Monday, June 28, 2010

Sonar Fleet 1 Newsletter, June 28, 2010






Sonar Fleet 1

Noroton YC
Fleet Racing:


We had 11 boats out racing on Sunday, June 27th. Those out racing experienced a beautiful steady 10 knot breeze...IN THEIR DREAMS!  Actually we had a 4-5 knot breeze oscillating between 085 and 140! PRO Peter Wilson and his race committee had their "course change" hands full but managed to get off two nice races. Our winner for the day was the combo of Bill Crane and Olivia Crane who each took a turn at helm and both came out on top with two guns. The only difference between the two was that Bill Crane was WAY OCS in the first race. 

Joining the Cranes was Suzanne Burke, all pictured above.

Here are the top three finishes:

Crane/Crane     1, 1 = 2
Doerr                2, 3 = 5
Maguire            4, 5 = 9

Now for a special treat. We were able to enlist the talents of world renown videographer Christopher Milne to record the essence of Sonar Fleet 1 racing. What follows is the result of his many years developing his craft. You'll laugh, you'll cry but most of all, you'll be amazed. Hard to believe he's only 13.










Caption Contest:

This week's winner, from "Unknown" is:










Warren, I know J/24s have engines. Just keep paddling its getting hot back here.

Peter Wilson's Corner:
The answer to last week's question...















 






(Click on image above to enlarge)

July 4th Series:

Our July 4th series is this weekend on Sunday and Monday. Prizes will be awarded to the Sonar fleet at the end of racing on Monday. 

Dates: July 4, and July 5, 2010

Time: Harbor start at 1230 and first Warning signal at 1330

Series: Attempts will be made to complete at least six races.  In no event will a warning signal be made after 1600 either day. Completion of at least one race will constitute a series.

Scoring: The Low Point scoring system, rule A4 will apply, modified so that each boat’s series score will be the total of her race scores, with her worst score discarded if 5 or more races have been completed.
  
July Sonar Events:

Saturday July 3rd, 6:00p-10:00p - Blue Flames Party
Sunday July 4th - July 4th Series, day 1 of 2 and Commodore's Race (harbor start: 1230 hours)
Monday July 5th - July 4th Series day 2 of 2 (harbor start: 1230 hours) 
Sat-Sun July 17th-18th - Sonar Invitational regatta, Falmouth YC, Falmouth MA
Sunday July 18th - Vice Commodore's Race
Fri-Sun July 23rd-25th - Marblehead NOOD and ACC's

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Sonar Fleet 1 Newsletter, June 23, 2010





Sonar Fleet 1
Noroton YC

Long Island Sound Championships, June 19-20:


The following is a great write-up of the regatta by Peter Wilson...

Light air, strong current, and lack of predictable shifts and pressure lines made for very difficult racing over the two day event held at Noroton Yacht Club June 19-20.  Twenty-eight boats participated, including three disabled teams and three teams training for the New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup Selection Series to be held this September in Sonars at Newport, RI.  After two races on Saturday, Peter McChesney from Annapolis YC and Russ Silvestri from St. Francis YC were 1-2 each with top five finishes.  Both teams were new to Sonars, but you never would have known it based on their competitive speed.  However, after two more races in very light southerly winds on Sunday, the Noroton teams Sinclair/Wilson and Ed Sweeney rose to the 1 and 3 fleet positions, with McChesney hanging in to end up second just ahead of Ed.

Saturday’s first race didn’t start until after one pm when a light ESE breeze came in with the flood tide.  McChesney and Silvestri had clear lanes at the start to get on the first port lift riding it all the way to the starboard layline in good pressure.  While usually the left pays upwind in ESE breeze, there was more pressure to the south and these two had it figured out well.  The runs were fast as the flood picked up, but the breeze lanes were thin and positions changed back and forth.  The second beat again had more pressure right despite a port lifting breeze.  On the second run the wind went south without much velocity and the boats that had gybed away from this shift to the north side of the course made out well.  At the finish it was McChesney, Silvestri, and the other St. Francis boat.

The wind finally settled in from 195 at about 6 knots and a second race was started.  The rapidly increasing flood current and a too pin favored line led to three general recalls before a black flag start with all boats in the clear.  McChesney and Sinclair/Wilson had first row clear lane starts and dug left towards what appeared to be more pressure.  Throughout the race these two were never more than a few boat lengths apart with the lead changing several times.  At the finish Sinclair/Wilson got the gun by about a foot in a near photo-finish.  Sweeney got the second of his two fourths, winning the consistency prize.  As it was beer time and the light southerly was fading fast, the RC sent all ashore for a great steak and salmon dinner with continuous Elm City Lager on tap.  At the end of day one, the top four boats (McChesney, Silvestri, Sinclair/Wilson, and Sweeney) were well ahead of the rest of the pack having two top five races.  The difficult conditions with less ‘predictability’ had the other top sailors with one good and one not so good race.

