A light-air practice session

     We worked on weather mark roundings, picking the lay-line, and choices/roundings at the leeward gate marks. Most of the time the wind was in the 5 kt range.

First regatta of the season

We participated in the first regatta of the season on Saturday September 10th at Norfolk Yacht and Country Club. Not only was it the first regatta of the season for the team, it was the first regatta for all of our sailors.

Here is the report form the race committee:

    Saturday, September 10:

     Today was partly sunny with a light breeze in the AM of 12 to 15 MPH from the east. The wind built from there and was consistent from the east. A total of 13 boats began the regatta, representing        seven (7) schools. A total of ten races were completed. The top three (3) finishers were: York #1; Norfolk Academy #2; and Bruton.

      I think we never had breeze over 12. There was enough breeze to cause boat handling problems. There were a number of capsizes during the day, including two by our teams, resulting in scores of DNF (Did Not Finish). The final placings are here:

Note we tied on points (102) with one of the Norfolk Academy boats, but lost the tiebreaker because their best finish was higher than our best finish (they had a 3rd in race 2 nad our best finish was an 8th.)  So, overall we finished 10th out of 13. The running totals are below:

Overall I was pleased. We learn a lot about racing. Highlights include race #7 where Hunter and Kelly rounded the weather mark in second place due to a good start and a well-sailed beat. Here is a snippet of a video of Hunter and Kelly wounding the weather mark. I'll try to get more pics and vids the next time out.

2022 Regatta schedule posted

 See the sidebar to the right. The venues this year are Norfolk Yacht and Country Club (NYCC) off Hampton Blvd in Norfolk and Youth Sailing of Virginia (YSV) in Mill Creek off Fort Monroe in Hampton.

The Moth Nationals in Elizabeth City are optional. Coach Bousquet will make available a boat to those who want to sail.

2021 Fall Season updates

 We expect to be back on the water this coming fall! Tryouts will be dependent on the date that we can get back on the Naval Base (expect mid-August.)

Before then, get as much water time in that you can. We'll be using the school's 420s but any small boat will be good to polish/build skills. 

If you have the means to store and launch a small boat I have a few classic moths available that you can have to use over the summer.  Contact me at bousquej@chsvb.org

This post:  https://crusadersailing.blogspot.com/2019/09/moth-nationals.html has some of our folks in action at a regatta a couple of years ago.

Coach Bousquet

 

Team race championships

We competed in the VISA team race championships at NYCC on Saturday 12 October 2019. Participating were Abbie and Maria in one boat and Chase and Frances in a second boat. Below is the regatta report by the organizers.

   Fifteen teams from 11 schools arrived on the Lafayette River for the season Championship Team race regatta to find unusually high tides covering the entire lower parking lot at NYCC and a good portion of the fixed docks. Some cloud cover gave way to partly cloudy skies and a high temperature of 75 degrees. Seas were flat. Light winds NNW at 3-6 mph with gusts higher and some oscillations shifting slightly north before dying at 3:00PM when racing was abandoned.

   Sailors completed 2 round robins on two digital N courses. Teams were initially seeded into three groups on the two separate courses, with Group 1 on course 1, and groups 2 and 3 on course 2. After the initial rounds were completed teams were re-seeded into 4 groups with teams moving up or down based on the initial round results. Lack of wind precluded a third round with more movement.

   Final rankings are based on Round 2. Christchurch School Team 1 took first place, followed by Norfolk Collegiate School Team 1 in second, and Norfolk Academy Team 1 in third place.

    We are very grateful to all of the volunteers that made this event possible, especially Levi Thomson and David Chase who served as PRO's on the two different courses.

Again we struggled in the light air, but Abbie and Chase found getting on-time starts to be much easier with the small size fleet (we raced 2 v. 2 since we couldn't muster a third skipper.) At the end of the day, we finished with 2 wins and 4 losses to place 12th of the 16 teams. Below are the scores of the teams on course 2 (the lower seeded teams.)

Regatta report 28 September

On the 28th of September we sailing in a regatta at Fort Monroe, hosted by the Youth Sailing of Virginia. Here is the regatta report from the organizers:

    Eighteen teams from 14 schools gathered on Fort Monroe to compete on Mill Creek. Morning overcast skies gave way to blazing sunlight combined with little breeze and temperatures in the mid 80's, making for a long hot stiff, but fun, day on the water. Morning breezes were ENE 3-7 mph with gusts to 10 mph, slowing considerably to NE 2-3 when racing was abandoned.

    Two divisions each completed 4 W-4 races followed by 2 W-2 races. Races averaged 20 minutes long. A seventh A division race was sailed and scored, but had to be thrown out because a seventh B race was unable to be completed.

    Norfolk Academy Team 1 took first place. Behind by only one point, in second place was Norfolk Collegiate School Team 1, followed by Poquoson High School Team 1 in third place.

    Many thanks to Alan Bomar for serving as PRO, and not leaving anything on the water.

Our finishes are below. We struggled in the light air, finishing tied with Granby on points but beating them by finishing ahead of them in seven of the twelve races completed.

Moth Nationals

On Saturday and Sunday the classic moth national championships were held in Elizabeth City, NC. Abbie and Sev attended Saturday and Chase sailed both Saturday and Sunday. There were 23 boats in the fleet broken out as vintage, generation 1, and generation 2 boats. Of the 23 competitors, seven were "juniors" (under 18). The oldest competitor was 75 years old (coach Bousquet was only 64.)

Some shots of our Crusaders, first heading out to the start area:

And then some taken during the race:

The breeze was shifty and puffy giving challenging conditions.

Winning the championship was Mike Parsons from Philadelphia with finishes of 1-(3)-1-1-1-2-2 = 8. Coach Bousquet finished in 2nd place with 2-1-2-2-(4)-1-1 = 9.  Both Mike and Coach sailed the Mistral design, the fastest in the Generation 2 fleet.

The scores for Chase, Sev and Abbie were
Chase: 15-(19)-17-19-16-15-15 = 97 for an 8th place in the Generation 1 fleet
Sev: 20-15-18-11-(DNS)-DNS-DNS = 112  for a 5th place finish in the Generation 2 fleet
Abbie: 16-21-19-21-(DNS)-DNS-DNS = 125 for a 12th place in the Generation 1 fleet

More pictures and video are posted on the Classic Moth Boat Association: FB page

The regatta was written up in Monday's The Daily Advance (the Elizabeth City newspaper): http://www.dailyadvance.com/Sports/2019/09/23/Family-ties-throughout-Moth-Boat-Nationals.html