Midwinters wrap up

Friday, last day of racing...honestly, we were looking at the Sarasota weather and sign up list for the Sarasota One Design Midwinters. We thought that if we left early enough, we could make it back for the 2 day regatta. You may recall that we did not race together on Wednesday, so, for those 3 races, our scores were total+1. Since the weather here seemed nice, still light wind, we decided to stay, mostly because we were here and we were ready to go!

There was one point separating the leaders, Paul Abdullah and Zeke Horowitz going into today, and we were very interested to see how that played out. Benz had a commanding lead, and won the race, Zeke and Paul were 3rd and 4th, and now tied going into the last race.

Long postponements prior to each race, the wind turned and remained unsettled for quite some time before the RC could set a course for the last race. Once they were able to start the sequence, we ended up all over the line and helped create a general recall. More shifting around of the marks, and they finally started us. The wind went right, but Zeke, Wake and a few others went left. We still can't believe how far left and somehow Zeke made it work leaving the rest of the competitors and banging the left corner. That took guts. It was also the first upwind. There was some terrific sailing the rest of the race, too. Eric and Donnie ended up winning that race by a significant margin, and Zeke came in 2nd and won the regatta. Huge congrats to Zeke and Jay!!!

Back on shore, lots of packing and fixing prior to travel, and the YC had a lovely cookout set up for the awards. Of course, without sailing all the races, we weren't in the running for any award for placing in the top 10, but a few folks must have thought it was nice of us to sacrifice the regatta to keep Ryan in the hunt. So the votes for the Allen M. Douglas Memorial Sportsmanship award was warded to Kim! We were very surprised and overwhelmed because of the special meaning and history behind this award. On the way home, we called Mr. Douglas's son Mike to tell him the good news. It's very nice that we have had the opportunity to sail with and become friends with Mike Douglas through Flying Scots. Hope he is able to sail with us again soon. Due to our late start, we enjoyed staying with John D. again on the way home, bushwhackers make a lovely dinner...

Midwinters Race Day 3

Thursday, New Orleans

Beautiful weather today, nice and breezy this am, calming, but that left us with lumps. Lots of lumps...did we say lots? probably, we need a lumpectomy....
Anyway, started a race, a long one, 5 legs, .9 mi.
As we were approaching the end of leg 4, sitting in about 6th place, the committee boat was mysteriously driving away... not a good sign.
The abandonment flag was flying, so, you guessed it, we try again.
For us, it does not matter, since our score is a non-issue, having missed 3 races yesterday, but we still strive to to well and go for the small victories. Aggravating for those winning the race, then .. POOF!! (ugh, Ryan!)
Joe is feeling better today, and able to crew, and Serge is back on the racecourse.
RC re-sets after a while and we start another, the boat felt terrible for some reason. unknown to us. As good as we felt in the first race (that didn't count) we felt worse. It, surprisingly is another 5 leg, .9 mi leg course, so, lots of time to either make up, or yuck up. We were pretty deep during the first leg, the left ended up looking better, and Team Wake noted such, and vaulted into the lead position during the last upwind, and won the day!!
We managed to salvage a 10, and enjoyed margaritas near the Harry-mobile after racing, thanks to John D.
Drinks, dinner, and music ahead!! Headed to Bourbon St. since someone won some gift certificates to Margaritaville, see you there, Harry!
oh, in other news... Zeke and Abdullah are tied for 1st....game on!! Tune in tomorrow to see if we get 2 races!

Midwinters Race Day 2

The forecast called for almost no wind from the southeast. We arrived at the club to see a light northerly and wondered how long it would hold up. Most people seemed doubtful.

We also found out the Ryan's crew Joe was feeling ill and would not be able to sail. Bummer. Ryan was sitting in third so we decided to fill in for Joe first we thought of Kim but decided to have Dave fill in since he is closer to Joe size. This would be a good chance to learn some of Ryan's go fast tricks which we have talked about several times but never done. The bad part for Ryan is Dave has not crewed on a FS in forever, and then only a couple times.

We hit the water and on the way out to the course the breeze died. We bobbed a while and checked sail flow to find almost all the lakes stations were getting a Southeasterly except for the two stations close to us they were showing a northerly. No question the shift was coming we would just have to wait for it. Yeah right. It filled in nicely from about 025 and shortly after we were racing. You just never know.