Sunday morning was no better than Saturday morning with haze and zero wind and stable cloud cover.  However at 9:30 a light westerly filled in so the RC sent us out hoping at a minimum to get the third race required to make it a series.  Of course no sooner were all the boats out to the starting area than the westerly disappeared.  Just after noon a light southerly materialized with velocity 4-7 knots.  The fleet was off with a clean start, except that two of the leaders (Sinclair/Wilson and Sweeney) were OCS and had to restart well behind the fleet.  Sinclair/Wilson with Brian Hayes spotting the pressure lines and Carolyn Wilson keeping the team calm and focused, was able to clear left while the majority of the fleet went right in an attempt to stay in less ebb, and with the left pressure rounded the first mark 9th.  Silvestri sailed a great race working back from 5th  McChesney got caught too far right on the first beat and was only able to recover to 11th.  Sweeney could not recover from the OCS and finished 18th.  Sinclair/Wilson worked up to finish third, so going into what would clearly be the last race Silvestri was leading with 6 low points, Sinclair/Wilson had 9, and McChesney had 14. the first time around to catch the leaders and hold on to win.

The wind was still 4-7 from about 190 as the fleet got off to another good start.  Galloway won the pin and headed left with Sinclair/Wilson 5 boat lengths on his hip.  McChesney and Silvestri had poor starts at the pin but looked like they were able to clear and found good lanes going right.  The left was favored again with more pressure and at the first mark Galloway led by a couple of lengths.  He held his lead down the run and gybed back to center in front of Sinclair/Wilson as the breeze died to zero.  With storm clouds 10 miles to the northwest, a light easterly filled in allowing Sinclair/Wilson to catch Galloway at the gate.  The RC reoriented the course, but not far enough so it became a parade after that.  Silvestri and his tuning partner were deep and had to catch planes back to the coast, so they dropped out on the first run and were towed in by their coach.  McChesney battled back to 14th which was good enough to put him a point ahead of Ed Sweeney after four races.  Sinclair/Wilson’s first sealed the series victory with 10 points.

Tough and atypical Noroton conditions, and more like August than June, but nonetheless good racing.  Thanks to PRO Greg Stevens and his team, and regatta organizer Bruce McArthur, and a special thanks to Kitty Brown for superb food.

Fleet Racing:

On June 13th we held fleet racing in conditions similar to the LIS Champs...Light, shifty conditions putting a big premium on being on the correct side of those shifts. 

Our PRO for the day, Peter Nightingale, and his race committee did a great job getting two races in. At the end of the day, our winner was Bruce Kirby and crew (L to R below) Wes Whitmyer, Adele Whitmyer, Bruce and Howard Seymour.


Oyster Bay Challenge:


Noroton YC participated in the Oyster Bay Challenge team race in Sonars, hosted by Seawanhaka YC on June 12th and 13th. Three teams participated, also racing was New York YC.

Skippers for Noroton were Lee Morrison, TK (Tom Kinney) and Steve Shepstone. After two days and 7 round robins (21 races) Noroton came out on top! A sail off race between NYYC and Seawanhaka resulted in NYYC taking second and the host club in third.

Peter Wilson's Rules Corner:

Here's another interesting rules question from Peter...




(Click on image to enlarge)

Our First Caption Contest:

Write your answers in the Comments section below. 




Upcoming Noroton Events:
 
Saturday June 26th, 6:30p-CC - Summer Solstice party
Sunday, June 27th - fleet racing
Saturday July 3rd, 6:00p-10:00p - Blue Flames Party
Sunday July 4th - July 4th Series, day 1 of 2 and Commodore's race (harbor start: 1230 hours)
Monday July 5th - July 4th Series day 2 of 2 (harbor start: 1230 hours)

Friday, June 11, 2010

Sonar Fleet 1 Newsletter, June 11, 2010





Sonar Fleet 1
Noroton YC

Fleet Racing:

Last Sunday turn into a great day of racing, despite the dire forecast. We ended out with winds in the low teens, a far cry from the predicted squalls with 50 mph gusts!

