Interest meeting on May 30th

An interest meeting was held after the English exam. The following folks attended:

Skippers:

Crews:



It is the hope that we we start practice in July this summer. All participants need to have a current physical on file with the athletic director before trying out or practicing. Team members must be good swimmers - capsize drills will be conducted the first day. The school will provide the helmets but students must own a type III p.f.d. and bring it every day to practice.  I own and recommend the West Marine "medalist" https://www.westmarine.com/buy/west-marine--medalist-life-jackets--P008_240_007_508?recordNum=38



Students who have experience in sailing are preferred. Helms are needed as skippers; novices can act as crews. The boats we use are weight sensitive and smaller students will be faster than heavier students.

An old man and a kid, sailing

I found out about this from Sail Anarchy. It's an interesting video short - originally made to be viewed with V/R but looks fine to me in the theatrical version.

The theatrical version

More about the V/R version

Merry Christmas!

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!