VISA Championships

Results here.

We beat teams from Hampton, Kecoughtan, St Christopher's, Poquoson, Walsingham and St Catherine's.

More later.

JV season Championships at Fort Monroe

    On Saturday, at the end of October, we had a beautiful day on Mill Creek just west of Fort Monroe. This was the first time we sailed at this particular venue. The regatta was the VISA JV championships and 18 teams were entered. The crews had to be ferried out to a floating dock where the boats are stored. The day started a bit chilly but warmed to around 70 degrees. The breeze was about 8-10 knots all day.

    We had the best showing all year: we finished 5th of 18 teams, with Jake taking our first bullet of the season. The final scores are here.

    The shot below shows Jake and Charlie with a hefty lead approaching the finish line. It certainly helped that the boat in second just behind them at the final weather mark death rolled and created a lot of havoc for the rest of the fleet to avoid!

Below are a couple of additional shots. Thanks to Mrs Schoenig and Mrs Kiggans for the pictures!

MAASA Silver Fleet Champs

We participated with seventeen other schools in FJs supplied by the Washington College sailing team in Chestertown, Maryland. Saturday was very frustrating with very light winds and an aggressive ebb current. With general recalls, postponements and abandonments there were only two A fleet races completed in seven hours. After a nice day enjoying the sun and waiting for a steady breeze we went to Mass in a 160-year old church and then dinner. The motel accommodations were an adventure by Sunday dawned with a nice breeze the allowed another 12 races to be run.

The scores are here https://scores.hssailing.org/f16/massa-fall-fleet-silver/

Obviously it was a challenging regatta. We learned a lot and look forward to next season's out-of-district events. Next up are the JV champs at Fort Monroe (on the 29th) and our fleet regatta at NYCC (on the 5th.)

Bid received for MAASA Silver Champs

There are 85 schools in the MidAtlantic Scholastic Sailing Association.  The top eighteen teams will be sailing for the Gold Fleet Championship at Fort Monroe. There are 16 teams, including ours, that will compete for the Silver Fleet Championship at Washington College in Chestertown, MD. Each is a two day regatta on Saturday and Sunday, October 15th and 16th.

We will enter one A fleet and one B fleet crew. Since it is a four hour trip up the Eastern Shore, we'll be leaving at 4:30 Saturday morning to make the 9:00 a.m. check-in and registration. After sailing Saturday we'll go to Mass at a nearby Catholic Church and then have a group dinner. The hotel will be nearby. Sunday's activities start at 8:30. No races will start after 2:00 p.m. so we should be back on the road by 3:00 and home by 8:00 p.m.

Our first out-of-district event!

Regatta called on account of current.

Our fourth regatta of the season was on October 1st, again at NYCC. The day was warm and humid and there was very little wind for the 22 boats on the line. The first two A division races were run and our skippers struggled to find ways of generating speed. After the rotation, the first B division race was run in even less wind. Just as the RC was about to abandon the race, a slight zephyr filled in and most crews managed to finish. In this race our B division skippers Jake and Matt Beauchamp (who was filling in for Erynn who was taking the SAT) finished mid-fleet with a 14th and 15th.



After a postponement awaiting a more stable breeze, the second B division race was started. Unfortunately, the breeze fell out just as the tide began to ebb. When most of the fleet was carried down current of the weather mark out toward the harbor, the RC had no choice but to abandon. The fleet was towed back to the dock and the regatta was officially ended. Since a minimum of six races (3A and 3B) are needed to score the regatta, the day was basically a non-event.

The scores are here.

Our individual finishes were:
Iggy 20, 21
Nick 22, 22
Jake 15
Matt 14

I will upload some video shortly. If anyone managed to take some stills, please send them to me.

