6/27 TESOD: Rain, with breeze!

Synopsis: 3 boats, lots of rain, 8-18 knots of breeze, starting at around 170 degrees, continually shifting right through the evening. No races completed (by me anyway), but just boathandling and speed practice going out to the mouth of the severn and back in to the NA seawall.

I showed up at 4:30 in the SSA dinghy park to rig the boat in the rain. It had been breeze on all day. John had already called me once from the club to say breeze on get your butt down here. Unfortuantely he couldn't take off work at the SSA junior program or I would have been there at 1 PM. Anyway, we hit the water by 5 in the lee of Eastport and by the time we got to the shoal pole we were raking and planing upwind. We got out to the spider, pulled the kite up and let 'er rip. We were both stoked just to be sailing, having spent all day watching the wind and wishing we could be out in the 5-oh. It was raining. We didn't care. It was just awesome to be out there tearing around the mouth of the Severn with warm air and water and no powerboats. John commented that it's tough to practice boat handling in the 5o5 because it's just so much fun to drive the boat in a straight line! We buzzed the RC on one of the runs downwind. Not sure what the laser guys were thinking watching us come screaming down in a cloud of spray and foam. Another 3 trips up to the spider and back down to SSA, and I had to come in and switch out for my other driver Martha who I took for her first 5o5 ride last week at TESOD and there was very little breeze. So little in fact that we had to paddle the boat back from Pussers...last week I promised we could go sailing again, but next time in breeze. That promise came true on 6/27.

But I digress. When John and I hit the dock, Dan Wittig was rigging Bob Patterson's boat and Mike Coe was getting Ali's boat ready. Martha hopped in and we headed back out. We made a couple more laps and by that time Ali and Dan had made it off the dock and we all headed out to the bay for some upwind speed tuning. Dan and Ali definitely had speed on us but Martha was quickly getting the hang of how to make the boat go fast. The breeze went up we put some rake in. The breeze dropped off, we took some rake out. At one point I took a very spectacular swim while driving from the wire and Martha was working on stuffing the kite back in the bag (I hate how that stupid kite comes out of the bag!!!) Unfortunately this happened right in view of the other boats, so there was no way to brush it off. All we could do was laugh. At least we didn't flip. Nothing broken but a little slice of ego...

By the time we got out past the spider it was starting to look truly ominous back in Naptown, so we pulled the kite up again and went careening off back down hill. On the way down Martha just kept saying 'I love sailing 5o5's!' Seriously she probably said that 10 times. Anyway, as we came back in the wind went flukey and the rain arrived in earnest. Trying to get into the harbor was a bit hairy. It was dumping massive buckets of rain, so much it was very difficult to see. Eventually we hit the dock and got the boats put to bed. After 2 helpings of Kieran's special and a couple glasses of wine, I went home super happy. 2 skippers, 3 hours of sailing, plenty of breeze, and a whole lot of fun. So much fun in fact that we didn't even remember to show up for any races! Plus the TESOD courses were set up way inside where the breeze was flukey and light and the water was not mast-depth!

We'll do it all again this thursday. Show up and take a ride!

6/22 Training Event

I arrived at the club around 5:45 to survey the situation and see whether to go sailing or work on the boat. The forecast from the way cool wind site was for a southerly to fill in at around 10 kts in the evening. This appeared to be happening. My driver, an SSA summer jr. program instructor named John Loe, said that the wind had been flakey all day, so I was thinking we'd do boat work. It was hot. When I got to the club though some breeze appeared to be filling in so we decided to rig. Keith Davids and Mike Coe were on hand both rigging boats. John and I hit the water first and headed out to mid harbor, then put the kite up and came back in to reconnect with the other guys. Then we all headed out past the spider, set kites and did some gybing practice. Conditions were full on wire running towards whitehall bay. It was beautiful. Then we took kites down and did upwind speed tuning back up towards Bay Ridge. There was a lot of back and forth as we each adjusted our boats and driving technique, but nobody was squirted out the back. Once we got near shore we put kites back up and went down again. By this time the breeze was somewhat lighter so not much wire running. But there were some nice waves running and we practiced riding those as we came in. We were on the dock around 8:30, after a beautiful sunset. It was an epic night for sailing.

The one big lesson I took away from the evening:

We pulled ram way down (-2 or so, with rake at 3'3") in the moderate air but big chop. This really helped us to make the middle of the sail look fuller and get the leech to hook. I had not done that before, but it really seemed to work.

SSA Summer Series Day 1: BREEZE ON!!!

For the 3 intrepid boats that managed to show up for day 1 of the SSA summer series, the weather gods served up a delicious platter of 18-24 knot breeze, 72 degree water, 75 degree air, and sunny skies. The other 2 racing fleets (Comet, Soling) bailed without even raising sails, leaving the 5o5's as the only fleet to go sailing. Sterge Papadakis teamed up with Ali Meller. New SSA instructor Craig Thompson teamed up with Nicholas Place, and J Bergquist teamed up with Amie Boothe. The RC set up a racecourse off Brembe Beach, and we had 2 races before Nicholas decided he had stuck the mast in the mud one too many times and headed in. Ali and Sterge had other commitments so they headed in with Nicholas. Amie prevailed upon J to forego working on the keelboat in favor of blast reaching out to the middle of the bay. It was not a tough sell...

Conditions were very puffy, making it a physical day of sailing, with playing the main upwind extremely important. It was a good workout. During the shoreside debrief, Ali told me he was raked to the max (3'8" I believe), with ram at -1. We were a bit afraid to rake that far back with no flattening reef, so I had only gone to 3'6.5" with ram at +1. We may have had the ram too far up. But Amie kept saying 'woo-hoo' like a college girl at a frat party, so I guess our setup worked all right for her...

Setup discussions aside, this was an EPIC day of sailing, the kind that is all too rare on the Chesapeake. Those of you who didn't show up missed some of the best conditions I have ever seen in Annapolis (granted I've only been here 4 years). The combination of warm air, warm water, high support boat-to-sailboat ratio, and lots of breeze doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's a perfect opportunity to get out there and practice. The only way to get better sailing in breeze on is to get out there and GO SAILING!

Only 3 boats showing up is not a good showing for our fleet. It's embarrassing actually! I had to hang my head in shame when I went trying to recruit people to sail out of the J22 fleet. They had 12 boats out last weekend, and even though our ride is a lot more fun, without people showing up to race, it's tough to make a convincing argument that they should come sailing with us. We really need to work on having a better turnout for the next day of the Summer Series which is on July 8. So do what you have to do, clear out the schedule, and SHOW UP for that event! If you need help getting your boat ready, just ask!!!

June 8 Training/Practice Scratchlist

Bob Patterson will be there with some junior instructors/7068
Ali/Mike/8776 not confirmed

J cannot make it

Saturday June 10 SSA Summer Series Scratchlist

Who is in for racing Saturday?

Ali/Mike/8776 (probable)
J/Amie/6987
Andrew McKechnie/Jesse Falsone (last couple of races)

Joe Hidalgo looking for a ride
Bob Patterson not racing, boat possibly/maybe available
Cardiac Arrest is available
Chris Legg not available
Derek Davies not available

June 6 TESOD

4 505 sailors showed up at SSA to go sailing last night: J Bergquist & Amie Boothe were on hand to practice for the first day of the upcoming summer series. Jimmie Cockerill (sp?) managed to shanghai someone named Ivan off the SSA porch to sail Cardiac Arrest with him. Ivan turned out to be quite an accomplished sailor, hailing from Bulgaria, who described the experience of driving a 5o5 as

'zis boot feelz zo ALIVE! zhe iz juust zo ALIVE!'

This was a description of driving Cardiac Arrest. I wonder what he would have thought about driving a nice boat?

But I digress. We were in the water by 6:15, with a northerly at about 5 knots and J/Amie immediately headed out past the TESOD race course and spider to get some practice and tuning time, let Amie find where to land her butt after a tack and what to do with the tiller extension. After we got some wits, and about the time we were mid-span on the Bay Bridge, sailing in a 10-12 kt easterly, a huge rainbow came out, which we took as an omen and decided to pull the kite up and practice going downwind. After a couple of errant gybes where Amie managed to find new and interesting places to put the tiller extension, we developed a system and the breeze built to allow wire running. Unfortunately, we then broke the topping lift sheave and got a very low pole, but that didn't stop us from coming screaming into the harbor, nailing a few more gybes and taking the kite down just in time to enjoy one TESOD race so we'd get counted for participating.

After our race, we all did a bit more practice, then headed in to enjoy the Angry Chef's salad with white wine, followed by a beautiful sunset and beers at Davis's with the Vanguard 15 crowd. All in all it was a great night with decent breeze, good 5o5 practice, two epic rainbows, a nice sunset, and lots of hanging out with friends.

We'll do it all again next week. First start is at 6 PM. Don't be late.