Nabeel & team of Aaron Boesenecker, John Van Voorhis, and Cathy Clarke were ready but the wind wasn’t there. At 10 there was about 2 or 3 knots of winds. The tide was ebbing reinforcing the river current which would have made it difficult to sail up current. So Nabeel postponed on shore for an hour. Around 11 Aaron & John went out to the river–the wind near the launch area can be more than out on the river due to a near shore thermal. They found even less wind and then it shut down. Racing was cancelled for the day.
Category Archives: News
2025 May 4 Spring Series
Stew Harris and Laura Albert ran the races from the line boat.
It was a breezy day but not too breezy. The Albacores were in Annapolis doing the Helly Hansen regatta.
2025 April 27 Spring Series
Lloyd Leonard and his team were ready, but there was too much wind–Barney wasn’t there. We decided not to sail.
2025 Spring Series – April 6
Frank Gallagher and John Van Voorhis ran the signal boat. Dana Howe and Natalie Rehberger ran the mark boat. It was a windy start to the sailing season.
2024-2025 ILCA Frostbite #16
Sunday was an awesome day for sailing! Huge thanks to the RC for putting on six fantastic races. The breeze was shifty, ranging from 10-17 knots, with a few gusts creeping into the low 20s—right on the edge of my threshold for switching to the radial. At 15+ knots, I feel like I gain more by keeping the boat flat and pointing higher with the radial than I lose in sail area.
Starts:
The boat end was favored, and at times, it almost felt like you could lay the mark straight from the boat. (Well, except for that one start where tacking immediately was the only way to cross the starting line!) My plan was to start near the boat but not necessarily fight to win it, and I noticed many others had the same idea.
One thing that stood out was late acceleration. A lot of boats were setting up too close to the line without putting their bow down early enough. If you don’t accelerate in those last few seconds, it doesn’t matter how good your position is—you’ll just get rolled. Hitting full speed at the gun is something I’ve been working on this season, and it definitely makes a difference in these short races.
First Beat:
With shifty conditions, I noticed a lot of sailors staying on the headed tack longer than they should. I often found myself pinned by boats that weren’t tacking on the shifts. To stay flexible, I tried to work the middle of the course, looking for opportunities to take advantage of the shifts.
Downwind:
I’ll be the first to admit—I’m not the fastest downwind. Rounding the windward mark a couple of boat lengths behind Steen, I’d watch him pull ahead by 8+ lengths by the time we were ¾ of the way down. But hey, I stayed upright, which is definitely faster than the alternative!
One thing that helped me stay in control was my vang setup. My boat is rigged so there’s just enough play in the vang to clip it to the boom, sometimes I even need to hold the boom down to clip it in. The setup limits how high the boom can rise when the vang is fully eased. The boats that seemed out of control downwind had a lot more vang play, which was obvious from how high/twisted their booms were. I think the solution is both to sail with more vang on and to limit how much vang can be eased. I still blow the vang before the windward mark and then put a bit back on to maintain control downwind.
Leeward Mark & Second Beat:
I focused on tight mark roundings, slowing down when I was the outside boat if necessary to sail wide and tight. I didn’t see much advantage in staying on port, so I almost always tacked as soon as I could (though I mistimed one and ended up in irons at the mark—lesson learned!).
For the second beat, I tried to stay on starboard as long as possible, waiting for the shifts to sail the lifted tack up to the mark. I wasn’t pinned by other boats, as those I rounded the mark with tended to stay on port. That gave me the freedom to tack and focus on easing, hiking, and trimming my way to the mark while keeping the boat flat, which was not easy in some of the bigger gusts.
All in all, a great day on the water! Looking forward to the next one.
Tyler
2024-2025 ILCA Frostbite #5
Due to that fateful combination of blissful triumph and outright shame on the race course today, it’s City Swan here with the time-honored third place write-up.
First, a big thanks to Laura, Steen, and Romeo for running four races in another light wind day. The first two races were W1s, and the last two races were W2s. Winds were relatively steady from the NE, and ranged from 4-8mph over the day. Tide was outgoing for about half the afternoon, and started coming back in before the end of racing. These conditions were not inconsistent with what the season has delivered us so far, so sailors were prepared for battling the light breeze and current.
Each race today I staked out the boat end of the starting line, and especially in the first race when it was heavily favored. Going up wind I noticed breeze would come back from the northeast, therefore spent most of the time on the right side of the course. An exception was race three when there were glassy patches closest to the channel, and I made sure not to sail in the direction of those. In the last two races when the breeze was fuller, I was constantly deliberating whether it was advantageous to cover boats or to follow some mini-lifts and slight pressure differentials – the latter two indicators were the way to go.
Downwind – as Farley tipped me off to post-racing – was all about finding your lane, even if that wasn’t the inside. In the third race I did this successfully by gybing over to starboard despite being the most windward boat to the mark. In contrast, I did this very unsuccessfully in the last downwind leg of the final race, by gybing to port too late – and then gybing back (any gybe over one midway through a downwind leg is telltale you’re trying to get out of a predicament). A whopping six boats past me on this leg, so lesson learned! Something that may have helped during downwind legs in today’s relatively light conditions and when the tide was coming in, was raising my centerboard nearly all the way out of the water to reduce drag from the current.
The first race was hands down our most challenging, and a shout out to Connor for conquering it, Jim G. for holding his ground in second place throughout, and to Dan for capturing the coveted third spot – a lot of us were vying for that one.
A reminder that next week we skip a Sunday, but hope to see you all at the Marina’s holiday party Saturday evening. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and Happy Holidays to all!