We did two races in a surprisingly solid if light breeze. Harry was flying and nabbed two bullets, Zeke was going strong as was Paul. Some of the leaders from the first day were struggling a bit so the standings were getting shuffled a bit. We had a nine and a three so Ryan was hanging in pretty well. The third race was seeing a little less pressure but still ok. We had an ok beat and were going to round top five until the debacle. A port tacker tried to tack inside us at the mark and then tried to shoot it with no speed. End result, the fleet parade on by. We tried banging a corner to get back some of the boats but no luck, ended 19 th and furious.

Zeke had a good day and took over the lead followed closely by Paul. The scores show that anything can happen; FSSA.com.

RC will be looking to get two races on Thursday and wrap up Friday with one more. Out.

Midwinters Race Day 1

After hanging out a couple days Tuesday was the start of real racing. The weather forecast wasn't bad with the cold temps moderating into the 60's and some breeze. The reality was something like that, we had some sun, it did warm up and there was some patchy breeze.

The sailing was tricky, a lot like lake sailing in fact. The breeze started out generally north to northeast and I might of expected it to be more steady, but no. What seemed to work was to pick a side and work it, the middle just wasn't good. Sailing at Davis Island YC seems to work like that as we'll so we should have done better. There were some bright spots for Florida though, Zeke had a good lead in race one and finished third, Greiner had a nice lead in race two and held it, we had the lead in race three until the wind shut down and they abandoned the race.

Results were posted on FSSA.com and can be found by clicking regatta results tab.

Wednesday looks to be warmer but less wind, stay tuned...

FS 2014 Midwinters from New Orleans

So we have settled in nicely here in NOLA, back at the Rose Manor Bed and Breakfast where we also stayed two years ago. There is no RV accommodations at the club so it is home and our dogs are with our old friends near Dunedin. I'm sure they are having fun!

We had an easy trip up here and split it up by stopping for an overbite stay with John Damagala. John and Susie have a cool house near Pensacola. John showed us around town and af,ter dinner we stopped in at the yacht club for some bushwackers, which are excellent. Rumor has it we may be doing a little sailing there in the future which would be cool. On a similar note the Midwinters will be returning to St. Andrews Bay for a year in the future. We like the sounds of that especially since it is a camper friendly venue.

The turn out is off a little with about 30 boats entered this year but there is no shortage of talent. It has been chilly but we should have better weather starting Tuesday which is the first day of racing. Temps are supposed to be in the 70's with generally light wind.

We will try to set something posted here Tuesday pm, you might check the class website for news and maybe some GoPro video from Eric who has a bunch of cameras rigged on his Scot. We will add a link later.

Tampa, DIYC,Yada, yada yada

So this update is totally late. So this will be day 1, 2 and a wrap up all in one.

To start with our planning for this one was lacking, no real explanation. We decided to commute back and forth which is a first from our new house. Turns out to be a cake drive, 50 minutes ish, all highway, etc. the drawback was we left the girls ( dogs) home, that's not really fun. We decided to bail out on the fourth race Saturday to head home to let them out.

In case you have not heard Jeff Linton did the Everglades challenge the weekend prior and won the mono hull division in his modified scot known as Frankenscot. This was a totally cool thing to follow as it was happening, the only drawback for me was that I had to sign in to Facebook (first time in a long time) to catch the play by play. Happily I have not seen Facebook again since jeff won and that is all good.

Day two was short, one race short, since 4 were sailed on Saturday. jeff and Amy were in the groove and took a relatively comfortable win for the regatta. Zeke H was going good too and grabbed a couple bullets along the way but had a couple bigger scores too.

Andy and Lisa were tough too and hung in Sunday despite Andy being under the weather, I heard there was some vomit involved.

Rob w and john w were awesome in robs new boat 6040. Some of these guys are looking pretty speedy in there new boats. Seems that those of us going on the cheap with the older beaters may have to step it up.

Pretty much out of words for now but getting ready to head to New Orleans for the mid winters so more to come on that one. Out.

Lake Eustis, Day 2

Sunday morning was clear, cool and calm with some forecasts of about 5 knots of wind. After a short postponement it filled in so we all hit the water, we'll most of us. Ron did the boat launch about 10 feet short of the water trick. It sounds really bad but the times I've seen this done not much damage is really done. A bunch of us picked up the stern while Ron cranked it back on the trailer and all was well. The is some heavy negative karma so we decided then to steer clear of the black boat!

The first race was the highlight for us as we flirted with winning it. On the first run we passed Zeke to take the lead and so he returned the favor at the end of the second run to grab the bullet, one of several. We were happy with a 2 though and think there is a lot to the idea of starting with the rest of the fleet.

