Splash 2014

Red Herring launched on schedule on May 5.  First race tonight, May 7.  Gentlemen, Hoist Your Sails!

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. 

 

It helps if…

… you have a mast and a boom and some halyards…

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!

Spring Prep Begins

Well, it was supposed to be 50 today, so I went down to touch up the bottom where the cover straps wore off the VC17 and to wash the hull.

I got the touch up finished (see below) then I connected the hoses to wash the hull.  No water yet!

Arrrgggh.  We’ll have to wait for the washing.   Oh, and it never got about 41 today.  More to come.

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 Sailboat Racing Season Ending

Today was the last day of the sailing season.  I’ll update the schedule with the results and provide a couple more recaps over the next couple days.  In the meantime, here are our winnings for this season.  We placed in 3 series:  a 2nd and 2 3rds.  And we can really close in the Interclub series.

Overall, we sailed pretty well, the new spinnaker performed well, we had some fun (and, yes, there was some drinking of heart-healthy red wine along the way).  Thanks to our crew: Kim, Judy, Mark, Rosemary, Andy, Chet, and various “rail meat.”  🙂

We placed in 3 series this season.

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…