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
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
What a fantastic day for some fall sailing! It was a bit blustery when we headed out, but weird westerly that dominated the first race faded and the breeze then settled in for another couple of races in a 8-10 kt southerly. In addition to the usual Lightnings, Buccaneers, and Albacores it was great to see 6 Lasers come out to race as well as 4 I-20 scows! We even had a number of people dressed to celebrate Halloween! Congrats to Will Summers for winning our impromptu costume contest.
PRO Jim Antonivich and his crew did a good job in getting us some nice long races on the south course near the power plant (something new!) and we were back on shore in time to enjoy a nice BBQ after the racing as the sunlight faded. Since I was double-handing with John I didn’t have a ton of time to look around. The first race was a bit funky, with all sorts of shifts and swirls as the W/SW breeze that was there in the morning tried to figure out what it was going to do. The RC sent us on an O3 (!) and we managed to lead two of those three laps, only to be passed by Nabeel on the last full upwind leg. Once we got ourselves sorted out, though, we were able to hold with the rest of the pack, even downwind (John did a great job flying the spinnaker and working us through some perfect jibes as I drove). The 2nd and 3rd races – both O2 courses – saw some ups and downs in pressure but not too many shifts. The line was a bit boat favored in both of those races, and I managed to put us over early in each one of them so we were playing catch up quite a bit. The left (east) side of the course seemed to have more pressure as it was away from the shadow of the Alexandria shoreline, and that generally paid even as the current and tidal outflow became more of a factor later in the day. In the Lightning class Nabeel won two races, Frank won the last one, and on 14592 we were consistently in 2nd all day long. I’d welcome any additional thoughts and observations from other boats!
2015 Fall Series 6 – Albacores
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
The 2015 PRSA Annual General Meeting and Awards Banquet will be held on Saturday, November 21, 6-9 pm, in the party room at Marina Towers in Alexandria, VA. Dinner & drinks will cost $25 per person (pay at the door with check or cash). This is always a great chance to see everybody and reminisce about another year of great sailing, so I hope to see you there! Please sign up here as soon as possible so that our volunteers can plan for the appropriate amount of food and drink. Please submit your nominations for PRSA awards (see below) via email to prsacommodore@gmail.com no later than the end of the day on Monday, November 16.
A full agenda and details on the PRSA business meeting will be posted soon. In the meanwhile, here is the basic schedule of events:
Award Nominations: we have several perpetual awards that are bestowed upon Association members at the AGM to recognize service to PRSA. The list of these awards is below. Please email me if you would like to nominate an Association member for one of these awards:
PRSA Dues Proposal
Last year at the AGM the PRSA Executive Board raised the question of our dues structure, which has been unchanged since 2001. Over time we have lost approximately 25% of the purchasing power of our dues intake. We are also starting to consider the prospect of major equipment purchase/upgrades as PRSA continues to grow. After the discussion last year the Exec Board was tasked with reviewing the dues structure and bringing a proposal to the 2015 AGM. The documents below provide you with the proposal that we, the PRSA Executive Board, have developed.
Pursuant to Article XI of the PRSA Constitution (Amendments) we are providing this proposal to the membership 15 days in advance of the Annual General Meeting. The proposal and supplementary documents attached to this message are also available on the PRSA website. We will discuss the attached proposal at the AGM and a vote will be taken. The voting procedure, described in Article IV of the PRSA Constitution, is also detailed on the attached proposal.
The following documents are attached (click on each document to access):
Comments and questions about the proposal prior to the meeting should be sent to commodore@potomacriversailing.org with “Dues Proposal” in the subject line. We will try to respond to emailed comments/questions as appropriate. However, only the comments presented and the votes cast at the AGM will constitute the official record on this matter. I would strongly encourage you to attend the AGM to discuss the proposal there and to cast your vote. Proxy votes may be cast according to the procedure described in the attachments.
UPDATE 5:15 PM 3 OCT: THE PRSA DINGHY OPEN WILL BE HELD AS SCHEDULED. SEE YOU AT THE MARINA!
Back by popular demand we will once again the PRSA Dinghy Open this year! This one-day stand-alone regatta on Sunday, October 4, is your chance to race boat-on-boat against other classes. The regatta is open to any boat under 20′ in length. Races will be scored using the Portsmouth Yardstick system. Start organizing your crew now! Click here to view the NOR and click here to view the Sailing Instructions.
