Tag Archives: Washington DC Sailing

Frostbite Series, News, Results, 2015

2015/2016 Laser Frostbite Series #1

As is our custom, the third place finisher on the day (me, in this case) provides a summary of the day and hints on how they were successful. Here is mine for Sunday:
It was definitely a wild start to the season with winds from the NNW in the 15-20 mph range with gusts into the 20s. We got off three races on an olympic course with 16 sailors racing, dwindling to 10 last race finishers.
Congrats to Young Guns, Adam and Jamie, who beat last year’s champion (me), Not-So-Young-Gun (Len) and everyone else!
A few things that I was foccusing on:
  • I started at the the pin end of the line, since it was favored in all races and was not crowded
  • Upwind:
    • I set up the sail with max. outhaul and cunningham in order to de-power the sail
    • I also used a lot of vang (bent boom) in order to allow me to ease the main if necc. while keeping the sail flat
  • Reaching and Downwind:
    • I eased the vang and cunningham and made sure the boat was flat before trying to round the windward mark and to make sure the the end of the boom didn’t dip into the water
    • I worked on keeping my weight back to plane and keeping my weight over my feet to make quick corrections to avert disaster
Many thanks to the race committee (Jim Klein and Richard Kaiser) for running the races and checking on struggling sailors!
Eric
Announcements, News

PRSA AGM & Awards Ceremony Wrap-Up

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We had over 50 people attend the 2015 PRSA Annual General Meeting and Awards Ceremony, making it one of the best attended in recent years!  I want to extend a very special thank you to Melissa Morgan and Heather Howard for all of their work in planning the AGM, organizing the food and drink, decorating the room, and generally ensuring good cheer such that a great time was had by all.

The PRSA Executive Committee was pleased to highlight  our growth over the year, including a 4th consecutive year of membership growth, the best attendance at the PRSA President’s Cup Regatta and Spring Regatta in the last 5 years, and more.  We were also pleased to recognize Lee Sayasithsensa, Rolf & Sue Zeisler, Lisa-Marie Lane, Stew Harris, and Lindsay Bach with PRSA awards.  You can keep reading for additional details and links to the relevant documents, including the AGM Agenda, the list of PRSA Spring and Fall Series winners, details on the perpetual award winners, and your 2016 PRSA Executive Committee.

Continue reading PRSA AGM & Awards Ceremony Wrap-Up →

Fall Series, News, Results, 2015

2015 Fall Series #8

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

2015 Fall Series 8 – I20s

2015 Fall Series 8 – Lightnings

2015 Fall Series 8 – Multihulls

Fall Series, News, Results, 2015

2015 Fall Series #7

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

2015 Fall Series 7 – Lightnings

2015 Fall Series 7 – Multihulls

News, Results

2015 PRSA Fall Series #6

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

2015 Fall Series 6 – Buccaneers

2015 Fall Series 6 – I20s

2015 Fall Series 6 – Lasers

2015 Fall Series 6 – Lightnings

Fall Series, Results, 2015

2015 Fall Series #5

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

2015 Fall Series 5 – Lightnings

2015 Fall Series 5 – Multihulls