Please join us this Wednesday evening, April 5th, to hear NOAA meteorologist Bryan Jackson discuss how NOAA develops marine weather forecasts, and how you can best access this information.
We will be meeting at Heavy Seas Alehouse in Arlington, 1501 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA. Come straight back to the party room.
Socializing starts at 6:00 pm, Seminar begins at 7:00 pm.
We hope to see you there!!
Join us this weekend on the first day of 2017 for PRSA’s Annual Hangover Regatta. There’s no better way to nurse a hangover than by celebrating with the PRSA Laser fleet and racing with us on the Potomac River. Skippers meeting will be at 12:00, first races at 12:30.
We had over 50 people attend the 2016 PRSA Annual General Meeting and Awards Ceremony, making it one of the best attended in recent years! I want to extend a very special thank you to Melissa Morgan and Heather Howard for all of their work in planning the AGM, organizing the food and drink, decorating the room, and generally ensuring good cheer such that a great time was had by all.
The PRSA Executive Committee was pleased to highlight our growth over the year, including a 5th consecutive year of membership growth and the highest total membership level (118 members) that we have seen since 2005! We were also pleased to recognize Aaron Boesenecker, Frank Gallagher, and Will Phillippe with PRSA perpetual awards awards. You can keep reading for additional details and links to the relevant documents, including the AGM Agenda, the list of PRSA Spring and Fall Series winners, details on the perpetual award winners, and your 2017 PRSA Executive Committee.
At the AGM each officer from the PRSA Executive Committee provided an update on the state of the association. The membership approved the creation of a committee to review the PRSA Constitution and bring a revised Constitution to the membership for approval at the 2017 AGM. We also celebrated the PRSA Spring Series and Fall Series winners in each class and awarded the PRSA Perpetual Awards to members who have contributed outstanding Service over the year. Finally, we approved a new PRSA Executive Committee for 2016.
PRSA Perpetual Award Winners
2017 PRSA Executive Committee
Finally a big thank you to our officers who served PRSA in 2016. Here’s looking forward to an excellent 2017!
Now is the time to pay your PRSA dues for 2017! The 2017 membership year starts on December 1, and you have until January 15, 2017 to pay your dues without late fee. Members paying on or after January 15, 2017, will be assessed a late fee of $25. After you fill out the membership form you will be offered the option of paying via PayPal or sending a check to our PRSA Treasurer.
Please remember that having our association members pay dues up front each year is of immense help to all of our PRSA volunteers. We can better allocate expenditures over the year, organize RC requirements, set up scoring systems in advance, and more. Your PRSA dues support boat and equipment maintenance, insurance, slip fees, and everything else that goes into allowing us to race each weekend. Of course, skippers must be paid PRSA members in order to qualify for the Laser Frostbite Series and the Spring and Fall racing series, and to be eligible to vote at the PRSA AGM.
As you pay your dues I would also encourage you to support the PRSA Commodore’s Club (a donation can be added to your 2017 membership payment). Whether big or small, any additional donation is a great help as we work on maintaining our equipment and conducting safe and fun racing each year. Many thanks, as well, to all of those who contributed to the PRSA Commodore’s Club in 2016: http://www.potomacriversailing.org/applications/membership/CommodoreClub.php.
I’m already looking forward to the 2017 sailing season, and I hope that you are as well!
We had a great day for racing this past Sunday! Six Lightnings, two Bucs, two Albacores, and an I-20 came out to play on a sunny day that featured some great, albeit shifty, breeze. PRO Farley Will and his crew did a great job managing a “wacky west wind” in setting a course that gave us a mix of O2, T2, T3, and O3 courses. The wind reports from National Airport show a breeze of 12-15 throughout the afternoon with the occasional gust in the 20s.
