Thursday, March 25, 2010

Flying Scot ranks high for One Design Racing

Since this site is getting a little more traffic this week (midwinters?) than usual, I thought I might post something new.

The Sailing Anarchy site has a user named "RogerJolly" who has compiled attendance figures for the National Championships of most of the popular one designs. He has been doing this for several years and the most recent update for 2009 was added a little while back. I have included the figures below but did not include his full post with explanations, there is a link below if you wish to read the entire post. The rankings are based on the most recent three year attendance figures;


-2009 Results-

Rank) Class:2007-2008-2009--3yr Av

1) Laser Radial:111(MA)-88 (CA)-121 (NY)--106.67
2) Laser:87 (MA)-77 (CA)-97 (NY)--87.00
3) Flying Scot:101 (VA)-69 (NJ)-74 (WI)--81.33
4) Lightning:80 (MD)-97 (RI)-65 (NY)--80.67
5) MC scow:88 (MI)-69 (WI)-51 (OK)--69.33
6) Thistle:64 (OR)-59 (FL)-83 (CT)--68.67
7) Sunfish:55 (AL)-52 (PA)-76 (SC)--61.00
8) C scow:48 (GA)-59 (WI)-71 (WI)--59.33
9) 29er:63 (ONT)-65 (ONT)-41 (ONT)--56.33
10) E scow:50 (SC)-71 (NY)-46 (WI)--55.67
11) J/22:68 (OH)-NA-37 (TX)--54.67
12) Hobie 16:50 (CA)-56 (IA)-54 (ONT)--53.33
13) Vanguard 15:29 (CA)-77 (NY)-45 (NY)--50.33
14) Butterfly:55 (MI)-54 (MI)-38 (MI)--49.00
15) Lido 14:52 (CA)-43 (OR)-47 (CA)--47.33
16) Albacore:51 (MD)-39 (ON)-50 (ONT)--46.67
17) Snipe:63 (CO)-31 (MA)-44 (FL)--46.00
18) Inter Club:45 (MD)-35 (NJ)-55 (NY)--45.00
19) J/105:69(MD)-36 (CA)-29 (NY)--44.67
20) J/24:34 (FL)-54 (NY)-44 (MX) --44.00
21) 505:30 (MD)-31 (OR)-69 (CA)--43.33
22) Star:49 (BC)-30 (MI)-47 (CT)--42.00
23) Melges 24:52 (MI)-49 (MD)-21 (CA)--40.67
24) Interlake:50 (OH)-33 (OH)-31 (MI) --38.00
24) Y flyer:39 (IL)-49 (GA)-26 (IN)--38.00

Clearly we benefited from the 101 boats that attended the Fishing Bay NAC/50th Anniversary celebration. Now would be a good time to complete your plans to attend the 2010 NAC at Bay Waveland YC.

Here is a link to the Sailing Anarchy post

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Sarasota One Design Midwinters

The Sarasota Sailing Squadron hosts this multi-class regatta every year about this time. Being our favorite venue in Florida we like to attend even though it is not on our district schedule and the Scot turnout is fairly low.

The weekend forecast was perfect for Saturday and stormy for Sunday so we thought about bailing out at the last minute. The thought was why pay a regatta entry fee (late) and the dog sitter fee for what would likely be a Saturday only race. In the end we set "Let's Go", it has been too long since we sailed there.

Saturday was just as forecasted; mid seventies, bright sun and fairly steady breeze around 10 knots. We shared the course with E Scows only and with rolling starts we sailed five races by around 4 pm when we called it a day.

Some photos from the weather mark courtesy of Susan and John Domagala

We ended the day tied with Doug Fisher with 11 points but he had the tiebreaker and Chuck Koch was one point back in third.
For a mild day, we had two odd gear failures, the mainsheet block/cleat pulled out of the top of the centerboard trunk on Jeff Penfield and Don Perry's boats, both are 5300 series boats. Strange...

