Our Laser frostbite season has started! We race on Sundays on the Potomac River from November 18 to March 24, and we wrap up our season with the Capital City Regatta on March 30-31. Skippers meeting is at 12PM with the first start at 12:30PM. No races are started after 3:30PM. Come out and join us!
While the fleet welcomes out-of-town guests, we ask in-town skippers to join PRSA (see the membership application). Contact Laser Fleet Captain Tom Hutton with questions.
The 2018 PRSA Calendar is now available for order! Use this link – http://www.calendarlink.org/prsa/home.html – to preview the calendar and order your very own. Congratulations to Lindsay Bach for snapping the winning cover photo!
Below are the preliminary (in case I’ve made mistakes) cumulative results for the 2017 Fall Series scored according to the NOR. Think of each day as a race with your standing at the end of the day as your finish in the race. If you did race committee that day, your score is the average of all the days you did sail. If you neither sailed nor did RC, your score is simply a blank. To qualify you need to have sailed or done race committee 4 days (50% of days your fleet sailed). Your score is the average of your best 4 days.
A big thanks to Tom Hutton for doing the Sundays scores.
2017 Fall Series – Albacores
2017 Fall Series – Buccaneers
2017 Fall Series – I20
2017 Fall Series – Lightnings
2017 Fall Series – Multi-Hull
Brrr… It was a chilly day. It did not get out of the 40s. AND the sun was not out. Still, there was a nice light breeze, and it was the last chance to sail until April, so we went sailing.
The tide was coming in and that light southerly breeze was very shifty but quite sailable. By the third race, the wind almost completely shut down and the RC mercifully shortened course at the 2nd windward mark.
Doing well was all about keeping the boat in the groove, not get too excited about tacking on every shift, and making smooth transitions at the marks On Shadowfax, I helmed the first race and Lisa-Marie Lane did the next two. She did just what I mentioned above and got two bullets! Great way to end the season.
A big thanks to Jeff Whitten, Bob Harford, Geoff Fuller, and Jim Lane for running the races. Thanks to Tom Hutton for doing the scores.
2017-Fall-8-Buccaneer
2017-Fall-8-I-20
2017-Fall-8-Lightning
2017-Fall-8-Multi-Hull
Frank Gallagher and his team of multi-hull sailors — Ben Arthur, Yates Dowell, and Jim Antonovich ran the races. The tide was in. So to save the sailors from going all the way up river, the RC ran the races off of the power plant.
Does someone who was there want to add some comments?
2017-Fall-7-Albacore
2017-Fall-7-Buccaneer
2017-Fall-7-Lightning
This past Sunday felt more like a professional training venue than a local club’s series. After a beautiful sunny and moderately breezy Saturday, I suspect Sunday’s forecast of rain and either too little or too much wind kept many sailors away. In reality, we experienced little to no rain while racing, enough wind for three competitive races, and began to receive the predicted gusts for the sail home.
The three lone participants (Farley, Barney, and myself) received unwavering attention from our two support boats. An active RC squared the course, captured action shots, and even fed us beer bread! I can’t thank RC enough for holding a great day of racing. Competitors saw both triangle and olympic courses, which offered a welcome relief from a constant dead downwind wing-on-wing leeward leg.
With just three boats, I focused on being on the line (or as near to it as I often dare – still working on that) and optimizing boat speed, while Marisa performed excellent compass work. We seemed to have just as good or better boatspeed and so I really worked at pointing higher than surrounding boats until I felt us start to slow down. Several of our passing maneuvers resulted from pure boat speed, while others from sailing in the lifts. All in all, it was a joy to be in our new boat Mega Woof and race against some stiff competition.
Our annual general meeting is coming up in a few short weeks, Saturday November 18th. This year we will be holding our meeting in a new location, we have reserved the tasting room at New District Brewing Company, 2709 S Oakland St, Arlington, VA 22206. As usual, happy hour begins at 6:00.* Please RSVP here no later than COB on Thursday, 16 November, to ensure that we have the proper amount of food for the AGM!
At the 2016 PRSA Annual Meeting, the membership adopted a motion which directed a team of members to revise the PRSA Constitution and Bylaws and present revised governing documents to the membership at the 2017 PRSA Annual Meeting. As a result of the revision committee’s work the PRSA Constitution and PRSA Bylaws have been consolidated into one document. The proposed PRSA Bylaws revision will be presented for consideration and voted on at the PRSA Annual Banquet and Meeting on Saturday, November 18, 2017. The Proposed Bylaws can be reviewed here.