On board Beedobeat I was shorthanded, sailing with Piercarlo but no third. Given some of the tight reach angles (and a short-ish downwind leg due to the wind direction) we didn’t fly the spinnaker at all, but we were still right in the mix with the rest of the Lightnings, winning a few races and enjoying some great planing rides on the reach legs under jib and main alone (though we did have to work our butts off to keep the boat flat going upwind in some of te puffs!). Some of the Lightnings and Bucs did get their spins up, which mattered more on the Olympic courses with true downwind legs, I think. It wasn’t a guarantee, though, as I saw some boats struggle with controlling spinnakers in the puffs and shifts. The wind was not that crazy, though, and after 5 great races we headed back to shore for a BBQ under a wonderfully sunny (and warm!) fall sky.
Scores will be posted soon, and I think we will also have some great photos taken from the RC boats to post as well. Stay tuned!
The 2016 PRSA Annual General Meeting and Awards Banquet will be held on Saturday, November 19, 6-9 pm, in the community room at Marina Towers in Alexandria, VA. Dinner & drinks will cost $25/person / $10/person for those under 21 (pay at the door with check or cash). This is always a great chance to see everybody and reminisce about another year of great sailing, so I hope to see you there! Please sign up here as soon as possible so that our volunteers can plan for the appropriate amount of food and drink.
Here is the basic schedule of events:
A full agenda of the evening can be viewed here.
We had a great turnout this past Sunday with about 20 boats in a number of classes (Albacores, Buccaneers, Force 5, Lasers, Lightnings, Multihulls, and Sunfish) racing in the 3rd Annual PRSA Dinghy Open. The weather conditions were fantastic with a nice southerly blowing at about 8-12 knots the whole day. PRO Bob Bear and his crew did a great job in getting us 5 fun races (all O2 or O3 courses) and we still had enough time for a wonderful BBQ in summer-like conditions after the racing. Full scores will be posted soon. In the meanwhile, here are the top 4 (the teams that earned hardware this past Sunday):
It was great fun racing against all the classes using the Portsmouth Yardstick (time/wind condition) scoring format. Starts were especially interesting as we ran one big start for all, meaning that you had to negotiate the different timing and starting strategies (and different maneuvering capabilities) of a whole variety of classes. Definitely something new and different for us, but worth doing once or twice a year to shake things up and have some fun!
With over 50 boats, over 125 sailors, and 2 days of great racing on both courses the 2016 President’s Cup Regatta was a fantastic success. Results are posted here and here are the links to the amazing photos that Lindsay Bach took on both days:
A beautiful S/SW breeze both days meant that most classes got 7 races over the weekend and the Laser class ended up completing 12 races! A huge thank you to all who helped to make the 2016 regatta such a great success, including PRO Frank Gallagher and his RC crew, Heather Howard and Melissa Morgan for organizing a great BBQ, Nabeel Alsalam for scoring, Lindsay Bach for taking photos while on the RC, Lisa-Marie Lane for managing merchandise sales and check-in, DC Sail for their partnership in organizing the spectator cruise aboard the American Spirit, and all the other individuals who pitched in along the way. Dan Dunham also did a great job in getting us some local press coverage on the regatta!
Here is a writeup from Nabeel, on RC, about the 2nd PRSA Distance Race, held on Sunday, August 21:
The sky was partly cloudy and the breeze was a gorgeous 13 mph or so from the south. The weather reports predicted a storm from coming through at about 2 or 3 pm, so we started the races a bit early (11:11 am) and chose a course of a moderate length.
Four boats competed in the re-instituted distance race. They started off of the green can (G7A) east and south of the marina and raced around red nun just north of the bridge (N2), back up to the bifurcation buoy that marks where the channel splits between the Anacostia and the Potomac and back to the start — about 9 nautical miles.
The elapsed times were:
Chris Porter was out on his Buccaneer but did not race because he did not have a crew. John Ely was out on his Hobie-16 but did not race because his old boat has a bent mast and can’t point. A sailor on a Laser (178xxx) was also out their having fun. Stew Harris was on land working on yet another resurrected I-20. Will Phillippe was also there working on both of our Skiffs.
The RC was staffed by Frank Gallagher, John Kirchner, Chessie the sea monster (see pictures), and myself. Thanks to John for his pics and to Barney for the pre-race pic!
