Category Archives: News

Capital City Regatta, Day #2

We got off to a slow start on day two of the regatta, there was no wind
in the morning. We waited an hour or so, and the breeze filled in, so
we set sail hoping to get a few races in. RC set up a course in the
cove and we preceded to get off four races. The wind built through out
and we got a steadier breeze then yesterday.

Sam Dobbs took first place, with Ray Wulff taking second place and Calab Dorfman taking third. Thanks to everyone for coming out, we had another great regatta on the river. Links to results and pictures are below.

Results:
http://potomacriversailing.org/lasers/results/09-10/capital_city.php

Pictures:
http://potomacriversailing.org/lasers/gallery/09-10/capitalcity/index.php

Winners

Capital City Regatta, Day #1

We had a great day sailing on the Potomac River today on day one of the
Capital City Regatta. Twenty one boats came out, with a number of
people traveling from other clubs. Temps were a little chilly in the
morning, but the sun was out and it got up to 57F. Winds were up and
down, and coming from many directions. We sailed in the river down by
the power plan. RC got off six races, before we called it a day and
sailed back to the marina for BBQ and beer.

They are predicting to have more wind tomorrow, according to the
forecast 10-13MPH. Cloudy, but about the same temps. The rain is not
supposed to start until after 4pm. A few pics are posted on our web
site below:

http://potomacriversailing.org/lasers/gallery/09-10/capitalcity/index.php

Albacore Mid-Winters!!

The Albacore Mid-winter Championship was held this past week, March 19-21, in Sarasota Florida. 19 boats came to compete, with 5 teams of our own to carry the banner for PRSA: Chris Gorton/Mathew Edwards, Khin Thein/Thant Thein, Mike Heinsdorf/Matt Rhodes, Peter Duncan/Stephen Duncan, Rolf Zeisler/Daphne Byron, and Barney Harris/Lee Mullins all made the trip. Barney was the overall winner of the event with 8 points in 8 races. There was one throwout. Chris Gorton was 4th, Khin Thein was 6th, Peter Duncan 8th, Mike Heinsdorf 11th, and Rolf came in 15th. Great job guys! And special congratulations to PRSA’s very own Champ – Barney Harris!! See all the scores after the break:

Continue reading Albacore Mid-Winters!!

Dogzilla brings home the bacon!!

Well it was certainly a better race on Sunday than the first one. BMW/Oracle (AKA Dogzilla) won the start by 24 seconds, but then the two boats split tacks. Allinghi went right and B/O went left. The Swiss guessed right and a huge right shift helped them to an early lead. That lead extended to about 6oo meters, and they held on to that almost all the way to the Windward mark. B/O hung on though, and helped by a late left shift caught up at the port side layline. The two boats crossed at the layline with Allinghi in front by a couple of boat lengths. However they had to overstand the mark a bit, and then had a really slow sloppy tack which let Dogzilla squeak out in front. B/O rounded the mark 28 seconds in front of Allinghi and turned on the afterburners. They took off like a rocket and never looked back. B/O won the race by almost 6 minutes to bring the Auld Cup back to America where it belongs.

One interesting side bar: Prior to the race, Bertarelli (Allinghi’s owner) decided he did not like the conditions and ordered his RC crew to refuse to start the race. At his instruction they “went on strike”. The ISAF PRO was ready for this kind of Shenanigans and pressed one observer and a rent-a-cop into service to help him raise flags and get the race going. The PRO counted down the time manually as the Bertarelli paid RC team looked on. POOR SHOW on the Swiss! Find the full story here:

Scuttlebutt #59 Bennett Rises Above Tiff

Here is a video clip of the winners:

2010 Americas’ Cup Regatta is Over!

BMW Oracle Racing (BMO) won in two straight races — one on Wednesday, one yesterday (Sunday), in light-to-moderate winds, sailing far ahead of Alinghi in both races.   Race 2 was an equilateral triangle, 13 NM on a side, with marks rounded to starboard. Here is a link to more information, where you can see streaming video replays of the racing.   Race 2 reruns start every three hours today — at 0700; 1000; 1300; 1600; and 1900 ET.  Here is the link for the video feed.  Note the video rerun feeds are somewhat off the above schedule — at 0730 this morning for example we saw the A/P flag come down, which would be about 10 minutes before the start.   You can see BMO achieving 33 kts on the reach leg.  See boats round the gybe mark at 2:15 after the start.

