwhile will be a lot of work, so this is just a little clip from when we left the dock. More later, and I hope in the coming weeks I'll get better at placing the camera so that it shows more interesting things.
Note the time stamp on the video is one day off.

April Series #4 track

Here's the track logs for the race last night. For some reason, the GPS stopped recording during the last upwind leg. This has never happened before, I could not find any reason that this would happen. Hoping it doesn't happen again.
(click for a larger image.)

April Series #4 - At last!

I finally made it out on the water yesterday, Winds 10-15kt, gusting 20. Got on plane a couple of times with the spinnaker.
The fleet was two DS's in the Portsmouth fleet, several Lasers, a 420 and a 470. Started with the Vanguard-15 fleet, I counted 4-5.
Was buried at the start, but managed to stay up with the Vanguards and ahead of the Lasers for a good part of the race.
Course was a trapezoid, S-W-R-L-W-L-W-L-W-R-F. The offset course we sailed was short so it was a good exercise for us to set and douse the spin. Both Joe and I were rusty but it flaked off quickly.

GPS plot and a new feature coming hopefully soon - tonight, I hope!