Standings so far...

Here are the standings for Fleet 54 as of today August 31st. Thanks to Josh for doing the math.

Two weeks left and the competition is tight! 31 races sailed with 5 throw outs...

48 Sugar Magnolia

59 The Good Foot (formally known as Oobleck)

61 Wharf Rat

64 Screaming Pelican

120 Welsh

128 US Blues

Nationals Wrap Up

I know the reports from Kingston were few and far between. It actually turned into a bit of a hectic week. On Wednesday we were measuring sails until 9:30 at night. Fred finally got a hold of us on Thursday to measure the keel of the Screaming Pelican after a long day on the water. On another nigh there was the class annual meting, so on and so on. I don't think Josh and I ate at a reasonable hour until three days in. That being said, it was a good regatta. I think everyone had some fun. The conditions were great except for the last day. The people who run CORK seemed to like our presence, again, and invited us back.

Steve Clancy and John Murphy sure showed their speed, even in the light stuff. We were able to take a race out of them which was nice. We would have preferred to win more. In the end we put our eye on John Huff on the Glider and spent most of Saturday planted right on top of their air. (which makes the race I gave them at the last gybe that much more painful) We always seem to lock horns with John every year which is actually quite good. John is a great sportsman and friend and we have fun.

Jeff Adam had a spotty week which almost ended faster than expected. We were rolling the boat to the crane when I heard "Mark, could you have a look at this?" in that not-so-good tone of voice. His shroud tracks were pulling the backing plate through the deck and the deck seam was separating from the hull. I am pretty sure my response was something to the affect of "Now that's a show-stopper." Some plywood, machine screws, a battery drill and he and John were three minutes late to the first start of the day. Nice fix and ALMOST in time.

Ross Weene and Eli Slater had an okay week but a rough last day. They were in a great race for either third, fourth or fifth starting the day. They ended up fifth after a shocker of a race on Sunday. I think they are still trying to figure out what they were thinking.

Speaking of wrapping up, I am going to do just that. Find the results at the CORK web site. Back to fleet racing tomorrow night. Photos are coming soon enough.

Thanks for the support everyone.
Mark

Nationals - Day 3

Unfortunately it does not appear that results are online quite yet. Quick report is that Steve Clancy and John Murphy are fast. Very, very fast. After an average tune-up race they have collected three bullets in some good, hard sailing conditions. Josh and I are in second with a 2,4,2. John Huff and Mark Vanderberg is two points behind us, Ross and Eli are in fourth and I cannot remember what happens from there as I do not have the results in front of me right now.

So far it has been a good event. We got the tune-up race out of the way with a shortened course and some confusion which led to many boats not finishing the race. Most of the confusion coming from the line of thunder storms running down the lake and the committee telling people to head back to the barn. After that passed with some rain they sent us out for a nice first race of the series in some fifteen knots of wind.

Yesterday was a bit windier, or so it seemed. With the wind a little left of the wave set everyone was talking about port tack after racing as most people found it hard to navigate through the short chop.

Not sure what today holds. Definitely some kind of weather as rain is imminent and wind predictions from a drifter to 25+, depending on who you listen to. In the end, we'll find out soon enough.

Time to get to the boat park and get ready. I will try to get some results up later on.

Mark

Where Has The Time Gone

Nationals are upon us. Next week as a matter of fact. I do receive some strange glances when I tell people we are having our national championships in Canada. I think a lot of people would agree that the people who run CORK did a fine job for us a while back and I am happy to go back.

This year's regatta should be interesting. Ross Weene is coming off his Atlantics victory and has been building up to a fine performance next week. Steve Clancy in his restored hull #4 has been putting up great numbers for the past year but can he provide at the Big Show? Has that boat been measured yet? Ann and Tom Craig, who won the last time we held nationals in Kingston, appear to have two boats registered with Annie showing her crew to be "TBD". Hmmmmm. Then we have the bride's maids who I will not call out by name. You know who you are.

Either way, I think we are all looking forward to a good regatta. Life should be a bit easier now that we know how the drysail lot works, where the course is, not to bother going to the local "dance" club. I look forward to seeing some old friends on and off the race course. Safe driving and see you all in a week.

Mark

August 10th

So, no racing last night. I guess it was going to rain? Not really sure but the turnout was going to be a bit weak so that sealed the deal.

Amory Ross got back in touch and posted a gallery of the shots he took last Friday night. Apparently he was out working on some back lighting techniques and we happened to be out there. Lucky for us as there are some good photos here.

