Tag Archives: Presidents Cup Regatta

Summer Update from the Commodore

Greetings PRSA Sailors!  As we head towards the fall sailing season I wanted to take a moment to share the latest news from PRSA and update you on our fall plans.

  • Membership: with 114 members this year we are at our highest membership level since 2005!  This is great news, and we are only partway through the year.  On top of this, we’ve added a number of new boat owners in the Buccaneer, Laser, and Lighting classes.
  • Upcoming Racing:
    • Back by popular demand we plan to  hold another PRSA Distance Race on the river on Sunday, August 21 if there is sufficient interest (we need at least 5 boats).  Please let Aaron know if you’d be interested in sailing in this event.  We will use the same NOR, SIs and Course Diagrams that were used on June 12.
    • The PRSA President’s Cup will be held on September 17-18.  The NOR has been posted.  Register now to receive the early registration discount and make sure to invite your friends from other clubs!  We will once again have the American Spirit as a spectator boat on Saturday as well.  Finally, check out this great piece of PRSA history: the regatta booklet from the 1955 President’s Cup Regatta (thanks to Bobby Astrove for digging this up for us!).
    • The PRSA Fall Series kicks off on September 11.  Your PRSA Executive Committee will be providing food and beverages for after the racing, so come ready to race and then bring your appetites to the post-race BBQ!
  • Regatta News: PRSA sailors have had a lot of success at regattas near and far this summer.  Congratulations all around!
    • Barney Harris and Mike Chaballa took 1st place at the Albacore Nationals and PRSA Sailors took places 1-4 in the regatta.
    • Kyra Tallon and Will Phillippe took 1st in the Buccaneer class at the VA Governor’s Cup.
    • Barney Harris and Matthew Rhodes took 1st in the Albacore class at the VA Gov Cup, winning the VA Governor’s Cup (congrats to the Albacores for having the largest fleet at the regatta!)
    • Lisa-Marie Lane, Christy Dillard, and Karen Grefe-Jones represented PRSA and Lightning Fleet 50 at the Lightning Women’s North American Championships.
    • John Van Voorhis, sailing with his daughter Rachel and  Lee Ann Zaretsky, will be representing PRSA and Lightning Fleet 50 at the Lightning North American Championships.
    • At the Buccaneer North American Championships Jeff Neurauter and Heather Howard took 3rd place, Kat Martin was the highest placing female skipper, and Connor Burke was the highest finishing youth skipper.  Great job!
    • Len Gunther took 2nd place at the Deep Creek Laser Regatta.
    • PRSA/Lightning Fleet 50 Sailors Aaron Boesenecker, Bob Gotthardt, and Guy Barkwell will be sailing as part of Team USA in the 1st Annual Old Dominion Boat Club International Regatta.  They will be competing against teams representing Australia, Canada, Great Britain in S2 7.9s right off the Alexandria waterfront.  Come on out and cheer them on!
  • Sustainability: if you haven’t already seen our sustainability page, take a look!  Thanks to the efforts of Kyra and Laura we have had our major regattas and regatta series certified by the Sailors for the Sea Program as clean regattas.  This is good news for the environment and good news for us as PRSA becomes a known name in the sustainability community.
  • Media Mentions: perhaps you saw the article on PRSA Sunday Sailing (along with a great photo from our 2016 Rookie Regatta) in the August 2016 edition of SpinSheet?  If not, check it out!  The September edition of SpinSheet will feature a note on the PRSA President’s Cup Regatta along with photos from Lindsay Bach.  In addition, WETA sailor Ben Arthur was featured in the May/June 2016 edition of Sailing World in an article entitled “An Outer Banks Experience (p. 54-58).  The article includes a photo of Ben on p. 58!

2016 President’s Cup: September 17-18!

President's Cup Logo

The 2016 PRSA President’s Cup Regatta will be held September 17 & 18 at Washington Sailing Marina, continuing the long tradition of competitive one-design racing started by the President’s Cup in 1934.  The regatta will be sailed on the Potomac River on two courses.  Visit the regatta website to view the NOR and register for the 2016 President’s Cup!  Registration fees increase after September 11, so make sure to register and pay online before September 11 to save yourself a bit of cash.  We will once again offer a spectator cruise aboard the historic schooner American Spirit on Saturday, so be sure to tell your friends and family!

