VISA JV Championships at Christchurch

A cold day, specially for our sailors who didn't have wet/dry suits. Due to the breeze (10-20 knots), the occasional capsize, and the onset of hypothermia, both crews did not complete the series, having invoked Fundamental Rule 4:

"DECISION TO RACE

The responsibility for a boat's decision to participate in a race or to continue racing is hers alone."

 Here are the individual scores. First for Nolan and Maria who completed seven races:

Then for Josh and Chase, who finished three races:

After returning ashore and drying off, it was great eating hot pizza. Thanks Mr and Mrs Rodriguez!

TCIS Championship regatta

We raced in the TCIS Championships on a Thursday afternoon (our first weekday race!) We were assigned three boats (Red 1, 2, and 3). Jake stayed in Red 3 all afternoon and sailed with Maria and Mark, finishing all their races mid-fleet.  Here is their line:

Josh started in Red 2 with Chase. Others rotated in the crew slot. Charlie and Margaret finished the day in Red 2 for the last two races (actually, DNF the last race due to heading to the homecoming game.) Here is the line for Red 2:

Charlie and Nolan skippered in Red 1 with various crews. Here is the line for Red 1:

 Our total score was 281, placing us seventh of the seven schools:

I took lots of video and will be uploading clips over the next few days.

VISA "Fun" Regatta report

On Saturday October 20th we sailed at NYCC in a "fun" regatta. Here is the description from Coach Bousquet who was the race committee and chief whistle blower:

Winds today were 10-18 SW veering to WSW, with waves of less than 1 foot and drizzle throughout the regatta. There were a few capsizes between races, none during the racing. Six races were run on a "bow-tie" course.

Congratulations to Norfolk Academy team 4 for capturing first place, Nansemond-Suffolk Academy for taking second and Norfolk Collegiate Team 1 for finishing in third place.

The full results:

Video was taken of most finishes. See if you can pick out our crews:

And another video, this one of a start:

Late fall practice session

We had a good practice session today. The breeze was 15-20 at the degaussing station (wind graph below) and we had about 12-18 near the shore. We had a lot of upwind tacking duels and close-quarters boat handling. Charlie and Josh acted as helms with Cam and Maria as their crews. Mark and Jake traded off as helm/crew.

The water temperature at Sewells Point is still warm but will be dropping soon. All-in-all a good day!

Improved starting using a range sight

Having a range sight on the leeward (pin) end of a start line greatly improves your starts. The picture below shows the few seconds before the start of one of the races at the recent moth nationals.

The picture was taken from the committee boat looking down at the leeward end (a small yellow buoy to the left of the water tower.) The boat closest to the camera is sailed by Mike Parsons, who has won the nationals a number of times and who finished 2nd in this year's championship. I am sailing the white boat mid-way down the line. Note the mid-line sag caused by the boats around me having held back because they are not sure where the line is. I am using a range on the far shore to pinpoint exactly where the line is. (I had chosen the right edge of the red roof as my range.)
More on finding ranges is  found here as play #8 in Dave Dellenbaugh's Playbook Series #1 Starting Strategy and Tactics

The picture below was taken shortly after the start. Note that Mike and I are about even and the rest of the fleet is already behind due to late starts. If I remember correctly, the wind was in an oscillation that shortly backed left and I tacked to port and easily crossed Mike (and boat number 2000.) I went on to win this race.

Good starts make a big difference!

VISA Team Racing Champs

Saturday October 13 at NYCC in FJs. Highlights: We sailed eight races and ended the day with a 1 and 7 record. The last race was satisfying as we finished 1-2-3 over Walsingham (shown above.)

More pics to come. 

Summary from the regatta organizers followed by the results of the day's races:

Eighteen teams from fourteen schools met at Norfolk Yacht and Country Club for the VISA 2018 Fall Team Race Championship. Competition was for berths at the MASSA Fall Fleet Race Championship for top finishers. Temperatures were a very pleasant 60-70 degrees with winds east of north clocking through north to NW at 8-14mph with gusts higher. Seas were flat.

Teams were ranked and divided into two separate silver and gold courses. Both courses ran a full 36 race round robin. This was followed by knock-out rounds on gold, and a final round 4 on silver. In all, 81 races were completed.
On the gold course, Christchurch School captured first place followed by Norfolk Collegiate School in second place, Norfolk Academy in third place, and Poquoson High School in fourth place.