One ugly situation raised its head in the light air - Rule 42 and kinetics. After the start sequence of race 1B was begun, a few teams found themselves upwind/down current of the line and needed to get back to the pre-start side of the line. Any action is permitted before boats are racing ("racing" starts at the preparatory signal - with the sound signal starting system that is at the 2 minute mark.) So between 3 minutes and 2 minutes the boats may paddle, rock, pump, fan the sails - any action that can propel them back to the start area. However, at the 2 minute mark only the natural action of the wind on the sails is permitted. A number of boats were protested by the RC for using kinetics and were disqualified after a hearing.

I'll make a video about Rule 42 in the near future. All of our team should know what is permitted and prohibited by the rule and how to "call" others on their disregard of Rule 42.

NA Regatta at NYCC - Feast and Famine

Our third regatta of the season was again at Norfolk Yacht and Country Club in FJs. This fleet race had three more teams than a couple of weeks ago so there were 26 boats on the line (again 15 schools.) The day started with a very light westerly that fluctuated from 3-6 knots with big holes around the course. As the morning wore on there was a persistent veer as the front came closer.  Our crews struggled in the light stuff. A one knot current flowing down the weather leg didn't help. The starting line was right off the pier so we had great 50-yard-line viewing. I captured a couple of starts from the pier. The first has Jake in boat red 1 starting at the committee just a bit late, but crossing the line in the top half of the fleet. This race ended up being one of his better finishes.

The second vid is Jake's race 4A when he was in red 3. He arrived too early, got tangled in the mass of boats and had a poor start. This race ended up being one of his worst finishes. I provided a running commentary as I was recording so I'll let that speak for itself.

The wind kept clocking and gradually built. RC rotated the course to the new wind but just as the second set of B races were in their starting sequence the cold front came through. The wind swung 90 degrees to the North and the whole course had to be reconfigured. The breeze built rapidly and was shifty and very gusty near the new weather mark. The degaussing tower aeronometer in the harbor recorded the frontal passage. While we didn't get wind near 30 mph in the lee of the clubhouse, there were gusts close to 25 out by the start.

A couple of our crews flipped but neither turned turtle (as opposed to some crews from other schools.) The only casualty was the GoPro that I had rigged with the non-waterproof case (to record sound in the morning races.)

Erynn managed to copy an incident I had a few years back that made it in Sailing World's Dr. Crash. When hiking out it's important to make sure you catch the hiking strap! Matt adroitly managed to get on the centerboard as they rolled and pretty much stayed dry. Yes, having a crew can be very useful...

At the end of the day we finished 22nd and 25th. Results are here.

Individually Jake finished 18, 19, 25, 24, 24.
Iggy finished 12, 19, 17, 24, 18.
Nick finished 24, 25, 26, 26, 22.
Erynn finished 25, 22, 16, 25, 17.

Many of the low finishes were the result of taking penalty turns -- especially detrimental in light and heavy air (not so much in moderate breezes.) I'm proud that we acknowledge when we are at fault and readily take the spins. As we become more aware of tactical situations in future regattas the rule violations will decrease. I saw fouls at the start (usually windward-leeward) and on the weather legs (usually port-starboard.) Both the skipper and crew need to increase their situational awareness and not get caught sleeping. Next week we're back at NYCC. Let's hope for steady and moderate breezes and not the feast or famine we experienced today.

Thanks to Mr. Segerblom for the pictures! I'll leave you with one of his artsy shots.

Leapfrog with the GoPro

We mounted the GoPro to the masthead on the 16th when we had 15 knots from the northeast. Since the wind had been blowing for a couple of days we had a nice swell out by the degaussing tower.
Enjoy!

Sailing Rules Discussion

A twenty minutes video...for all skippers. Crews should be aware as well.

Bring questions and comments to the next practice.

Second regatta in the books

    We sailed in our second high school regatta on Saturday September 17 up at Christchurch School. Due to scheduling the VISA fleet was split with most of the teams at Fort Monroe. However, the best team in the league (Christchurch whose teams finished 1, 3, 4 out of 23 teams the previous week at NYCC) was at the regatta we attended so they provided a good yardstick. We again entered two teams: Team 1 had Jake and Nick as the skippers, with Jake sailing A division and Nick sailing B; Team 2 had Erynn and Iggy as helms, with Erynn sailing A and Iggy sailing B. The other team members rotated through in the crew slots. All sailed at least two races, except Matt Beauchamp who was at a cross country meet.