Thanks to our regatta sponsor, Annapolis Performance Sailing, and to DC Sail for the partnership that allows us to offer a spectator cruise aboard the American Spirit!

APS-Logo-OrangenoText DC Sail

President’s Cup Results

We had a fantastic turnout for the 2015 PRSA President’s Cup Regatta: 58 boats, over 130 sailors, and nearly 30 people on the Sunday spectator cruise aboard the American Spirit!  Final results are posted here and a more detailed writeup of the action along with links to photos will be coming soon.

A huge thank-you to all of the volunteers that made the event possible, including Lee for all of her hard work with providing food for so many sailors, Jim for beverage duty, Lisa-Marie for registration and merchandise management, Nabeel for managing equipment and scoring, and not least our fantastic Race Committee volunteers (Farley as PRO on the lower course, and Rolf Zeisler and his crew on the upper course).  Thank you all around–we couldn’t have hosted such a fantastic regatta without you!

President’s Cup Spectator Cruise

Thanks to the generosity of DC Sail and the National Maritime Heritage Foundation we are able to offer a 3-hour spectator cruise (11:30-2:30 pm) aboard the schooner American Spirit on the Sunday of the President’s Cup Regatta for just $20/person.  Click here for complete details on the cruise and click here to purchase tickets via the President’s Cup regatta website.

Also, remember that it is not too late to register for the 2015 PRSA President’s Cup Regatta!

PRSA President’s Cup

prsa logo triangle2 The 2015 PRSA President’s Cup Regatta, sponsored by Annapolis Performance Sailing, will be held September 19 & 20 at Washington Sailing Marina, continuing the long tradition of competitive one-design racing started by the President’s Cup in 1934.  The regatta will be sailed on the Potomac River on two courses.  One-person dinghies (Lasers, El Toros, Penguins) will race on Saturday in the cove near Washington Sailing Marina (WSM) or off of the power plant just south of WSM.  Other classes (Albacores, Buccaneers, Catamarans, Flying Scots, Lightnings, I-20s, etc.) will race Saturday and Sunday on the north course between Hains Point and Gravelly Point (with the Capitol and national monuments as a backdrop).   Register now for the 2015 President’s Cup and view the NOR and other race information.  Registration fees increase after September 12, so make sure to register and pay online before September 12 to save yourself a bit of cash!

APS-Logo-OrangenoText                          DC Sail

Special thanks to Annapolis Performance Sailing for sponsoring the regatta and providing some additional prizes.  This year we will also have a spectator boat – the schooner American Spirit – thanks to the generosity of DC Sail and the National Maritime Heritage Foundation!  Make sure to tell your friends and family about this fantastic opportunity to view the sailing from the water on Sunday, Sept. 20.

 

Important Fall Schedule Information

I’m writing with a couple of important announcements about our fall racing schedule:

  1. We need to staff our Race Committee for the fall!  Please Sign up now if you have not already done so.
  2. We have decided to move the President’s Cup to Sept. 19-20 (a weekend different than the LLS Fundraiser).   More details are provided below.
  3. The PRSA Dinghy Open is back by popular demand, and will be held on October 4.

I’ve posted more details on these important changes below.  Please don’t hesitate to contact your Executive Board if you have any questions.

Continue reading Important Fall Schedule Information

2014 President’s Cup – Results

We had two great sailing days. Saturday was the best with rock steady 10-15 mph winds from the south. We just had to take advantage of it and so we decided to do 5 races. A front came through on Saturday evening and left us with cooler weather and N to NE winds in the 5 to 12 mph range. We did another 2 to 4 races.

44 boats in 8 classes competed on two courses. People came from as far as Hampton, Lynchburg, and the Solomons. They sailed a lot — as many as 9 reasonably long races. They partied — the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society treated us on Saturday evening and PRSA on Sunday. They had fun.

