Tag Archives: watersports

Dogzilla brings home the bacon!!

Well it was certainly a better race on Sunday than the first one. BMW/Oracle (AKA Dogzilla) won the start by 24 seconds, but then the two boats split tacks. Allinghi went right and B/O went left. The Swiss guessed right and a huge right shift helped them to an early lead. That lead extended to about 6oo meters, and they held on to that almost all the way to the Windward mark. B/O hung on though, and helped by a late left shift caught up at the port side layline. The two boats crossed at the layline with Allinghi in front by a couple of boat lengths. However they had to overstand the mark a bit, and then had a really slow sloppy tack which let Dogzilla squeak out in front. B/O rounded the mark 28 seconds in front of Allinghi and turned on the afterburners. They took off like a rocket and never looked back. B/O won the race by almost 6 minutes to bring the Auld Cup back to America where it belongs.

One interesting side bar: Prior to the race, Bertarelli (Allinghi’s owner) decided he did not like the conditions and ordered his RC crew to refuse to start the race. At his instruction they “went on strike”. The ISAF PRO was ready for this kind of Shenanigans and pressed one observer and a rent-a-cop into service to help him raise flags and get the race going. The PRO counted down the time manually as the Bertarelli paid RC team looked on. POOR SHOW on the Swiss! Find the full story here:

Scuttlebutt #59 Bennett Rises Above Tiff

Here is a video clip of the winners:

2010 Americas’ Cup Regatta is Over!

BMW Oracle Racing (BMO) won in two straight races — one on Wednesday, one yesterday (Sunday), in light-to-moderate winds, sailing far ahead of Alinghi in both races.   Race 2 was an equilateral triangle, 13 NM on a side, with marks rounded to starboard. Here is a link to more information, where you can see streaming video replays of the racing.   Race 2 reruns start every three hours today — at 0700; 1000; 1300; 1600; and 1900 ET.  Here is the link for the video feed.  Note the video rerun feeds are somewhat off the above schedule — at 0730 this morning for example we saw the A/P flag come down, which would be about 10 minutes before the start.   You can see BMO achieving 33 kts on the reach leg.  See boats round the gybe mark at 2:15 after the start.

Americas Cup Race #1 Aftermath

Team Allinghi is licking their wounds tonight after getting absolutely thrashed by BMW/Oracle in the first race. I was able to watch today and both boats were incredibly fast – sometimes topping out at over 26 knots of boat speed in just 8 knots of wind! It seemed to me, however, that B/O’s Wing mainsail is a technological game changer like we have not seen since the winged keel of 1983, and the race almost as lopsided as the catamaran vs. the 90′ keelboat Cup races of 1988. The B/O boat has speed and pointing ability to spare. The commentators kept saying that once the boats came around the windward mark and turned down wind that Allinghi would catch up by being able to sail deeper and faster due to its lighter weight, but it sure did not turn out that way. If anything B/O was even faster, leaving Allinghi far astern and beating them by about 2 miles and almost 15 minutes! Allinghi had better find some mojo if they hope to compete with the Americans in the next race. Here is a video short from team Allinghi talking about the days racing. Enjoy:

Laser Frostbite 01/10/2010 Video

Sorry for the delay in getting this video footage put together. I got kind of slammed this week. I managed to get starts on races 2-4, and the leeward roundings on races 1 – 4 before running out of tape, not to mention feeling a little like a popsicle. Caught two racers hitting the leeward mark, one of whom took his turn, the other did not. In defence of the racer who did not, it is also clear in the video that he had no idea he had hit the mark, so I guess he gets a pass on that one. We report, you decide! Enjoy:

**Don’t forget to hit the “Full Screen” button, second one from the lower right in the player. Its HD!

2010 Laser Hangover Regatta – 01/01/2010

Scores and reports will be coming, but I thought I’d put up some video I shot from land yesterday first. I managed to get a couple of starts and a few leeward mark roundings before my batteries gave out. Hmmm… I thought I’d recharged those! Anyway there’s a couple of good shots. Don’t miss Frank trying to jam it at the leeward mark… “Trying to jam it” he says, he did jam it and got away with it. A bit of yelling. We report, you decide… 🙂  Enjoy:

Be sure to click the full screen button – second from the lower right in the player. Its HD.

2010 Hangover Regatta Today, 1/1/2010!

Today’s AccuWeather forecast (always subject to change) calls for mostly cloudy skies, a high of 44 degrees, and winds from the NNW at 10 – 12 MPH.  Not bad!  There’s no better way to nurse a hangover, or recover from yet another challenging year, than by celebrating with the PRSA Laser fleet and racing with us on the Potomac River. Skippers meeting will be at 12:00 Noon, first races at 12:45 PM. NOR, pre-registration and directions are located here:

Hangover Regatta Information and Pre-Registration Mike Heinsdorf and Tom Berlin are heading up the Race Committee — two more RC volunteers are needed.  There is no registration fee. There is a $3 launching fee if your boat is not stored at Washington Sailing Marina. If you are planning on sailing, please use the online registration form to pre-register. This is always a fun event and we are expecting a great turn out. See you on the water.

2010 PRSA Hangover Regatta Friday Jan 1st

Join us on the first day of 2010 for PRSA’s Annual Hangover Regatta. There’s no better way to nurse a hangover, or recover from yet another challenging year, than by celebrating with the PRSA Laser fleet and racing with us on the Potomac River. Skippers meeting will be at 12:00, first races at 12:45. NOR, pre-registration and directions are located here:

Hangover Regatta Information and Pre-Registration

There is no registration fee. There is a $3 launching fee if your boat is not stored at Washington Sailing Marina. If you are planning on sailing, please use the online registration form to pre-register. This is always a fun event and we are expecting a great turn out. See you on the water.