It just goes to show you, never believe the weather man! Sunday morning the forecast was dismal: Sunny, Hot, winds from nowhere @ 0-2. Sheesh! Its no wonder a lot of people voted with their feet and stayed home. What a mistake that turned out to be. The reality? Sunny, Warm, winds South @ 8-11!! It just doesn’t get much better than that. 5 Lightnings, 3 Albacores, and 3 Cats came out to play and got the best racing of the fall so far. Jeff Storck (PRO), aided by Bruce Heida, Becky Mach, Maryann Gallagher, Will Philippe, Chris McGraw and Judy Schramm set up a nice Windward Leeward course off the airport that they slowly lengthened as the breeze strengthened. While the Albs, and Cats went home after 3 races, the Lightnings stayed out for a fourth. That fourth race proved to be a challenge in the strong current and fading breeze. Jeff shortened it to 3 legs, and sent them home from the windward mark. A great day! Scores after the break:
Category Archives: Results
Presidents / Leukemia Cup Results
There is an old Arab curse that goes something like: “May you live in interesting times”. That said, we certainly had an “interesting” weekend for this years Presidents Cup. Saturday, was sunny and beautiful. Perfect in every way except the most important: There was no wind. Rolf Zeisler, our able PRO, managed to get 2 races off in drifty conditions with little more than thermals coming from various directions. The Lightnings were almost time limited out in the first race when the Rc quickly set up a finish line at the Reach? Windward? Leeward? Mark, and finished us with no time to spare. Race #2 was even worse. Oh well. There is always tomorrow, and with rain in the forecast there was bound to be some breeze. Sunday morning brought the rain, but not much in the way of breeze. We got 3 races in before calling it a day. The first 2 races were much like Saturdays efforts. The 3rd race, however, was a fun one. A nice north westerly finally came in and made all of us who had suffered through 2 days of mostly painful drifting glad we had stuck it out. This was the best sailing of the weekend and a good time was finally had by all. Lets all pray that we don’t get any more “interesting” days like the bulk of this past weekend. Scores after the break:
Spring Series #8, 06/06/10 Results
Sorry all for the delay in getting these scores up. Thats what happens when you get married and go away on a honeymoon. 🙂 Well, the wedding is behind me and the honeymoon was great, so now its time to buckle down and get busy. Today I have those last scores for you, but stay tuned over the next couple of weeks. I have some video of the Doc Gilbert I am working on that will be ready soon. In the meantime I hope everyone is getting out on the water for some sailing. I plan to get Ariel out this week for my first time in weeks.
Cheers,
Jeff
Scores after the break:
PRSA Spring Regatta 2010 Saturday and Sunday, May 29 – 30
Updated 5/31/10 — The PRSA Spring regatta, our Memorial Day Weekend major event, has come and gone! Saturday brought us an overcast morning that slowly cleared, temperatures in the mid 70s, and calm winds until Noon. PRO Nabeel Alsalam wisely postponed, from the docks, the departure until 11:45, and by the time we got to the race course we had a very nice southerly, blowing 7 – 10 MPH. Nabeel got off 3 great Olympic course races for the 7 Lightings, 4 Buccs, 17 Albacores, 4 Hobies and a Thistle who came out. On the Lower Course we had 3 Optis and 2 Penguins. Sunday brought us a promising start with sunny skies, northerly winds at 5 – 10 MPH that unfortunately went light and variable as the day went on, and we gave up on the day at 3 PM at the end of the second race (which not everybody finished, due to a time limit expiration). Upper Course Results here. Lower Course Results here.
Our sincere thanks to the regatta organizing committee and to the PRSA members who worked this regatta. They include: PROs Nabeel Alsalam (upper course) and Jennifer Parrow (lower course); Race Committee drivers and helpers Ryan Vear, Stefano de Leo, Red Fehrle, Craig Huzway, Anna Lindel, Elaine Duffe, Inga Barkane, Linda Pacelli, John Hart, Annie Cross, Bill Swanson, Kate Dixon, Steve Parsons, and Thomas Jagodits; Registration workers Will Phillippe, Jeff Neurauter, Happy Olmstead, Wilda Heiss, Steve Parsons, and Barb Thompson; Planning the post-race barbeque and bringing food and beer: Pat McGee and Scott Snyder; producing the NOR and SIs, and acquiring trophies, scorekeeping, recruiting RC, and Boat Duty, Nabeel Alsalam. Well done!
Per PRSA Commodore Pat McGee: Starting Saturday morning many members just kicked in. I was really pleased by the amount of general pitching in. I could not move more than a few steps without someone offering to help. It made me very pleased with our membership. Maybe this is explained by our having shrunk into a core group (family). I owe all of you all a big thank you. I can’t thank you guys enough for just picking things up and making it all happen. Get’er done mentality. Nabeel – RC — great decisions – sitting on the docks for 90 minutes Sat., I know you were getting some pressured commentary – Great work!
PRSA Spring Series # 7, Sunday May 23!
