Sunday turned out to be another predictable day sailing on the Potomac. You were completely assured that whatever breeze you were currently sailing in would quickly increase or decrease in velocity, or completely change direction. Once again, our PRO and RC for the weekend (Dan, Barney, Lee, and Jim) deserve praise for focusing on running races in the dynamic wind conditions.
Category Archives: Results
2015 Spring Series #3
Well, Spring Series #3 was certainly far different than the previous week’s “puff and shift festival” (to quote Bobby Astrove). Instead of 15-25 from the east we were greeted with a light and variable wind and plenty of sunshine when we arrived at the marina. At first it looked like the forecast breeze (NE 8-10, shifting to N and then NW) would fill in as predicted. However, the breeze shut down completely as we tried to make it up to the race course, prompting PRO Nich Allen and skiff driver Stew Harris to organize tows up to the course.
2015 Spring Series #2
Today was an awesome day on the water and the weather gave us exactly the opposite from last weekend. The breeze was out of the east/south east and was blowing around 16 most of the day. As is typical of an east wind, the conditions were quite puffy and shifty. The race committee set us up a triangle course and was able to get 5 races off (3 T2s and 2 O2s). The conditions gave us some nice long reaching legs that were quite fast at times. We had 3 Albacores, 2 Buccaneers, and 6 Lightnings and decided at the skippers meeting to just have everyone start together which provided fun races and competitive starts.
2015 Spring Series 2 – Albacores
2015 Spring Series #1
The opening day of PRSA’s 2015 Spring Series arrived clear, blue and still: the river was glass smooth and only faint wisps of breeze out of the north were all that remained of the frontal winds from the day before. Race Committee PRO Jim Graham pulled everyone together for the skippers’ meeting at ten and announced a one hour delay, noting that we all had to be off the water for the PRSA BBQ scheduled to begin at 3PM. Four Lightnings were present– Frank Gallagher, Nabeel Alsalam, Bob Astrove, and Lindsay Bach– along with groups of three or four each of Albacores, Buccaneers and Interlake Scows. So everyone milled about for an hour or so when Jim came walking through the clusters of sailors blowing his whistle, announcing another one hour delay. About halfway through the second hour, Jim decided we should all splash and the RC would tow the boats up to the course. This took about about three quarters of an hour during which time the the scows dropped out. The wind was still mostly absent though the forecast was calling for the breeze to come up out of the South sometime around one o’clock. So the fleet drifted and bobbed for about another three-quarters of an hour in the luxurious sunshine until a faint southerly breeze of about 3 mph began to fill in, right on schedule, a little after 1:00 PM.
Laser Frostbite Series #15
Great day on the water. I had a lot of fun and it seemed like most people did too. The wind was good, 8-12 by my estimate, and it was titanic status with icebergs all over the course.
Seemed like the left payed well but I was able to make gains going right too.
Tried to keep the boat as powered as I could and didn’t feel the need to depower except for at the end when I was tired. If you’re not on the heavier side, I think depowering was needed. But don’t forget to start with some power in the sail off the line and be adjusting in the lulls. I also adjusted the sail controls for the reach and downwind right before the weather mark. This helped get up to speed faster and get ahead if I was with someone at the rounding.
I tried the straight downwind strategy and bigger broad reaches. Each had its advantage. I didn’t like the reach approach when I had to sail very high to induce the plane. I think I just sailed too much extra distance and vmg went to those sailing on dead downwind heading.
See everyone next week. Let’s hope for even more wind!
Laser Frostbite Series #11
There was perfect weather today but not much wind. The windalert.com track never went over 5 knots and at some points the graph drops to zero. On the water the wind was light and oscillating but the race committee did a good job setting up the course for the conditions. We always had enough water to sail in thanks in part to a high tide. Sailing on the lagoon I only noticed current when we finally sailed in by the docks as the tide flowed out through the channel.
Laser Frostbite Series #10
The forecast was for 5mph wind, increasing to 7-8mph, however this did not hold as the wind died out during the second race.
During the first leg of the first race, Len was first to catch a big shift and took off on everyone. The rest of us battled it out for 2nd.
The second race was very light wind with increasing current. Everyone needed to be patient and those with good light wind boat speed finished well.
The third race was a windward – leward once around, with wind only on the west side of the course. Adam had a great start at the boat end, then tacked into the wind. However, he got stuck in a hole and others caught up.
We finished the day with a great parking lot birthday party for Kevin, who is approaching Grand Master status on the Laser Masters tour.
On days like this, I try to:
- keep the boat moving – at the start and by not pinching upwind
- actively look around to figure out where the wind is
- keep my weight forward – upwind and downwind
- roll tack
Thanks to Dan and Nich for doing RC!
Laser Frostbite Series #9
Awesome day on the water! Great job to the RC for fitting in several quality races.
The wind was very up and down, and then back up and down again, and then way right, and then left, and then…. we’ll you get the point. Fluky day and very important to be on the favored side of a shift, could make or loose half of the fleet on a couple of occasions.