An awesome day of sailing was followed by the low country boil of shrimp (big ones) sausage, potatoes, and corn. I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it!

Sunday was pretty much as forecasted as well, which was crap. After a short postponement in some squally weather the racing was canceled for the day so Saturday's results were final.

Our plan had been to leave Sarasota and head towards New Orleans for the mids but we pulled the plug on that plan Sat am. Driving home Sunday afternoon in a steady sometimes hard rain made me thankful for that decision. By the end of the week I'll probably regret it though.

Spending a weekend in Sarasota is hard to beat especially since the Pardeys and Penfields offer up some primo housing! Thank You!

Friday, March 12, 2010

Where's the Lake Eustis Breeze?

We managed to cram a single day of racing into two days this past weekend at Lake Eustis, getting one race in on Saturday and one on Sunday. Each day the weather failed us and we were unable to complete a second race.

On Saturday, Jack Bazner and Joe Lobato in 3387 led the Scots home. Dave and Jay Asaibene were second on 5179, followed by Larry Klick on 5150 and Anne Ireland on 5366.

On Sunday, five Scots raced: Larry Klick, sailing with Joe Lobato on 5150, Anne Ireland on 5366, Dave and Jay Asaibene on 5179, Ray Laguna and Maribel Illera on 5770, and Rich O’Brien and me on 5810. The day started promisingly, with winds patchy but in the 5-10 range, and we had a good first race. Three boats were close at each of the marks (5150, 5770 and 5810), but after the final top mark, Larry and Joe ran away with it downwind and won by a substantial margin. The others of us fell into a brief hole – but, as a portent of the second race, an ominous hole – and trailed Larry and Joe to the downwind finish by hundreds of yards. Rich and I managed to finish second on 5810, and Ray and Maribel followed in third on 5770.

We started a second race on Sunday, with winds that occasionally seemed promising but which died to a dead calm as we struggled to make it to an upwind finishing line. The Race Committee abandoned the race after some painful waiting, and we all drifted or were towed back to the dock.

Of course, an hour later the breeze came back and we were all dying to be back on the water. Then, an hour after that, the lake was glass again, and we were glad we weren’t.

I wonder what it’s like to sail where there’s a sea breeze?

Anyway, the races we did complete were good fun. Complete results are below.

Greg Murphy (5703) and Chris Erichsen (5339) had safety boat duty on Sunday and will therefore receive average points.

This weekend was the last of our Norton Series, and I’ll have final series results out shortly. The next club racing weekend is March 27 and 28, when we begin our Colleen Series. The Colleen Series will be our last series of the season, and will comprise the weekends of March 27 and 28, April 17 and 18, May 1 and 2, and May 15 and 16. That and the Memorial Day weekend and the season will be over. Let’s take advantage of it while we can!

Finally, this weekend was Larry Klick’s last weekend with us this year. He’s going to sail in the Midwinters and then drag Ketchup back to Minnesota. Thanks to Larry for joining us, and here’s hoping he’s back again next year.

See everyone on the 27th and 28th.

George

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Florida District Championship 2009-10

This past weekend in Tampa was the last regatta of the six which make up the Florida District Championship for the Flying Scot Class. We were fortunate to finish well enough to beat out Robby Brown for the Championship.

To celebrate this feat we promptly decided to get a computer virus! I thought I had it healed on Tuesday but the first time I opened Internet Explorer it was back. More downloading, scanning and a ton of cursing and (crossing my fingers) I think we may have it whipped.

So let me think about this... I have a firewall, I get windows updates as soon as they come out, I mostly use Firefox which is supposed to be more secure and I pay for a subscription to McAFee anti virus/security center. All of this and some _________ virus which has been around for at least six months gets through! WTF!!

Maybe it is a really some conspiracy to keep me from bragging endlessly on this site about the BIG win...

How come Al Gore didn't invent a safer internet?

Details are on the Florida District site

Out.