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.