The silver course yielded Christchurch School Team 2 in first place, Norfolk Collegiate School Team 2 in second place, Norfolk Academy Team 2 in third place, and Nansemond-Suffolk Academy in fourth place.

Final Results

	#		School	Team	Rec.	Skippers	Crews
	1		Christchurch School	Seahorses 1	13/0
	2		Norfolk Collegiate School	Oaks 1	8/5	Harrison Thomson '22	Sam Beck '21
						Chris Robertson '19	Matt Wright '19
						Parker Purrington '19	Ray Domena '19
	3		Norfolk Academy	Bulldogs 1	9/3	Charlie Britt '21	Audrey Permenter '23
						Michael Hostutler '20	Mihir Damle '19
						Maiya Foleck '19	Cameron LLoyd '19
						Jennifer Permenter '21
	4		Poquoson High School	Islanders	5/7	Jack McKenna '20	Audrey Merritt '20
						Emmaline DiCarlo '20	Ashlyn Wise '21
						Charlotte Patterson '20	Eleanor Patterson '22
							Katie Robinson '20
	5		Hampton Roads Academy	Navigators 1	3/5	Alex Kitay '19	Ethan Kutner '18
						Parker Moore '25	Nathan Hoege '19
						Connor Duggan '19	Evan Liu-Phillips '17
	6		York High School	Varsity	3/5	Brian Fox '19	Charlie Gibson '20
						Kai Vylet '19	Hunter Bryson '22
						Ethan White '21	Justin Kelly '25
	7		Kecoughtan High School	Warriors	2/6	Megan Geith '20	Laura Rhodes '20
						Cole Handly '19	Morgan Riggins '20
						Gavin Smith '21	Charlotte Pirnik '20
						Unreported Sailor '19 *	Morgan Handly '21
							Unreported Sailor 2 '19 *
	8		Peninsula Catholic High School	Peninsula Catholic	-1/9
	9		Hampton High School	Crabbers	1/7	Tori Dixon '20	Daniel Mayolas '21
						Avery McNight '20	Gavin Miller '23
						Tyler Brown '22	Mallory Soter '20
							Peyton Crum '23
	10		Christchurch School	Seahorses 2	10/1
	11		Norfolk Collegiate School	Oaks 2	9/2	Robert Chase '22	Jon Krueger '20
						Maggie Campbell '22	Clare Harbin '19
						Alex Schuck '21	Adam Elci '22
	12		Norfolk Academy	Bulldogs 2	7/4	Henry Allgeier '23	Ali Zaidi '19
						Paul Trudell '22	Blake Brown '21
						Rebecca Schill '23	Lydia Sweeney '21
	13		Nansemond-Suffolk Academy	Saints	6/5	Kyle Pfrang '22	Hunter Sznoluch '19
						Jack Butler '23	Adam McAninley '23
						Leila Pfrang '25	Alex Wilkerson '19
							Carter Lydon '21
							Andy Beute '23
							Emily Argust '20
							Morgan Jenkins '24
	14		Phoebus High School	Phantoms	3/5	Ricky Cordner '19	Victor Pirnik '22
						Alexandra Smith '23	Ramazani Clement '23
						Tyson Denton '21 *	Theo Dennis '24
						Unreported Sailor '19 *	Constant Capsize 3 '16 *
	15		Grafton High School	Varsity	3/5	Haydon Gould '19	Reilly Warren '21
						David Hanna '21	Lenore Daugherty '20
						Sam Rooker '21	Christopher Raab '20
							Jude Link '22
	16		Hampton Roads Academy	Navigators 2	3/5	Dax Dimuzio '21	Caden Sutton '21
						Cole Frankenhoff '22	Liam Ambrosino '23
						Scott Spencer '19	Kyle Rutherford '22
	17		Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School	Crusaders	1/7	Jake Kiggans '19	Maria Rodriguez '22
						Josh Kiggans '21	Maragret Lassalle '19
						Nolan Swetland '21	Gustavo Morales '20
						Chase Brittain '22	Chase Brittain '22
							Oliver Hudson '20
							Mark Ostrowski '19
							Camden Edwards '22
	18		Walsingham Academy	Trojans	0/8	Ronan Donovan '19	Maddy O'Connell '21
						Katherine Anna Hamner '22	Ian Howard '23
						Riley Kelley '20	Sidney Woloszynowski '20