The downwinds were a little tricky for me, tried hard to stay in a lane with clear air and work my way to the inside. Lots of pinwheel roundings.
Tide was very high when we first started, so I can only assume it was going out as we raced – it had more effect when the wind was light. I didn’t rly pay much attention to it when the wind was up.
The starts were pretty aggressive with the boat being way favored a couple times with a lot of people pushing to win the boat.
Great day on the water, looking forward to more wind!
Laser Frostbite Series #6
When we first got out I was psyched to see the wind from the South at about 10-12 knots. As someone on the taller/heavier side I like it when the wind is up and, in my experience on the river, Southerlies tend to be stable both in velocity and direction. Apparently, though, that was not the Southerly we had today. The first two races saw big shifts at the start and then the breeze died off for the second two. The first race it went way right making a boat end start critical. The second race it went way left. The puffs, it seemed, were coming in predominately from the right and tended to be right shifts, so I gambled with a midline start and headed right. Whatever I may have gained from being on the right, however, did not make up for missing the first big shift and not being at the pin. As the wind dropped off for the last two races finding the breeze became the overriding consideration and it seemed almost as likely to be on the left as the right. We had an ebb tide for most of the day, but the current seemed negligible. Justin did a great job as RC finding us enough water to sail in and getting the races off.
Great to get out on Laser again and to see so many new faces. Looking forward to next Sunday.
Jason Ipe
#175537
2014-2015 Laser Frostbite Series 6
2014-2015 Laser Frostbite Series – Cumulative (Through 1/4/15)
2015 Hangover Regatta
On January 1, 1974, about the time of one of the first Hangover Regattas, the Potomac River Laser Fleet was comprised very similarly to today’s fleet, with the British Naval Attaché as our fleet captain, Turkish diplomates, Lightning sailors, 470 sailors, Jet 14 sailors and numerous high school sailors. Mark Bear and I were two of those high school sailors. With the guidance of Peter Syverson the Potomac boasted one of the first Laser fleets. There was one important difference, however. In 1974 Northern Virginia had yet to experience its huge building boom. The Sailing Marina was uniformly 14 feet in depth across the cove to the airport rip rap. We regularly held huge events in the cove including such deep water boats as Stars.Today, much of Arlington and Falls Church have washed down Four Mile Run into our cove and center of the river. Nabeel, our RC chair, citing the extreme low tide, wisely elected to head north to avoid the shallow conditions downstream from the marina. As we headed for the race course both old timers such as Mark and Michael, and even fleet regulars such as Dan and myself( I am almost a regular), found themselves glued to the bottom just inside the last day mark. Fortunately, I was able to spring free just in time to make the two minute horn. I was able to convince Nabeel to postpone to accommodate our less fortunate fleet members.
Once we all assembled at the race course we found a surprisingly nice place to race. The tide conditions we very simple, with the flood quite pronounced on the left, channel side of the course, while quite benign on the right, landing pier side of the course. The cove gave the breeze a much better fetch than we experience either racing inside or in the more recent Marina Towers race area. The breeze seemed to fit Sail Flow’s forecast almost perfectly at 7-18 with about 60-65% of the larger shots coming with a fair amount of west and far fewer coming from 180. The line was rather long and seemed to be square to pin biased all day. My strategy for the day was simple, find a relatively clear spot on the line where I could always be in phase, and hopefully working right. In the first race that strategy seemed to pan out until one of those 35% probability lefties scrambled the weather mark rounding. I believe Mark and Len escaped most unscathed. The lesson learned for the day was, while favoring a side, given the puffy nature of the breeze, I was never going to sail to either layline again.
As the day progressed, I generally found the right and middle of the start appealing, despite the pin bias, so that I might be one of the first to take advantage of the relatively few truly lifted port tack beats. I tried to anticipate the starboard gusts, remaining content to sail around the entire”catspaw” of the right hand blast to avoid that fate of race one. In general, I found most boats playing the right sailed far too close to the pier and lost huge amounts as they sailed back to the mark in reduced pressure or a slight knock. Every so often sailing hard to one or another side paid off as Eric will attest in the last race.
Downwind, I concentrated on a technique that I have watched my son, Alex employ very effectively all fall. At all costs, I sailed to the big blasts. Once in the blast I attempted to position my boat so that I sailed as close to rhumbline as possible. In one instance I rode the blast a tad too far, crashing on my jibe just to leeward of the leeward mark.
Lessons learned:
1. In a puffy westerly/southwesterly tack early–attempting to gain too much from a shift might backfire
2. If the phases of the shifts are not lasting for an entire leg do not “own” one side or the other
3. Always seek pressure downwind.
4. Appreciate the awesome volunteers that make our sport great.
Thanks to everyone who missed sailing to run races yesterday and all year. Happy New Year!
James L. Jacob
And a special thanks to Carl Schaefer for taking photos.