That's it. Some of us may go out and watch the jazz festival today. See you next week.

Nice Night For A Yacht

Friday night was a great night of racing. We had plenty of wind and all the boats from the parking lot. That's only six boats but it sounds better when I say the lot was empty. It was blowing around 15 knots at the start and the committee setup pretty far down towards the bridge, setting up a nice sausage between a couple of government marks with them in the middle.

It became obvious quickly that the windward mark was RIGHT THERE and you had to come off the line clean and make your move early or you would be facing transoms at the windward mark. The current was coming in but the beat was so short there was really no advantage on either side. Clean air, go fast, get there first. This is pretty much what we did on the first race which was a twice around. Starting near the boat we found speed early and got to the mark in front of Jeff and Jon. There was barely enough time to think about the other boats as the current was ripping and the wind was up so we rounded, set the boat up for downwind in time to gibe and then start setting the boat up for upwind. There was just enough time to catch a couple of waves. Jeff gave us a scare going to the left out of the leeward mark, the leg being long enough for him to get some current relief but we managed to hold him off until the finish.

The second start was a disaster! We were lined up on starboard and the whole fleet continued onto port, outside the boat layline. I got greedy with main only and tacked back to try and close things up with the fleet who would be coming in from the right. That's when we went completely into irons and stopped. Then we went backwards. Then we stopped. Then we went forwards, a little. Finally we got going enough to start the race while getting heckled by the race committee. (yes, heckled) Josh and I stowed our pride and got to work, rounding the windward mark in fourth. The next windward mark was a lot closer. At the top of the leg we ducked Ross who let us have the right side of the course for some reason. We tacked onto layline to find Kevin Farrar, sailing the Jones's #511, had tacked onto port to get to layline and had botched the tack. The only move was to duck, which we did but I pulled the trigger to head up a little early, and we bumped. This and the current had Josh pushing the boat around the nice green government mark so while Kevin spun 511 around we also did a circle. After all this we were still in touch with Ross who was having spinnaker issues and managed to pass him on the run. Jeff had a run away victory but we managed a second.

The third race was much less hectic so we will go onto the fourth. The last race was windward, leeward, windward to the hoist. This was a tight battle between us and Jeff. The end result being we tacked to cover Jeff, right in front of Jeff, debatable if we tacked too close. He cried protest and we all carried on. Josh and I discussed the whole thing for the remainder of the race and thought the prudent move was to do a circle and accept a second if Jeff passed us in the process. We were about twenty minutes late in doing our circle so we made it a SLOW one. In the end we did beat Jeff to the hoist and won the race. We all chuckled about the incident and decided that, if taken to the room, each side would have a 50/50 chance.

This was a fun and funny night of racing. Josh had one of those crew nights which may have defeated a mortal man. Two tacks that I know of he slipped mid-tack and managed to pull the sheet in while on his butt or back and get out on the wire. Another he remained hooked on the new leeward side and managed to fight his way out before it got too ugly. I cannot remember the others but it was a short course night with plenty to do regardless of stuff like that. Somehow he made it look graceful despite how hard I was laughing at him.

I do not have full results as I post this. I know that Jeff and Jon were in second with a 2,1,2,2 but I lose track from there. Also, Amory Ross was out for the first race, at least. taking photos. I have gotten in touch to see if there are any good shots. Gotta love Newport. Not many 110 fleets have a professional marine photog snapping shots.

Mark

District 1 Championship

On Saturday morning at 10:30am we had eight boats (5 Hull, 2 Maine, and1 Newport) pretty much rigged and ready for launching. It was shapingup to be a nice day, though there were a few potentially menacing cloudson the distant horizon. Not to worry, the weatherman said it would allpass to the north. The sun was out and there seemed to be a steady windfrom the south/southeast at about 8-10 mph. We were all psyched to gosailing. Whoops, major problem...we discover that the hoist is dead.Tommy climbed the extension ladder to the hoist and confirmed from theburn marks and burnt motor smell that indeed the hoist was deceased.Scramble mode! Tom and I drove around for an hour to locate the yachtclub backup hoist but we couldn't find it (we went to the wrong house).Hmmm...can't have a regatta if we cant launch. Anyway, in the end,former 110er Greg Fleck came to our rescue with his boom truck to launchall the boats right on time. The regatta was showing some excitement atthe outset.I rigged my new main halyard system (tie line to head of sail, pull up,cleat it), which proved to work much better than my aluminum mastheadlock which failed during a breezy Sail Newport weekend (110 Atlantics).Everyone in Newport told me they stopped using masthead locks about 20years ago, now I know why.