Please take some time over the next few weeks to review the proposed changes. If you have questions, Jeff Neurauter and/or Adam Rosen will be happy to answer questions prior to and at the AGM.
The air was light to non-existent. John Van Voorhis, our PRO for the day, postponed on shore. After a while though the sailors got restless and with the promise that the wind would come in around 1 pm decided to make an attempt to sail up river.
I thought those sailors were far too optimistic but Jess, Tom, and I decided to go up to Gravelly Point with Shadowfax in tow and see if the wind would come in. After sitting on the shore for quite a while, with planes landing over our head, we finally saw the first boat appear around the point. Then we saw that there was indeed some wind coming up the river from the south.
We got to work setting up Shadowfax and sailed south to where John had set up the course. We arrived in the starting area just as the first race was finishing up. Better late than never.
Unfortunately, I discovered I had left our spinnaker at home. Argh. We did well upwind but then had to point straight downwind sailing wing and wing with our weight all the way forward. Meanwhile the other sailors set their spinnakers but had the problem of to trying to keep them full which was no easy task in the light air. Jeff Neurauter and Heather Howard on their Bucc figured it out and sailed past us. However, we were able to keep the others just behind us at the leeward mark.
Bottom line, the wind was sufficient and it was a fun day of sailing! Never say die.
2017-Fall-5-Albacore
2017-Fall-5-Buccaneer
2017-Fall-5-I-20
2017-Fall-5-Lightning
We held the Fall PRSA Dinghy Open on Sunday, 15 October. With 7 Lightnings, 2 Buccaneers, 2 Albacores, and 1 WETA we had a nice mix of classes on the course. PRO Bob Bear and his RC Crew did a nice job in setting up 4 fantastic races (an O2 and 3 O3 races) in a steady S/SW 10-15 knot breeze. It was a fantastic chance for all of us in various classes to square up against one another on one start line and on the same course!
Instead of presenting a writeup from just one person, I’ve asked all of the skippers and crews to send in a line or two describing what they saw on the course, what they were thinking about, or what they learned. I’ve started the thread with the first few contributions here. Please feel free to add your own thoughts as comments, or email them to Aaron to have them added to the main post. Scores are posted here, but keep reading for some of the fun details and observations from the weekend!
From Nic and Connor on their Buc: Connor and I, after getting in the mixing bowl with everyone else for the start of Race 1, decided, for races 2 and 3, to hang 10-20 yards below the starting line, going across on starboard from midway of the line at about the 1 minute horn. Then we slowly headed up with the goal of starting right at the pin at full speed. And it worked! We were leeward to everyone as we got to the line and so had a great position and got 2 really good, fast and clear starts (before our jib issues half way through race 3 led to us going in). Also, at BNAC we learned how to use the spinnaker pole to wing out our jib on the downwind legs when wind speeds made us a little nervous to fly the spinnaker. Winging it out lets you sail right at the mark and to take advantage of any surfing possibilities that come up when you’re going directly with the waves . I think that we were as fast, maybe ever faster, to the mark (VMG) as most boats around us. We put the pole on the jib sheet and then lower the pole to stretch out the jib to expose as much surface area as possible.
From Aaron, sailing with Dana and Blake on Aaron’s Lightning: from the beginning we thought that the right side of the course would be favored (having observed some wind shifts at the line and the puffs along the airport shore). Contrary to Nic’s strategy described above, we made a point of fighting for a boat-end start for each race. It paid off for us — we were either off the line and leading early, or we had the room to tack right and then tack back to go south. We gained each time we went right, though we had to be careful. There was a nice righty (lift on starboard tack) as you approached the windward mark each time. At the same time, you could make nice gains by staying middle or a bit left after rounding the leeward mark. It was most important to get right in the upper 1/2 to 1/3 of the windward leg. Beyond that, we focused on boat balance. Sailing a Lightning flat (windward chine just barely out of the water) is very, very important. When we did this well we could point 3-5 degrees higher than our competition and still keep our speed. Doing this off of the start allowed us to hold lanes against Albacores and Bucs, and to pinch off boats to windward. Flat is fast!!!
The weather forecasts threatened rain and maybe even thunderstorms and the sky was gray. But guess what? No rain and the best breeze we’ve had all fall! It was a small group of 5 Lightning and 2 Buccs at the Albacores were at West River for their Nationals and neither the I-20s or Multi-Hulls were there. You guys missed out!
The RC gave us four W-2 courses set up on a southwesterly axis.
Jeff Neurauter, Heather Howard, Ben Arthur, and Ann Tyree ran race committee. Tom Hutton did the scores. Thanks!
