All posts by Farley Will

Frostbite Series, News, Results, 2015

2015/2016 Laser Frostbite Series #1

As is our custom, the third place finisher on the day (me, in this case) provides a summary of the day and hints on how they were successful. Here is mine for Sunday:
It was definitely a wild start to the season with winds from the NNW in the 15-20 mph range with gusts into the 20s. We got off three races on an olympic course with 16 sailors racing, dwindling to 10 last race finishers.
Congrats to Young Guns, Adam and Jamie, who beat last year’s champion (me), Not-So-Young-Gun (Len) and everyone else!
A few things that I was foccusing on:
  • I started at the the pin end of the line, since it was favored in all races and was not crowded
  • Upwind:
    • I set up the sail with max. outhaul and cunningham in order to de-power the sail
    • I also used a lot of vang (bent boom) in order to allow me to ease the main if necc. while keeping the sail flat
  • Reaching and Downwind:
    • I eased the vang and cunningham and made sure the boat was flat before trying to round the windward mark and to make sure the the end of the boom didn’t dip into the water
    • I worked on keeping my weight back to plane and keeping my weight over my feet to make quick corrections to avert disaster
Many thanks to the race committee (Jim Klein and Richard Kaiser) for running the races and checking on struggling sailors!
Eric
Fall Series, News, Results, 2015

2015 Fall Series #8

Today was a gorgeous day for the last day of the season.  We had a nice southerly ranging from 8-12.  The breeze was relatively steady.  We were able to get off 4 races each around 40 min log.

2015 Fall Series 8 – Albacores

2015 Fall Series 8 – Buccaneers

2015 Fall Series 8 – I20s

2015 Fall Series 8 – Lightnings

2015 Fall Series 8 – Multihulls

Fall Series, News, Results, 2015

2015 Fall Series #7

Sunday was a tough day sailing.  The sail out to the course was nice with the exception of the super low tide.  Just prior to the first race starting, the wind shut off and gave a drifting race where we sailed the various wind lines that would come through the course.  After the first race, we drifted for a bit and it looked like the wind was going to fill in.  The wind only held for the first leg of the race.  Then it was a battle of finding the micro puffs that could not be seen on the water and fighting the incoming tide.  It was probably the most tidal current going up the river I have seen.  Thanks to Jeff for managing to get off 2 races.

2015 Fall Series 7 – Albacores

2015 Fall Series 7 – Lightnings

2015 Fall Series 7 – Multihulls

Fall Series, Results, 2015

2015 Fall Series #5

Today was an interesting day on the water.  The first race was light air out of the west and the breeze ended up doing a 180 in the last bit of the race providing an additional windward rounding for us.  After drifting for a bit, the wind finally filled in with 5-10 from the north.  We were able to get 2/3 more races off for the classes.  These were quite nice.  And the wind picked up even more to about 15 on the sail home providing some fun planing conditions!

A brief thought on the sailing today was that the races were about 30 minutes long and in my opinion that makes having a good start worth about 30% of the race (which leads to being able to do what you want on the first upwind leg).  The starts today all had a pin favor that I believe proved to provide a good head start in all my races.

Kudos goes out to Frank and his team on RC for getting off races with the tricky conditions at the beginning of the day!

Farley

2015 Fall Series 5 – Albacores

2015 Fall Series 5 – Buccaneers

2015 Fall Series 5 – Lightnings

2015 Fall Series 5 – Multihulls

Spring Series, Results, 2015

2015 Spring Series #6 on May 30

We had a beautiful day on the river with a 10-12 kt. southerly blowing steadily all day long.  Will Phillippe and his RC crew set a nice long racecourse and gave the various classes a mixture of “T” and “W” courses.  The great breeze meant that we finished 4 races in no time and I think most sailors were happy to head to shore to relax, stretch out, and enjoy a beverage with some BBQ after a great (but exhausting) day of sailing.

2015 Spring Series 6 – Buccaneers

2015 Spring Series 6 – Lightnings

2015 Spring Series 6 – Multihulls

May 31 Wind Observations