UPDATED May 24 — As Becky Mach described the day, if May 9 was Papa Bear (too strong); and May 16 was Mama Bear (too weak); then today was Baby Bear (just right)! The AccuWeather forecast had called for rain for most of the day with ENE winds at 8 – 10 MPH, and we were delighted to see that the rain held off while the wind forecast held up. PRO Frank Gallagher and his Lightning-provided RC, with help from Steve Parsons and Ryan Vear, set up an Olympic course with the windward mark near the navigable channel, the leeward mark near the airport shore, and the reach mark far enough north to require a close reach on both the approaching and the departing legs, and ran 4 races in quick succession — an O-2 and three O-3s. The four Lightnings were joined by 3 Hobies, 3 Albacores, and a Bucc and had a most enjoyable day on the water.
Check out real-time (and historical) conditions at the Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System — click on the buoy labeled Upper Potomac to see conditions just south of the Wilson Bridge.
Results after the break:
PRSA Spring Series # 6, Sunday, May 16!
Updated 5/19/10 — Sunday was a day when the weatherman promised much and delivered so little. The forecast was for partly sunny and pleasant conditions, a high of 76 degrees, and winds from the northeast at 8 – 10 MPH. Seven Lightnings, six Albacores, and three Hobies splashed and made their way up to the race course, while PRO Bob Astrove and RC crew set a windward-leeward course along an ENE axis, with the windward mark close to the deepwater channel and the leeward mark close to the airport shore. But they only got off one race before the wind died. At 2 PM the N flag went up and boats were towed back to the dock. Results after the break:
PRSA Spring Series # 5 Sunday, May 9
UPDATED May 10! Two days of strong northerly winds had pushed a lot of the tidal Potomac River water south, and that, coupled low tide around noon, made for the lowest water level we have ever seen on the river at the marina. The mud flats adjacent to the airport pier were actually above water; a windsurfer was seen walking his rig upstream in chest-high water in the middle of the channel; the ribs of the sunken wreck were two feet above the water surface. The AccuWeather forecast had called for sunny skies, with winds from the NW at 15 – 20 MPH, and gusts to 25, and they got the sunny skies part right, but the wind turned out to be stronger and gustier than predicted. Three Lightnings, four Albacores, and two Cats splashed, and RC did set out for Haines point to try to set up a long windward-leeward course as far upriver as they could, but the strong gusty winds and low water made them change their mind, and racing was canceled at 11:30 AM.
PRSA Spring Series # 4, Sunday, May 2
Good wind, good temperatures, good waves and good race committee work made for great sailing this Sunday. We had 4 or 5 Bucs, 2 hobies, and 5 albs out on the race course sailing 4 windward leeward twice around races and 1 Triangle. 5 races total. With the wind picking up later in the day only Heinsdorf, Harris and Hesse stayed for the final race. Must be something about ‘Hs” The albs brought a ringer skipper from Toronto and a ringer crew from California. Harris, in his new state of age, showed a little mind slipping as he overstood the finish in race 2 and wanted to go around again. Don’t know what that was all about. Heinsdorf once again demonstrated his quick reactions as he dunked his brother crew while he scrambled to the rail for safety during a leeward mark rounding capsize.
Thanks to the race committee: Bill Buck; Susan Graham, Nathan Marsh, and mystery girl (Heinsdorf’s brother’s friend). And to the use of a GW crash boat. After racing, Lee pulled out the leftovers including BEER from the monster party on Friday for everyone to feast on. Thanks to everyone for the good time. Results after the break:
2010 Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup Regatta
The annual Doc Gilbert Potomac Cup Regatta was held this past weekend down at Leesylvania State Park on the Potomac River. This year, in addition to the 25 Lightnings on hand, we had 9 Flying Scots join us for two days of great racing. Saturday was mostly clear with breezes from the SSW at 6-12kts, and on Sunday we got 10-15 under mostly cloudy skies. The conditions were just plain ideal for some really tight racing at times. The Lightning class was won by Ed Adams in a tight match with John Faus. I have to point out, however, that young Justin Copan really dominated the weekend with 4 bullets and a third. Why didn’t he win? Unfortunately for him, one of those bullets turned into a 26 as he was OCS. DOH!! Other than that faux pas, he really put on a clinic for us. On the Flying Scot side, David Neff won the top honors with 3 bullets and 2 deuces. Another dominant performance. As usual, Fleet 50 put on an excellent regatta, with some great RC work headed up by Bruce Bingman. Of course the awesome weather didn’t hurt either! complete scores after the break:
Spring Series #3 04/25/2010 Results
The forecast was glum, which I am sure caused a lot of people to stay home. Shame on you if you did! The weather turned out to be beautiful, with near perfect sailing conditions. Winds were from the south at 8-12 knots. What more could you ask for. We got three races in before the RC, believing the erroneous weather report, sent us home for the day. What a shame, we could have gotten a fourth race in. Lesson learned – Never believe the weather man over the evidence of your own eyes! Oh well, a good time was had by all anyway. Scores after the break: