Tag: FBYC Annual Regatta

Fishing Bay Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta for One Design sailboats held the 2nd week of August each year in Deltaville Virginia.

Saturday

We had 8 Lasers out for the first day of the Fishing Bay Yacht Club Annual One Design Regatta in light air for two races before a storm came to the area and sent us in.

In the first race I had a good start at the boat, hit the shifts and just led the around the whole course to get a bullet.  The second race was set a bit longer and I messed up the start and wound up behind most of the boats going out to the left.  Halfway up the course I made my way to the right while all of the leaders went left, and I caught some good wind and shifts to the right to round just inside Brad Squires.  Brad had a gear I didn’t have downwind and got ahead and led the rest of the way to the finish.

We were sent in as a storm approached and were in by 2pm.

I did two video experiments today.  One was taking a bunch of time lapse pictures around the club of everyone launching and heading out to the course.  The other experiment was mounting a video camera to the stern of the laser with an extension.  It was a cool view, but was a little shaky.  I’ll have to figure out how to stabilize it a little more.

2013 FBYC AOD

Day 1 Results

Sunday

With no prospect of wind for the second day of the Fishing Bay Yacht Club Annual One Design Regatta, racing was called off early and yesterday‘s results stand.  Being tied for first, it would have been fun to have another race to break the tiebreaker, but we wouldn’t get it and I wound up second after the tie was broken.  Congrats to Brad Squires for winning the race that counted and getting it done.  Results.

On Saturday I ran the GoPro cameras to do some time lapse around the club.  Here’s the video of it all put together:

After awards and sailing we took out a few of the junior opti sailors and their coaches in Lasers and 420s for some fun sailing in the very light winds.  I took a friend’s 9-year-old son, who is an experienced opti sailor, out on my Laser and after a few pointers he sailed the boat alone for the first time.  He then proceeded in the first race to crush his college-aged coaches.  He didn’t do quite as well in the subsequent races, but it was a thrill for him to sail anything other an Opti, even if it was only 4 knots of wind.

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Another nice weekend of racing at Fishing Bay Yacht Club for the 73rd Annual One Design Regatta.  We had 10 Laser and 3 Radials among the 112 boats total at the regatta.  We got in 3 long races on Saturday.  The first race was probably the most exciting.  I led for most of the race and got passed in the last 50 feet to the finish line and a moment after the pass I death rolled just feet from the finish.  I still managed to right the boat and finish in 2nd.  I finished 2nd and 5th in the other two races.

8/12/2012 Fishing Bay Yacht Club 73rd Annual One Design Regatta - Laser Winners.

We would have raced some more, but storms moved into the area and chased us off the water.  Our course got off the water just fine, but the tail end of the Flying Scots coming in from the far racing area didn’t make it before the front hit and several boats were capsized near the club.  Thankfully there were no injuries or damage to the boats involved.  Dinner and the party got a slow start on account of the rain, but it did clear eventually and allowed for a good time.

On Sunday the wind was a bit lighter.  We raced long courses which spread the fleet out quite a bit.  In almost every race I would have a great start, miss a shift and find myself 2-4 at the first mark.  On the 2nd upwind I could usually pick off all or most of the boats ahead of me.  That’s what happened in the final race and passed upwind for the lead on the last 1/4 of the upwind to give me 2nd overall (results).  All in all it was a good regatta and we had quite a few fun races.

More awards pictures and a few scenes from around the club are here. Below is a video of a few scenes from the regatta.

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Fishing Bay Yacht Club hosted another great Annual Regatta with some good Laser sailing and plenty of wind which is pretty uncharacteristic for FBYC’s annual regatta in the middle of August.  17 of the 114 boats at the regatta were Lasers and 8 were sailing standard rigs.  The Lasers were on a course set in the Piankatank River just outside of Fishing Bay along with the Albacores and Windmills.

All of our races were W2s with .7 mile legs on a slightly pin favored line.  In the first race I failed to port tack the fleet and ended up fouling Steve Wirt just moments after the start. I had to do a few penalty turns putting me just behind the entire fleet.  By the windward mark I caught up to 3rd with boats all around me.  I caught a boat on each of the next two legs and held on for the final downwind leg to the finish.

By the second race the wind had built to the upper teens with gusts into the low twenties.  The first leg of this race was a drag race upwind between Frank Murphy and I.  At the first mark I rounded just ahead of him and shortly after the rounding he death rolled downwind.  That was a wake up call for me to sail a little more conservatively and I stayed out front to get a bullet in this race.

By the time we were starting the 3rd race, the outer course with Flying Scots, Front Runners, Hamptons, Typhoons, and San Juans and already been adjourned for the day having only sailed one race.  I think the conditions on the outside sailing area were really putting a beating on the sailors and the race committee.

Broken GoosneckI botched the start of the 3rd race and basically had to park my boat at the pin while I let Brad Squires, who timed the start perfectly, sail by on starboard.  Once I got going again I had good speed to get back out front and lead the way around the course.  As I was rounding the final windward mark to the finish, I eased the boom out, but my mast didn’t rotate, poping the 3 rivets holding the gooseneck to the mast.  I held on to get me through the finish line and the minute I turned to reach into the club, the goosneck popped off.  With no more races for the day, I was thankful that if was going to break that it broke when it did.

Back on shore we packed everything, cleaned up and enjoyed some drinks in the pavilion before dinner and later drinks.

On Sunday the first start was a at 10.  Lasers were the 3rd start so I left the dock at 9:40 and arrived at the course just before 10.  Turns out I was the only Laser that left the dock.  When I got to the course the RC told us to go in and that racing was abandoned onshore.  All of the other Lasers had been held before launching.  They postponed us due to some approaching storms in the area.  The storms never did come and the wind was beautiful all morning and late afternoon and we never did get sent back out to race.

With 3 bullets in 3 races I won the FBYC Annual Regatta for the second year in a row.  All in all it was a fun regatta and I’m sorry my summer sailing has come to an end for the year.

Laser Awards
1st Jon Deutsch (FBYC), 2nd Jeff Moore (SMSA), 3rd Mike Toms (FBYC)

RESULTS

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