This year the Norman C. Schallor award goes to Eric Peterson who was the winner in the Laser fleet which mustered 10 boats, the largest fleet this year.

If you see inaccuracies with the results below, email me at nabeel.alsalam@gmail.com.

Upper Course

Albacores

Buccaneers

Flying Scots

Lightnings

Inland 20

Multihulls

Lower Course

Lasers

Steve Spratt sailing a JY-15 sailed with the Lasers but was not scored against them.</>

Penguins

2014 President’s Cup Regatta: September 6-7

The 2014 President’s Cup Regatta will be held September 6-7 at Washington Sailing Marina.  The NOR, Sailing Instructions, and other details have been posted to the regatta webpage.  Please take a minute to read through these details and sign up on the “Who’s Coming?” list so that we know who will be attending and so that we can generate some momentum for the regatta.

Please note that there are a couple of important changes for the 2014 regatta:

  • All competitors must register online and pay the regatta entry fee (either via PayPal or mailed check) in advance of the regatta.  A link to the online entry form (with payment details) has been posted to the regatta webpage.  We cannot accept registration fees on site given NPS enforcement of provisions that prohibit the exchange of money on National Park grounds.
  • We will be running the President’s Cup as a one-design regatta with the emphasis on racing.  The Leukema and Lymphoma Society (LLS) party on Saturday will likely begin well before we finish racing on the one-design upper course.  Please plan accordingly, as the RC intends to conduct as many races as conditions allow.  We will not be scoring boats separately for LLS racing awards.  President’s Cup trophies will be given as described in the President’s Cup NOR.
  • Any boats wishing to raise funds for the LLS should register directly with the LLS on this website: http://www.leukemiacup.org/nca/  The LLS strongly encourages online fundraising in advance of the event.  However, cash or check donations will be accepted Saturday morning on board the Potomac Belle (stationed somewhere near WSM).  Dinner tickets for the Saturday LLS  party can also be purchased at that time.

 

2013 President’s/Leukemia Cup: Great Wind, Great Racing, and a Great Celebration!

What a fantastic weekend!  We were pleasantly surprised with great breeze on both Saturday and Sunday, we had tight racing on both the upper and the lower courses, and we had great celebrations after the racing on both Saturday and Sunday.  The folks on the lower course got 6 races on Saturday, and on the upper course we had 4 races on Saturday and 3 more on Sunday.  All told there were 61 boats on our PRSA one design courses (14 Lightnings, 12 Albacores, 10 Cats/Scows, 7 Bucs, 7 El Toros, 4 Flying Scots, 4 Lasers, and 3 Penguins).  You can’t ask for anything more in a regatta!

Many PRSA sailors also supported the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through fundraising efforts and through their own contributions.  As we went into the regatta weekend the fundraising total was trending towards $160,000+ and many sailors made generous donations at registration over the weekend.  I’ll be sure to send along the final totals on the fundraising efforts once those figures are available from the LLS.  In the meanwhile, a huge “thank you” on behalf of the LLS to all of you who contributed to the fundraising effort.

Keep reading for links to scores as well as for some of my observations from the upper course.  Be sure to add in your own comments and recollections as well!

Continue reading 2013 President’s/Leukemia Cup: Great Wind, Great Racing, and a Great Celebration!

President’s/Leukemia Cup Wrap-Up

I just wanted to pass along the final fundraising total, along with a big “thank you!” from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for those who raced, raised funds, and generally supported the LLS mission at the 2012 President’s/Leukemia Cup.  All told, we helped the LLS raise $142,000 in support of their work to research and cure blood cancers!  Many thanks to all of the PRSA sailors who raised funds in support of this fine cause, and congratulations to anybody who braved the conditions on Saturday to race on the first day of the President’s/Leukemia Cup.

For those boats that raised funds and also raised on Saturday, the LLS Racing Awards (based on Saturday’s racing results) will be presented at the 2012 PRSA AGM.