The individual finishes were:

Jake 4,4,4,5,4,4,
Nick: 5,6,5,5,5,DNS
Erynn: 6,6,8,7,7,5
Iggy: 4,4,4,4,4.5

The team totals and overall places are available at this link.  In many races we were close to the CCS "armada," at times overlapped at the finish. The breeze was up around 15 kts by the last set of rotations so I think our heavy air practice the previous week paid off. I'm looking forward to next Saturday when the entire fleet will again be at NYCC. Considering the individual results this week, Jake and Iggy will be Team 1 and Nick and Erynn will be team 2.

I'm not sure why Nick was scored Did Not Start for his last race. There was obviously an error on the committee boat as he did sail the race. If he was over early at the start and did not return he would have been scored OCS (On Course Side). In either case he garnered 9 points (one more than the number of starters in the varsity fleet.)

Thanks to Mr. Segerblom and Mrs. Kiggans for the pictures.

First regatta completed

 
We sailed in our first high school regatta on Saturday September 10. We entered two teams: Team 1 had Jake and Iggy as the skippers, with Jake sailing A division and Iggy sailing B; Team 2 had Nick and Erynn as helms, with Nick sailing A and Erynn sailing B. The other team members rotated through in the crew slots. All sailed at least two races, except Sebi who was working.

Junior and Seniors (Iggy was on the water)

The individual finishes were:

Jake 14,15,16,19,18
Iggy: 22,21,19,23,21
Nick: 21,20,20,23,22
Erynn: 23,22,22,19,22.

The team totals and overall places are available at this link.  Obviously we have a ways to go! Stay tuned as we improve and move up the ranking.

Our 9th and 10th graders

    As a point of trivia I was digging through my files and found the regatta program from 1999 that had a page describing the history of the "oldest high school sailing regatta in the country."  The scanned page is below.

    I scanned another page (below) that was "Reprinted from the 1964 Maury Regatta Program" and described one of the more popular classes at the time - the Moth. Surely the claim of being the "fastest sailboat in the world within the eleven feet" is true today.

    I hope to get of our helms on my foiler before the season ends. Perhaps this video from Oracle Racing will provide some inspiration.

W-4 explained

We will probably not use a triangle for the racing on Saturday. I was told to expect a W-4 course. We will sail this course this week at practice, but I put a short (8 min) video together to diagram it and explain it.

Live action news...

...what happens when folks play with the GoPro after practice...

You may want to crank up the volume -- or not.  Enjoy!

Monday saw ~12 kts

We had five boats on the water. The goPro was attached to one and we had three crews rotate through. Still needing to work on controlled jbes!

Friday's on-the-water practice is cancelled

Please meet me in room 205 after school. I need to re-measure heads to the nearest millimeter.

This video from Murray's shows more.

Finally some breeze

Tuesday saw ~ 10 kts from the East. We got in some good on-the-water time. Below is some video I shot.

We did have to deal with some large MH-53s doing touch and goes. The downdraft has to be experienced to be believed. Erin and Sebi did get blown over and had an impromptu capsize drill.
The pics below were by  Sean Segerblom using a telephoto lens. No, we weren't that close to the downdraft!

First day of practice was a drifter

Hopefully more wind on Friday!

We also need to recruit some light air crews. 200+ pounds won't work well in a drifter.....

Coming back in from Thursday's practice

Practice starts today.

If you have Base access meet at the sailing center at 4:00. If you don't, meet in the school's parking lot at 3:30.

Yesterday I staged the safety boat in the marina so we should be okay to conduct capsize drills. Make sure you bring your pfd and a change of clothes. My cell is 289-4241 if you need to reach me.

Plan on practice starting Thursday

I will be arranging Base access this afternoon. In the meanwhile, please review the draft schedule on the right hand sidebar. Also, please watch the Rules video linked below the schedule. You will have a short quiz on the Rules video on Thursday!