The last race was a real scramble for us, we had a poor first beat and got seriously deep. Got a couple on the run as the lake was getting seriously flakey. The second beat was a lot better, we spotted one puff that looked like an auto tack so we were ready and hit it just right and that seemed to launch us. A pile of boats hit a hole near the weather mark and we hit another shift and it turned into a 4 th.

Being RV ers at these things we often rely on our friends for ramp launching/retrieving the boat. On the way out we called on Andy to help us out. He backs the trailer in, stops with the axel still dry so I walk out to attach the strap to the bow eye. I just get the hook on when we start backing into the water rather quickly! I turn to holler obscenities at Andy and notice his truck is not moving but the trailer is. Uh oh. As the trailer continues to disappear I grab the winch handle and try to hang on. This and the boat as an obstacle keeps the trailer from disappearing completely, so we straighten things up and hope the cameras were not at the ready! The culprit; 2 inch trailer plus a 1 7/8 inch ball plus someone standing out near the end of the trailer and voila! or, negative karma.

Congratulations to Zeke Horowitz and his dad Jay for a great regatta and really solid win! Mark and Andy were second filled by David Ames, Tom McNally and us.

Next up is Tampa March 8 and 9. Out.

Lake Eustis, day 1

Lake Eustis

Happy Valentine's Day, all!
The dogs knew something was going on today with all the packing and repeated trips in and out of the house! We were glad to be taking them with us, I think they were happy too.

We arrived at LESC around 2:00 this afternoon, got the boat ready, and watched a couple of Wayfarers try to sail in no wind. It was a beautiful afternoon to be setting up the boat. Calm wind, sunny skies. T-shirt weather in Feb, not bad! We'll see what Mother Nature has in store for us tomorrow! The last few days the forecast has become less good, which means not as warm and maybe too much wind.

Fun, "extravagant" dinner served up at The Troff, a walkable local fave. Only the most romantic for Valentine's! (Can't believe they spell it that way!)
To those of you up north, it's no biggie, but were glad we packed the flannel sheets, blankets and down comforters to keep us warm.

During the night the breeze kicked up and was coming in straight off the lake. Hard to believe but it was strong enough to be jiggling the RV a bit. This is not a sound sleep inducing thing. Then at about daybreak a little rain squall came through, thoughts of packing it in and hitting the road were setting in. After the squall the breeze kicked around to the northwest and it looked a lot like last year. RC did a little postponement since the forecast had the breeze dropping a bit. This proved to be a wise move, an hour or so later we were getting off the dock for a little racing.

In what is not at all wise, we checked in and did some upwind work, a little too much. Not hearing any of the signals, duh, we were upwind in a stiff breeze! Then looking down at the pack of scots and we have the "that looks an awful lot like the start of a sailboat race" horrifying realization. What a great way to start a regatta! So the sail down to the line takes forever, not really but it seems like forever, but we start among the sounds for the Wayfarers sequence. Ugh. Wtf. Dfl by a lot.

Somehow that turned into an eighth after a particularly fun planing spinnaker run.

In the second race we start at the boat thinking the right side is it. Sure of it in fact. This is a good thing. The bad thing was we were a little early and when you are two feet from the RC, well, you know. The iffy thing was we knew we were a tad early so we dipped back, thinking we may be good we start. Then there's that sound, but no flag, now what? Go back, don't go back, go back, d..... We are side by side with David Ames (sailing one of my former boats) and my thoughts return to hitting the right side. I am also thinking he has the same idea so the heck with restarting and we tack to port. Umm, a few minutes later and no one else seems to think this is a good idea. Undeterred we stick with it and hit the right side hard, solidly into Ron territory. It didn't work and we get to the top around tenth with David crossing us by about 200 boat lengths, or so. A couple decent runs later and we finish 6. We'll take that, but for the ocs fears. We had a little delay while waiting for the wayfarers to finish so we cozy up to the boat for some small talk. We manage to work in the question of "gee were there any ocs boats in that last race?" The RC said no, Bonus! Then he commented that had the I flag been up we would be out. I knew that.

The third race was generally lighter except for a fun little plane downwind. It was also getting more Lake Eustis ish, a word? Probably not, but you been here, you know. If not, think about sailing along in 15 knots and seconds later you are in a hole and watching the fleet sail away. We end up with a four so we can't complain.

After three races and one day we have Zeke Horowitz first, David Ames second, Mark Taylor third and so on.

We are battening down for a low in the high thirties Saturday night and wind gusting to 4 on Sunday. See you then.