Spring 2015

First, this blog is not dead yet.  This blog hibernates for the winter (and what a winter it was!).

Second, It’s time for Spring boat work.  The boat goes in 15 days from today (Tuesday May 5), and I will be ready.  Actually the weather has been cooperating and we’ve made progress on the boat.  The buffing and waxing of the hull is complete (the picture below was taken halfway through and you can see where I stopped one day.  Other work is getting done too.  The batteries are back on the boat.  And this is the year for a shiny new sacrificial zinc.  You have to pull the prop.  Lots of work.

Third, I know I say this every year, but I hope to be able to keep this up regularly for the whole season!  We’ll see.

Anyway, we’ll be in the water soon!

PONY EXPRESS REGATTA DES FEMMES Abandoned

The forecast said all along that we should expect storms about race time last Wednesday (June 18th).  About 6PM it was still clear, so we went out with our light air all-woman crew (Kim, Rosemary, Judy).

About 25 mins. into the race the skies darkened to the west and then the lightning came — and the end of the race.  We hurried back to the dock and got back before the squall hit.  The yacht club instruments said the winds topped out at 57 knots — then the electricity went out at the club!

Interclub Overall

I’ll try to do a full recap of the Lake Erie Interclub series for this year.  Here’s the Spoiler.

Race 1:  4th

Race 2: 4th

Race 3: 4th

Race 4: 7th

Race 5: 1st

Overall finish:  3rd of 9 in fleet (good enough for hardware!!!

Overall All Fleets:  26th of 52 boats (top half!)

Crew:  Mike O’Neill, Kim Yamma, Rosemary Briggs, Mark Platteter, Judy Tucci

 

First Race of 2013

 

 

A beautiful night.  It blew 25-30 al day, but at race time we had warm temps and a nice 12 knots of breeze.  We sailed well, and took 3rd place.

A good way to start the season!  Crew:  Kim, Judy, Andy, Mark. 

 

Splash!

Red Herring splashed on Thursday in her new slip at the Erie Yacht Club.  We plan to step the mast on Sunday.  You can see the boat smiling!

End of Season — Mast Down

I still have to post the recaps for the final couple races.  But ’tis the season for packing up the boat.  We took the mast down in the rain today.  Thanks to Rosemary and Andy (shown here) and Mike O’Neill and his crew.  It was very iffy.  The low water level was giving us some fits.  The lake level is way down and we did hit some mud on the way to the well.  And you could see some concrete slabs off the port right before the well.

I have an appointment to be pulled on Thursday morning.

Andy and Rosemary helping with mast, October 2012.

2012 Schedule Updated

Those of you who regularly follow Red Herring’s seasons know that I fall down on the job of blog entries by the end of the season (and after school starts back up).  So you’ll be happy to know that I intend to finish strong.  🙂  I just updated the 2012 Schedule page so you can see the results-to-date.

And, just to make up for the last month, here are a couple blips of how we have been doing.

The Night Lighthouse Race

We love this race.  We were at the boat but the weather was foul.  The race committee delayed the start for a half hour while we waited for better weather.  The race started but without us.  The winds at the start were 20+ and we decided that that was too much for a night race, especially with the prospect of six to eight footers on the lake.  So we regretfully stayed home.

Bluff Bar Race

We love this race too:  63 miles round-trip to Canada and back in one day.  But the weather didn’t look conducive for our boat for this.  So Mark and I sailed on Double Diamond — a Beneteau First 35.  We finished in 12 hours 10 minutes, and placed fourth.  Too bad.  I was hoping for some hardware for the skipper.  Thanks to Tim Weibel for letting us ride.

Schuyler JAM Series

Race 1 was another very bad dying-air night.  We struggled mightily to finish before the time ran out.  (See the picture below for what it looked like near the start.)  We made it, but we finished 10th of 12.  On Race 2 the wind died before we rounded the first mark.  No one finished — not even the A Fleet.

Eckerd Cup #1

Yet another no-air night.  We motored out but the racing was abandoned by the race committee before the start.  The race will be made-up before the Reverse Handicap Race in a week.

And A Good Picture

Finally, here’s a picture shortly after the start of Schuyler #1.  Rosemary took the picture from Bayview.  Note that we were already behind, but at least we were in a wind lane at the time!

The wind was light and dying even at the start. We’re already 6th, but at least we’re in a little wind line.

No Wind — No Race

The Mayor’s Cup and the Governor’s Cup were scheduled today, but somebody forgot to schedule the wind.  So we rafted up with the committee boat and waited.  Before long there were crew members swimming and the shot-ski came out on Powderhound.  We swabbed the deck, had lunch and a little rum ‘n orange juice.  No racing today!

(l-r) Andy, Kim, Mark waiting for wind with madness going on in the background…

RCR Full Moon Series #1 Recap

Results:  6th

Crew:  Rosemary, Kim, Mark, Andy, Judy

A light air triangle, WNW 3-6 kts.  Had a decent start on a broad reach to Mark S.  The wind wouldn’t stay dead behind us, so we poled the jib out to leeward and sailed a broad reach all of the way.  Of course, Serendipity, KEYA and Smokin J were out ahead (by a lot) and we stayed at the “front of the back”.  Had a good rounding and headed to Mark O on a beat-to-close-reach.  We stayed high to limit the number of boats that were rolling us (due to the the reverse start).  About halfway to the mark we had a brief, but nice, puff and were sailing at 4.5 to 5 knots for a couple minutes.  With the right winds, constant trimming and a decent tactic of staying high we were able to stretch out on the boats behind but not able to close the gap with the boats ahead.

Immediately after rounding we sailed into a nasty hole and struggled for about 5 to 10 minutes.  Finally we got into some consistent, but still light, air.  We sailed the first part of the leg on starboard.  A few hundred yards offshore we got headed so we tacked early, and it turned out be the right thing,  Right after we tacked, there was a nice windshift to SW and we ended up pointing right at the finish.  Once in a while we’re in the right place at the right time.  So that was good, but of course it was balanced by quickly diminishing winds, so we all struggled to finish.  But we made it, and we beat K-9, Good Vices and Lady Jane.

Overall, a beautiful night for sailing and we sailed well.

Oh, and one more thing:  the Gannon Alumni office is circulating some “traveling knights.”  They sent me one yesterday, so MC Gensheimer made him a little life jacket and he went racing with us.  We took a couple pix before the start.

Victor E. Knight, Gannon’s traveling knight, went racing with us! He’s not very agile, but he kept the crew in line!

Reverse Start

Here’s a great picture that shows the “cluster” at the windward mark that results from a four-fleet reverse start.  The photo was posted by Michael Engro on the EYC Facebook page.  I think that the red boat on the left is us.  There are only two red boats in the fleet, and we’re the one that’s a fractional rig.

Hertel & Brown Race 3 windward mark rounding, 7/25/2012.