Americas Cup Race #1 Aftermath

Team Allinghi is licking their wounds tonight after getting absolutely thrashed by BMW/Oracle in the first race. I was able to watch today and both boats were incredibly fast – sometimes topping out at over 26 knots of boat speed in just 8 knots of wind! It seemed to me, however, that B/O’s Wing mainsail is a technological game changer like we have not seen since the winged keel of 1983, and the race almost as lopsided as the catamaran vs. the 90′ keelboat Cup races of 1988. The B/O boat has speed and pointing ability to spare. The commentators kept saying that once the boats came around the windward mark and turned down wind that Allinghi would catch up by being able to sail deeper and faster due to its lighter weight, but it sure did not turn out that way. If anything B/O was even faster, leaving Allinghi far astern and beating them by about 2 miles and almost 15 minutes! Allinghi had better find some mojo if they hope to compete with the Americans in the next race. Here is a video short from team Allinghi talking about the days racing. Enjoy:

Blizzard of 2010 Dumps 3-foot Drifts of Snow at WSM!


Photo by Cheryl Taylor

More Photos

Per Joe Warren’s Sunday night report, the marina roads are not plowed and snow has blown into 3′ drifts in places. Many Lightings were covered in heavy, wet snow, putting stress on their covers. Skippers will want to check on their boats this week, but at the moment there is a problem entering the marina — huge piles of snow from the plowing on the GW Parkway are blocking the entrance. Here is Joe’s report:

Sunday Evening, 2/7/10:
Hello Skippers,
Doug and I did go to the marina. Nothing was plowed so we parked in the turn-in lane in front of the marina entrance. Walked through drifts that were over 3 feet in places–worthy of some pictures. The trail had become a cross-country skiing path.
Good News–none of the covers we checked were torn although several under severe stress. We cleared snow and ice off all six covers (David; Jeff; John; Laurie; Rick; Marian) and the one near John’s boat in K-20. It has a dark green hull; don’t know who owns it.

A word of warning–the entrance to marina off the parkway is closed due to a wall of snow piled up by plows. And, no plowing of the road inside the marina.

Joe Warren

We don’t yet know the impact of “Round 2” (Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday night), but it did drop another 10 inches of snow and then whirled it around in 20 MPH winds with gusts above 40. The first person to make it to the marina today — please send pictures! Per Brian Pavlik, as of Thursday morning the entrance to the marina is cleared, but there is no place to park. Plowing is scheduled for today (Friday).

2010 Hangover Regatta

We had a fabulous day of racing New Years Day! Temps were in the 40F’s and winds were around 8 to 12MPH. We had a total of 22 boats participate. Winds were coming out of the north so the RC set up a course in the cove with the start line just north of the docks. There were 6 races on an Olympic course. Erich Hesse won the day with Dave Teale taking second and Robert Bennett taking third place. Big thanks to our great RC, Mike Heinsdorf, Tom Berlin, Barney Harris, Lee Sayasithsena and Latte. They did a great job and kept the course square all day. Jeff got some pretty cool video, check it out below. Results and pictures are on the Laser site here:


Hangover Results

Hangover Pictures

Foiled By The Snow….

What a perfect day for a sail… Sun shining, not a cloud in the sky, winds 12-16MPH… Sure the air temp is 33F and water temp not much higher, and there is 2 feet of snow on the ground, but come on! Only Cary and myself made it to the marina this morning. When I got there Cary managed to get stuck in the snow, he quickly got himself out and a snow plow appeared behind us. He plowed the entrance to Dangerfield Island and the parking lot of the restaurant. The marina gate was down and padlocked, so we couldn’t get in. Oh well… We’re off next Sunday for the holidays. Be sure to come out Friday Jan 1st for the Hangover Regatta, that is always a fun one.

Pictures after the break:

Continue reading Foiled By The Snow….