All posts by Nabeel

Lightning & Laser sailor/racer.
News

2024 Fall Series #4 Oct 6

With nothing but glass as far as the eye could see, Dana Howe (PRO) postponed for an hour at the dock. At noon he sent the mark boat out to look at the ripples starting to appear to the south. It was still glassy looking north. The sea breeze kicked in, boats put in, and a building southerly carried the fleet up to the race area. At 1315 boats were racing in winds steady from the south at 10 in “it don’t get any better than this” conditions. ”

Many thanks to Gonzalo helping Dana on the signal boat and to Justin and Nic for spectacular mark-boating and boat towing!  Nic also took some great photos–thank you!

Albacore-FS4

I20-FS4

Lightning-FS4

Albacores, Lasers, Fall Series, Lightnings, Results

2024 Fall Series #2 Sept 15

Nabeel Alsalam, Mark Rickling, Natalie Rehberger, and Jon ran the races.  (Lindsay Bach got a pass when RC decided to take only one boat out due to lack of motor peeing.)  The wind was east-northeast which is a challenge on the river.  So they set up the windward mark at the mouth of the Anacostia and a gybe mark half the distance to Roaches run.  The wind took big shifts left and right.

Nevertheless, it was a great day to be on the water and the sailors got five O-2 races (triangle, windward-leeward).  The Lightnings had a hard carrying their spinnaker on the reaching legs depending on the phase of the wind but the Albacores got in some reaching fun.

Albacore-FS2

Laser-FS2

Lightning-FS2

Albacores, Lasers, Fall Series, Buccaneers, Inland-20s, Lightnings, News, Results

2024 Fall Series #1 – Sept 8

Mike Heinsdorf, Dave Huber, Tim Dickson, and John Van Voorhis ran the races.

11 Albacores, 1 Buccaneer, 3 I-20s, 2 Lasers, and 4 Lightnings competed.  All 5 fleets were able to compete in the first 3 races, after we started the 4th race for the Albacores the wind died so we opted to send the rest of the fleets home.  The early high winds were a bit too much for the I-20s.

The first 2 races were W2, the last 2 races were W1.

Albacore-FS1

Buccaneer-FS1

I20-FS1

Laser-FS1

Lightning-FS1

Lightnings, News, Results

2024 Lightning Dixie District Championships & 38th Annual Potomac Cup Regatta

This double-header regatta was held at Leesylvania State Park on June 29 and 30 where the Potomac is 2.5 miles wide!

Six races were scheduled and completed in solid 10-15 mph breezes.  Well, it went light in one race which challenged the sailors as the boats had to choose the best VMG angles downwind.

Trevor Prior and team from the Susquehanna Yacht Club won.   PRSA’s own Aaron Boesenecker with Rick Welch and Lisbet Kugler were second.  Joe Buczkowski and team were third.

PRO Nelson Pemberton, mark boat captain, Barney Harris,  and team set up the courses and ran the races.  Dan Trammel, our judge, ran a redress hearing and provided anyone who asked with help interpreting the rules, Thank you!

Red Fehrle and Suzanne Humphrey prepared a steak and salmon dinner for us while we were out racing.  Lindsay Bach, Sheila Campbell, Maryann Gallagher, Christy Chen and many others brought sides to complement the main course.  Frank Gallagher and Pam Maple brought breakfast to get the sailors going.

Jim Dillard was one of the forces behind the creation of Leesylvania State Park back in the 1970s. And he made sure it was sailboat friendly with two cranes for launching out boats.  It is now the home of a sailing school.    Jim was there competing at age 90 in the latest of his series of green Lightnings with his son-in-law Justin and daughter Christy as crew.

Yuengling was again the sponsor of our regatta and we appreciate that continued support.

Results:

2024-Dixie-Districts-Days 1 & 2

Fleet50, Lightnings

Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup

The Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup Regatta is Lightning Fleet 50’s annual invitational regatta.  It has been held annually since 1974 except for 2020.  It is held at Leesylvania State Park about 20 miles south of the Washington Sailing Marina on the Potomac River.  There the Potomac is 2.5 miles wide.

To learn about and register for this year’s regatta please visit this page.

Past Results:

2024-Dixie Districts and Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup

2023 Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup

2022 Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup

2021 Doc Fauci Regatta

2019 Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup

2018 Dixie Districts and Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup

2017 Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup

2016 Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup

 

Spring Series, Albacores, Buccaneers, Inland-20s, Fleets, Lightnings, Spring Series, Results

2024 PRSA Spring Series #7, #8, and Whole Series

Dane Pederson and team ran Spring Series #7.

John Van Voorhis and team ran Spring Series #8.  A front came through and we had a westerly with strong gust from the northwest and a strong current running out.  A line of thunderstorms caused the RC to send us home after two races.  The storms broke up but its better to be safe rather than sorry.

Key Rules for Scoring the Series:

  • For the series total, I asked the program to exclude each sailor’s worst 50% of races — if there were 13 races, 6 were excluded.
  • If you registered on shore but did not start a race you should get the number of finishers + 2.
  • If you started a race but did not finish you should get the number of finishers + 1.
  • If you did not sign up on shore and did not race, you get the number registered in the series + 1.

Spring Series #7 (June 2) 

2024-SS7-Albacore

2024-SS7-Buccaneer

2024-SS7-I20

2024-SS7-Laser

2024-SS7-Lightning

Spring Series #8 (June 9)

2024-SS8-Albacore

2024-SS8-I20

2024-SS8-Lightning

Spring Series Total

2024-SS-Albacore

2024-SS-Buccaneer

2024-SS-I20

2024-SS-Lightning

Spring Series Total (Fixed)

(DNS = Number came + 2, DNF = number came + 1)

2024-SS-Albacore-F

2024-SS-Buccaneer-F

2024-SS-I20-F

2024-SS-Laser-F

2024-SS-Lightning-F

Albacores, Buccaneers, Inland-20s, Flying Scots, Results

2024 PRSA Spring Regatta – Final Results

Spring Regatta racers had a great two days on the water!  Yesterday winds ranged from 10-15mph and were ideal Potomac conditions for five races.  Albacores, however, earned the eye flag for their starts after two general recalls to start the day – currents pushed many boats across the line and were strong both days.  Today we fit in one race before winds emptied to then fill in from the South after we got off the water.  There was a lot of paddling and taking advantage of the airplane wash to get back to shore.

Albacore-final

Buccaneer-final

Flying Scot-final

I-20-final

Lightnings, News

2024 Spring Series #4

Just not the right day for sailing today. Rain, current, debris, and very light wind caused us to cancel all the racing today.

And even after the rain pretty much stopped we wouldn’t have been able to sail as the wind dropped from light to nothing.

But Piercarlo, Dane, and John had their boats ready to go. Nabeel & Frank were there as well working on revitalizing the Fleet 50 website. And Aaron was there to sail w’ Piercarlo & Lisbet

I had RC.

We are kind of having a bad run of weather this spring. This was the 4th Sunday, half way through the Spring Series and so far we have only completed 5 races. The good news here is those who have yet to come out aren’t behind in the series. See everyone next Sunday!

Bobby Astrove