Thursday, August 27, 2009

WEDNESDAY EVENING

Wednesday evening (8-25-09) there was a bunch of boats out. Dennis Oldham sat with the Pizza Lady– talked about sailing a Laser – but then was not sure about the weather. We had 6 Lasers, A cat, 420 and Puffer out with Leah Ladley, Chris, Kim Kelley, Sherry Magno, Nicole Dormand, Darcy Jensen, Melanie Ladley, Craig and Luke and Sasha Yates all out in that nice sailing breeze from the southeast until the dark clouds came rolling in from up the hill at Eustis. How did you know about that Dennis?
The wind came up with some thunder and everyone sailing back to club. Chris did a great job luffing to windward and getting home. Sam was watching him from the motor boat. He was doing pretty well, so when Sherry turned over he went down to help her. Then the wind really came up. And then the rain. Then the shore disappeared.
Sam got Sherry in the motorboat. That safety ladder really works great. We kept the Laser on its side holding the mast and sail across the boat. Lots of rain, lots of wind, the anchor down and waiting for it all to blow over. That took about 20 minutes. Then when we could see shore again the wind had rotated about 30 degrees to the right. We still had thunder, so motored in slowly with Laser on its side next to the motorboat.
Sam sailed and paddled the Laser in the last 100 yards. He would not have if he had known ahead of time that the thunder and lightening was not over.
Pizza was there. Boats put away. Motorboat cross tied. Richard was down tying up the A Cat so it wouldn’t blow away— also to take it home. Caroline Ladley came back from volleyball for Pizza, but didn’t come in. Say Caroline, Sam ate the last of the spinach pie.
Luke Yates teed up the MORNING LIGHT movie and we saw the selection process of the crew for the race to Hawaii. The man-over-board-drill. The torn Spinnaker. The big boat threw the big waves. The race from the start to Hawaii will be shown next Wednesday. They act like scow sailor in the movie– picking out who of the bunch will go one the race. Part of the crew they plan to leave ashore. I really didn’t understand that part of the story. Come next week and maybe you can explain it to me.

Monday, August 17, 2009

August 15 and 16, 2009. The weekend had eleven people sailing Lasers with nine on Saturday and ten on Sunday. Seven races each day. Sunday we had one 4.7 and our intrepid RC took times on seven of the eight races he was in.
I will try to get all the results down. I corrected the 4.7 times and these results represent corrected times.
Dave Chapin 1-1-1-1-wd-1-1+1-1-1-1-1-1-1 23 1
Rob Krentel 4-4-5-3-3-6-2 +3-2-2-2-2-2-2 37 2
Alejandro Illera 2-2-2-4-2-4-4 + 2-3-3-5-7-3-6 47 3
Ben Getchell 3-3-4-3-1-3-3 +5-5-5-3-3-5-5 49 4
Craig Yates 6-6-6-7-4-5-7 +ns-8-7-8-4-7-4 86 5
Sam Chapin 5-5-3-5-5-2-5 + ns 105 6
Marc Solal 7-nf-ns-8-6-7-6+4-7-6-nf-ns 113 7
Jerry Beck Ns-ns-7-9-7-nf-nf+7-4-nf-5-ns-ns-ns 123 8
Jonathan Edelman nc---- + 6-9-nf-ns-5-4-7 133 9
Luke Yates (4.7) nc---- +ns-6-4-4-6-6-3 138 10
Steve Chapin ns-ns-ns-6-nf-ns-ns+ nc 143 11

Steven Chapin is David’s younger brother and is visiting from California. He is a pretty good Laser sailor, has one of the old boats in his back yard, but doesn’t have time to sail it. He came late and had the mast step break on the "old green machine". Better luck next year, Steve.

Luke Yates came out on Sunday and sailed the 4.7. He and Craig missed the first race. When I corrected the times he picked up two places in the second race, three places in the third race, two in the fourth race, two in the fifth race, none in the sixth race and two in the seventh race. We should have had more 4.7 out sailing.

Jonathan Edelman is a new club member, has done some big boat sailing. He would have been in a lot more races if Sam had given him a boat with a knot in the end of the sheet. He is a little on the light side and would have done better if we had a radial program for him. He had a fourth and a fifth– not bad for the first time out with us. And he got the sheet fixed in all the wind.

Jerry Beck is climbing the ladder. He had to leave early on Saturday to tend some urgent business. He had flipo problems on Sunday with some others, and then stayed out another hour practicing in some the bigger winds. The races he was in-- had a 4th and 5th on Sunday. And it was Jerry who swam over to help Jonathan out with his capsize problem and then had to swim back to his own capsized boat. Oh, yes, Jerry and thanks for the bagels, too.

Mark Solal has impressed the RC with his improvement. Three races on Sunday he was beating a lot of people. Turn over on Sunday knocked lens out of sunglasses and he come in to save them. Too bad Mark– it was your wind day.

Sam went out Sunday and figured it was just a little windy for an old guy in a larger fleet. So he went in and watched from the picnic area drinking MC coffee and eating Jerry’s bagels –now that is Sailing.

Craig Yates was with us both days and sailed the Kelly boat with the old rig on Sunday– wow, the old Cunningham and vang system. And he got a couple of fourths. Way to go Kiwi.
He would have done better if he had left Luke at home.

Ben Getchell took it on the chin in the weight department. He was tied for second on Saturday and then with the wind up and the full rig– even adding Caroline Chapin for weight got him knocked down to fourth. Now before you begin to feel too sorry for Ben remember that in the light wind races he carries that light weight advantage. If he can hang in close going up wind being light is no disadvantage going down wind.

Alejandro Illera was happy with the Sunday action including some spectaculars at the down wind finish. He is another light guy that might have a better shot with the Radial. If he his three really bad races on Sunday were thirds he would have been tied with Rob for the weekend. Don’t feel too sorry for him.

Rob Krentel made his weight and higher wind ability get him back ahead for Ben and Alejandro for the weekend.

Dave Chapin proves again that boat handling and time on the water will make a difference. Thanks for coming over to help us, bringing Caroline and all the other stuff.

Thanks also to Trevor Chapin for holding the flags on Saturday, Caroline Chapin for helping Ben on Sunday.

Then there is Joan Bryant and Marjorie Chapin that do our regular faithful and on time RC. Dennis Oldham got the new oil tank for our motor, put it in the motor and the boat in the water for us. Jim Lingeman picked up the "leeward drifting away mark" for us. ( Longer anchor lines with the higher water is on the work list.)

It is with the help of a lot of people that the thing works.