Kaitlyn
2024-2025 ILCA Frostbite #4
Sunday was another lovely day of sailing on the Potomac. The temperatures got up into the high fifties with wind into the high teens – overall a wonderful day for a sail. I didn’t feel great about my racing today, but here are a few tips from your returning champion third-place finisher regardless.
First, I will once again advocate for standing up and scanning the course before the race. I will beat this drum until I see everyone do it before every race. In the first race, I stood up at the two-minute gun and saw the breeze was stronger on the left. Lo and behold, I started at the pin, stayed further left longer than everyone else, and was first to the top mark. I managed to hold on to my lead almost the whole way and won the race. The first leg is a) the most important leg and b) the leg you can prepare for most. Use all the tools available to you before the start.
As an addendum, check the forecasted wind and tide before you hit the course as well. The tide was coming in during that first race and we as sailors know that current is stronger in deeper water. I made good ground on downwinds in that first race by sticking left and letting the stronger current in the middle of the river push me to the mark. Farley also saw that the wind was supposed to shift left as the day went. As the day progressed, he started to take more and more advantage of those lefties. Consequently, Farley scored very well today. Preparation isn’t a guarantee of results, but it sure does help.
As I was pulling my boat out of the water, Len (who lost the honor of penning this column by beating me on tiebreaker) told me that in the lighter wind races, he was able to make ground on me because I moved my body and my boat too much going downwind. Disturbing your rudder can induce drag, which is lethal to your boatspeed. I’ll note that my two best downwinds of the day were the ones where I committed to a line early and only really made serious course adjustments when gybing to a puff. Keeping my boat more static on off-wind legs is going to be a focus for me next week.
Finally, winds on the Potomac are variable as hell in my (limited) experience. That means that no race is over, ever. I made crazy ground on boats in front of me by trying to sail to the puffs and keep my speed up on some of the screwy final legs today. There may have been a lucky shift or two as well. Never give up, folks, especially not in these races.
Thank you to race committee Jim Klein and Kevin Cowley for being good sports and resetting the course five (!!) times in four (!!!!) races this afternoon. Congrats to Farley on his victory for the day. I hope to see everyone out next Sunday.
-Connor
2024-2025 ILCA Frostbite #3
Sunday was our coldest and most prolific day of the young season. Race committee managed five races (with one shortened finish) in up-and-down wind and temperatures sitting in the low-40s. Overall, it was a pretty good day of racing. Here are a few things I noticed or focused on today.
I am relatively new to sailing on the Potomac, but it has lots of similarities to my native Deep Creek Lake. The wind was often light and the direction could change in an instant. I feel like a lot of my (modest) success today was based on skills I picked up to counter Deep Creek winds: constantly looking around, trying to find the next puff, and keeping the boat moving in the lulls. I was doing my best to stand up and survey the upwind leg during the start sequence so I had a good idea of where and when the first few puffs of the race would be. You can see the course more clearly from six feet above the water than from three. For instance, I saw the wind filling from the left at the start of race four and changed my start plan to get to that wind faster. It worked out and I was first to the weather mark.
Another thing I’ve been trying to work on is teamwork on downwinds. Sometimes it’s helpful to work with the boats in your pack to make ground on the clusters ahead of or behind you, ESPECIALLY in light air. I worked with both Lars and Kaitlyn at different points today to make sure we were communicating and staying out of each other’s air. You can always fight your battles at the mark and on upwinds and have more margin for error.
Last week, Farley highlighted Tom Hutton for footing slightly on a long upwind tack to get clear air and better boatspeed. I’d like to shoutout Kaitlyn Lucey for doing the same thing today and ultimately beating me (going from mid-pack to second in one leg) by doing the same thing. Laser sailors often try too hard to keep the boat on the knife’s edge of the wind. That’s not always the most VMG-friendly path to the mark, especially in low, shifty winds.
Final tip: wear warm clothing. I lost mobility in my toes sometime around the fourth start. Learn from my mistakes and dress for the weather.
Thank you David Metcalf and Mike Scardaville for running the races in tough conditions. Congrats to Steen for winning the day! Everyone have a good week, and I hope to see y’all next Sunday!
-Connor
ILCA Frostbite Series Starts November 16!
The PRSA ILCA Frostbite Series starts November 16 and goes through March 23! We will not be sailing December 23rd. We hope to see people out!
2024-2025 ILCA Frostbite #2
Well today was a tough day. We had a mostly westerly that seemed to have oscillating directions of about +/-45 degrees at times and velocity chances from 2 to 10. Generally speaking the breeze was out of the west at about 5 knots I would guess though. The shifty conditions made racing tough with lots of position changes throughout the race and no one really owning the day.
Eva and Dan did a nice job running races and were able to get 4 races off in the tough conditions. They adjusted the windward mark and line after the first race which made things a bit more even for the shifts.
I do not really have any great tips for the day but would like to highlight a decision that Tom Hutton made in the last race. There were several of us stacked up at the leeward mark rounding and Tom and I rounded in 4th and 5th with 3 boats ahead of us. I had a nice tight rounding and managed to not be getting bad air from the 3 boats stacked in front of us and Tom was outside of me on the rounding. He chose to foot off some and get to clear air for the “upwind” beat which was mostly just point at the mark and get there. Several lifts occurred on the leg and I eventually found myself in bad air from the 3 boats ahead of me. Tom on the other hand had clear air all the way to the mark and won the leg and race due to his choice at the leeward mark. Just a reminder that pointing high and being inside at the mark is not always the best choice!
I hope that everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving and look forward to seeing who shows up on Sunday for Series #3!
Farley