2020-2021 Frostbite, Results

2020-2021 Laser Frostbite Series #1

Third Place Write Up (Jim Klein)  11/22/2020

Hello Everyone,

Thank you Tom Hutton doing the RC for us on this first week of our frostbite series. Despite being alone in the RC boat you managed to give us Olympic, WL and Triangle races to keep things interesting, as well as maintaining a square start line.

My boat was set up the following way:

Vang: On fairly tight upwind, but not so tight that I had to worry about hitting my head on the boom during tacks. Offwind pretty far off, but always cleated down. You don’t want to have the vang completely loose or else the whole sail structure is loose, moves around too much, and generally sucks up energy of the boat rocking back and forth. Rather, you want that rocking energy to be translated to forward motion. Think rigidity in the whole boat/mast/sail structure.

Outhaul: About 4” off the boom at mid point.

Cunningham: Off and completely loose.

Mainsheet: Two blocked upwind during the windier times, else about 5” between the aft blocks.

Starts:  No one side was favored enough to attempt starting on that particular side.  I felt it was more important just to have good speed at the gun. I would often try to start on port and in the last 20 seconds or so, look for a hole in the fleet so I could tack and be on starboard tack at the gun. But this did not always work out so well; in one race, I could not find any hole and had to let the entire fleet cross the line before I squeezed in finally at the boat end.  Interestingly, that was the one race where I went out way to the right (on port tack) and somehow got some favorable wind so that I could pass just about the whole fleet by the windward mark. That was more luck than planning. The first 15 seconds after the gun are critical for you to get out in front as much as you can. This is no time to be playing with sail controls, but rather to be focused completely on getting ahead of those around you.

Upwind: In the first several races I had a helmet on (and covid mask), and it was preventing me from feeling the wind shifts. Then I took all those off and did better because I could feel the wind better with my head and face. I would tack pretty often when I detected a wind shift. I tried to be careful never to let the mast come beyond 90 degrees to the water. That meant moving around a lot on the boat.

Downwind: I tried to keep air flowing over my sail, even if that meant sailing in more of an “S” shape path rather than a straight line to the mark. That means, when the wind dies off, try to head up a bit from a run to a  broad reach, and focus on keeping the air attached to your sail and telltales flying back. Then if the wind would come back in strength, I would again go back to a dead run. In some cases, it was very advantageous to sail by the lee. I also tried as much as possible to get my weight all the way forward and to heel the boat so the sail sticks up in the air as much as possible.

2020-2021 Laser Frostbit Series #1

Announcements, News

AGM Announcement

The AGM will be Saturday November 14th, 3:00 pm at the Washington Sailing Marina.
We chose to hold the event outside so we can social distance. The 3PM “happy hour” start time allows 2 hours before sunset (approximately 5 PM); we’ll have the AGM first, then a general socially-distant hang out.
There is no ticket cost for the event. We’ll provide single-serving snacks, please bring your own beverage(s). Please wear a mask when you’re within 6 feet of others and be generally respectful of distancing requirements.
Given that the event is weather-dependent, we’ve scheduled a backup date of November 21.
We’re hoping you’ll join us for some safe, socially-distant socializing.
Finally, head over to the results page to see the fall series season winners!
2020, Announcements

Fall Season Race Committee Signup Ready

The RC signup sheets have been to the new limited fall schedule. Click here to get to the signup sheet. Due to social distancing requirements we are looking to have members sign up for RC with people from their household or social bubble. The boats are too small to adequately social distance for the 3-4 hours typically spent on them. We are also not requiring members to sign up for RC like we normally would. Trying to compel people to come out during these circumstances would be ridiculous. There are quite a few folks that can’t meet the household requirement or are not comfortable traveling to the marina. Lastly members are welcome to sail even if they can’t sign up for RC. Please take a look at your schedule and see if you can sign up for RC this fall.
Announcements, News

PRSA Fall Season Updates

PRSA has plans to sail this fall!  We are scaling back our usual fall series as we anticipate limited RC and Mark Boat crew availability. We will be looking to have RC and the Mark Boat crewed with members of the same household or social bubble. There will also be other practices we put in place due to covid-19.
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Fall Series 1 – Sunday September 13th
Presidents Cup Regatta – Saturday September 19th
Fall Series 2 – Sunday September 27th
Fall Series 3 – Sunday October 4th
Fall Series 4 Distance Race – Sunday October 11th
Fall Series 5 –  Sunday October 18th
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Series Dates for 6, 7, and 8 have been kept on the schedule in case we have any weather cancellations or other changes to the schedule. Lastly we are keeping in mind that things can change depending on how the pandemic changes.
News

PRSA Season Updates

The PRSA Board met Thursday, May 14th and decided to cancel both the Spring Regatta and the Spring Series. We hope that we will be able to return to our regular Fall Series racing which is scheduled to start in September. We’re hopeful to have some organized events over the summer pending the ongoing pandemic situation. We will continue to monitor the situation with Covid–19 as it develops and provide updates to the club.

Frostbite, Frostbite, Lasers, 2020, Results

2019-2020 Laser Frostbite Series #15

It was a lovely day on the water – warm and windy and a very good turnout! We did a couple of windward/leewards and then switched to Olympics, which was fun. One of the big challenges and opportunities of the day seemed to be mark roundings. At the windward mark, it was not coming in on port too close to the mark or hitting the mark or avoiding the boat hung up on the mark. I mostly escaped these traps unscathed (mostly) and tried to have at least my vang loosened a bit before the mark to help with turning down quickly. A few times, I did not turn down far enough and lost some boats inside by the time we made it down to the leeward mark (or had to work extra hard to catch back up) – and then started paying more attention. At the leeward mark, I tried to focus on going wide then tight, but it wasn’t always possible and once I thought I would have room, but didn’t at the last second…which was interesting. At the jibe mark, I sometimes was able to make up boats by doing a quick jibe and getting on a plane as quickly as possible and passing to windward.
Another observation is about controls – I made sure to have my cunningham and outhaul rather tight going upwind – tighter than I normally would considering it was generally windy and not crazy windy – and it did seem to help. I wasn’t as overpowered and was still able to point mostly OK and have decent boatspeed. Downwind, I let the cunningham and outhaul off almost all the way and didn’t play the vang too much once set because the wind tended to be relatively steady – mostly made sure the leech still had some movement. I also did a better job remembering to keep my weight as forward as possible upwind, which somehow seemed more doable with my depowered rig.
Hope everyone is having a good start to their week!
Laura