Race 1: Sailing out to the starting line with Brother Fitty (Chris Clancy), thewind did a 180 to the northwest and increased 15-20 mph. After awhile,the wind seemed to be settling a bit but continued leaning right, so theline was favored to windward, which curiously, was the pin end. We hada pretty good start but Ross and Josh on Screaming Pelican moved out toleeward, crossed successfully, and were 1st at the windward mark, withus and the rest of the fleet right behind on this short upwind leg.Because the wind was continuing toward the right, the 1st few boatssailed low to where we sensed the leeward mark should be, but quicklyrealized it was a lot further left. Screaming Pelican stayed a littlelow. We reach up to grapple with the Bell Boys and were able to getinside position and rounded the leeward mark first, with the Bell Boys,Screaming Pelican, Annie and Stewart on Pow-Wow and the rest closebehind. The wind at this point was pretty much north/northeast so weimmediately flipped along with Pow-Wow and led a parade to the finish.

Race 2: The RC moved the windward mark a little right (not quite enough giventhe continuous righty). We had a pretty good start, could've beenbetter but we almost ran into Screaming Pelican bearing off down thewindward end of the line as they tried not to be over as the startinghorn went off. We ended up in lousy air so we cleared to the right assoon as we could. The Bell Boys flipped right on top of us so we droveoff to get clean. Wild Thing went right almost immediately off the lineand was doing well. The long tack was back to the left so we came backas soon as we could. One more short hitch up to the starboard laylineabout 3/4 up the windward leg and we were on the starboard tack layline.Wild Thing was first around the WW mark with us right behind. WildThing worked us up as we tried to affect their breeze off the wind. Aswe bore off for the mark we were able to get inside and round theleeward mark first. Again, with the righty now at Northeast, weimmediately flipped and it was a parade to the finish.

Race 3: By this time, the wind had swung right 300 degrees from the day's startand we had a nice northeasterly at about 12 mph. The RC moved and setthe best course of the day using government marks. The starting linewas heavily favored on the windward end. The Bell Boys, ScreamingPelican, and Wild Thing were in good position partly luffing up to theline at about 12 seconds. We were barging some so we ended up dipping 4sterns (Bell Boys, Screaming Pelican, Herb and Grandson on the OtherWoman, and Wild Thing) and stuck our nose up on the line a few secondslate...not our best start. Pow-Wow was to leeward and in front and theyeventually began to slow us down as they pinched us up. With everybodythinking right and the tide ebbing, we cleared to the right as most ofthe boats tacked off that way as well. As we sheeted in, the port tackjib sheet knot pulled through the jib clew and we lost the jib. So, wetacked back to starboard for a minute or two to fix the problem. When we tacked back we were on the port tack layline. The Bell Boys had anice start and sailed fast to a solid lead at the windward mark withScreaming Pelican, Wild Thing, and Pow-Wow grouped behind. We dipped Pow-Wow and very closely (a little too closely) lee-bow tacked on MartyBrown, Rick Maurice and the Other Woman tightly grouped together androuring in on starboard at the mark, rounding 5th. We closed the gapsome and stayed 5th trailing just behind Wild Thing at the leeward mark.We drove off below Wild Thing and Pow-Wow rather than tack. The BellBoys were in firm control on the right; they were going to win the race.It became an interesting race for the next 4 positions. Wild Thingtacked and did well sailing halfway out to the left. Screaming Pelican,Pow-Wow and my Brother and I on Jolly Giant sailed up to Bumpkin Islandon the right and tacked onto starboard; we tacked under and a littleearlier than the other two and benefited from the same progressiveheader that Wild Thing sailed into because they came flying back in onport and crossed just ahead of the whole group. Wild Thing hung it outa little too long on the come back and maybe overshot the finish just atad. Fitty and I were lucky to slip in and finish 3rd just behindScreaming Pelican. We sailed back to the dock just before the squall hit that didn't passto the north...a huge amount of rain in 30 minutes. HYC hosted a great Reggae party Saturday night...place was mobbed. Sunday was a bust...the wind came in just after the RC called it forlack there of. We look forward to the Nationals at CORK; the consensus is that we'llsee 15-20 boats....who knows maybe more. Could be epic. I'm lookingforward to seeing some folks and boats I haven't seen in a long time.Hope you all can make it.

By Steve Clancy 110/4