One more day delay, but we're close!

Our use of the Base Sailing Center has been approved. However we have one more hoop to jump through: I need to get with the Base Pass Office/Security folks and get clearance for me. The students will not need clearance. (I hope to do this Wednesday afternoon). Once completed, we should be good-to-go.

Tryouts postponed until Wednesday

All:

We will not have open tryouts on Monday the 15th as advertised. We still do not have clearance from base legal so I do not have a safety boat available.

We will have a "meet and greet" at the sailing center from 4:00-6:00 p.m. tomorrow for anyone who can make it. If you have base access, please arrange to be at the sailing center at 4:00 pm. If you cannot get on base, don't worry -- things should be okay by Wednesday.

My intention tomorrow is to set preliminary expectations, discuss the season, talk a bit about high sailing regatta formats and perhaps have a short racing rules lecture. I plan on having one 420 available for about an hour, checked out by someone with the base sailing ticket (Jake or Erynn or ???)) and have some short upwind/downwind tacking/jibing drills in the lagoon with everyone stepping through the crew position.

If you have a pfd, please bring it. Closed toed shoes are required. The forecast is for S-SSE winds from 7-8 mph. Obviously we would not get on the water if there is a t-storm in the area.

Please disseminate this info to as many folks that you know may be interested.

Coach Bousquet

Preliminary roster

All:

Below is the information I have. If you know of anyone else, please e-mail me.

Name	skipper	crew	Experience	Military?
Jake Kiggans	X		Yes	yes
Elizabeth Johnson		X	No
Erynn Sorensen		X	Yes	yes
Nick Segerblom	X		Yes
Matthew Lassalle	X	X	Yes	no
Ignatius Liberto	X		Yes	yes
Brandon Van Scoten		X	No	yes
Mike Zanti	X		Yes	yes
Sebastian Martinez	X	X	Yes	no

Elizabeth and Nick: any military connection?

Mike, Jake (and Erynn): Can you ckeck out a 420 at the sailing center? Can you bring a guest as crew?

Updated information

All:

I've uploaded two informative links on the sidebar to the right: one on roll taking and the other on jibing.  If you're a skipper you should know something of these techniques already. If you're a crew, note carefully the body movements (weight transfer) and the timing of transferring the jib sheet to the new side. We'll be practicing these a lot the first week.

The other common drill we will use is a stop/go drill. This is especially useful when maneuvering before the start.

I expect to get full approval to use the sailing center from the Base legal folks soon, but as a stand-by option, please send me an e-mail with a subject line: SAILING and indicate your name and whether you are a military dependent (have access to the base with an ID card.) Also, it would be helpful if you give a brief summary of your experience - critical for skippers, not so much for crews.

More later!

Practice Schedule and tentative regatta schedule posted

The team will practice Monday-Friday from 3:30-6:30 through October. The plan is to leave the school parking lot in a minibus for travel to the Norfolk Naval Sailing Center, arriving around 4:00. If you access to the Naval Base you may meet us there, but don't be late! We have the boats reserved from 4:00-6:00. We leave the sailing center at 6:00 to return to school around 6:30.

The fleet race regatta schedule has not been finalized yet, but I anticipate that it will be similar to last year's (shown on the right-hand side bar.) Once this year's schedule is set I will update the information. At this point we will only compete in fleet races. The VISA has a team race schedule on Tuesdays at NYCC, but for this inaugural season we will not participate in it.

There are two late season "out of district" regattas that we might attend: the Larry White ISSA Invitational on October 15th and 16th at the US Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut and the College of Charleston Intersectional on October 22nd and 23rd in South Carolina. Both of these regattas require upper level performance in the local races and our team's participation is by selection of the organizing authorities.

Crusader Sailing blog started

I've started this Crusader Sailing blog to easily disseminate information, schedules, results, etc. You can subscribe by following the link on the right-hand sidebar. Comments are welcome. Additional information will be added over the next few weeks.

Coach Bousquet