Thanks to PRO Luke Raymond and his very capable race committee, we were able to get three races in and get back to the dock before the rain came!

We started the first race with thirteen boats on-the-line, including guest Paul Callahan. By the time racing was over, our winner for the day was Zach Shapiro (pictured above). Of course, there's no way Zach could have done this alone. For crew, he had Robert Shapiro, Mackenzie Milne and Justin Marks. 

The top three finishers for the day were:

Zach Shapiro
Alex Meleney
Rick Doerr

Long Island Sound Championships:

The LIS Championships are approaching fast. Just one week away! Registrations are going nicely. As of today, we have 22 confirmed registrations plus 2 more commitments with their registrations in the mail. This year our competitors are coming from as far away as San Francisco with Russ Silvestri, representing St. Francis YC registering two boats. 

It's not too late to get in on the fun. You can register online by going to http://www.sonar.org or you can download an entry form at http://www.norotonyc.org by going to Regatta Info and Results.

Peter Wilson's Rules Corner:

We're doing something a little different today. Here is a new rapid response call for match racing that has some good perspective on when a boat is sailing to the mark and when it is at the mark.  While these calls are only authoritative for match racing, a protest committee can use them for perspective:

 




















(Click on image to enlarge)

June Noroton and Fleet 1 events: 

Sunday, June 13 - Club racing
Sat-Sun, June 12-13 - Oyster Bay Challenge team race
Sat-Sun, June 19-20 - Sonar LIS Championships
Saturday, June 26 - Summer Solstice Party begins 6:30p
Sunday, June 27 - Club racing

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Sonar Fleet 1 Newsletter, June 3, 2010





Sonar Fleet 1
Noroton YC

Fleet Racing:

Memorial Day weekend brought sunny skies with light variable winds. At one point on Sunday, we weren't sure we would get any races off. Ed Sweeney, our PRO for the day, hung in there and it paid off. We ended out completing two challenging races. 

Day One of our two day Memorial Day series had 10 boats on the line. Our winner for the day was Team 733 with Palmer Sparkman, Kevin Sheehan, James Howe and Scott Brooks. Their finishes of 2, 4 beat all others and showed consistency on a day when it was hard to come by.

Day Two started out very promising with east winds around 10-12 as we left the dock for the race course. Today we had 12 boats competing. Everything changed about 3 minutes into the first race when the breeze dropped to 5. That didn't bother the Fast Forward team of Peter Galloway, Peter Wilson, Paul Steinborn and Ed Steinborn who won the day with finishes of 3, 1. Many thanks to our day two PRO, Rande Wilson.

However, our overall winner for the series was Team 619 with Lee Morrison, Susan Morrison, Don Vasta and Nick Connery on Sunday and Dave Kelly on Monday. 

Here are your top three for the series:
                             Total points:
Morrison                     14 
Sparkman/Sheehan     15
Galloway/Steinborn     17

Finally, we all want to thank the entire race committees for both days. They all did a great job.

Long Island Sound Championships:

Noroton YC is hosting the Sonar LIS Championships on June 19-20. You can enter now by going to the Sonar Class site at http://www.sonar.org/ and entering the Member's Only section. A $50 late fee will be assessed to those who register after This Saturday, June 5, so register today.

Peter Wilson's Rules Corner:

As a reminder, here is last week's rules question:






















(Click on image to enlarge)

Peter's answer...

As many of you have guessed, the rules may not address this situation very clearly, and there is no 'case' or 'appeal' that deals with the tactical convention used by most of us when we want port to cross so we can keep going left.  Case 50 seems to make it pretty clear the port breaks rule 10 if starboard must alter down to avoid hitting her, complying with starboard's rule 14 obligation.

That said, most judges I have talked to about this situation would dismiss the protest since starboard clearly indicated that port should cross.  One could argue that as long as starboard alters down before she has to do so to avoid contact (the difference between the two situations depicted), then she is subject to rule 16.1 (ROW boat changing course) and if at that point port cannot tack without placing herself right in front of starboard, starboard gives port room to keep clear and neither boat breaks a rule.  If this perspective is correct, then one could argue that even if starboard hails 'cross', if she does not alter until she has to comply with rule 14, port breaks rule 10.

Happy to entertain additional perspective.

Peter

Feel free to leave your thoughts or comments in the Comments section below.

June Noroton and Fleet 1 events: 

Sunday, June 6 - Club racing 
Sunday, June 13 - Club racing
Sat-Sun, June 12-13 - Oyster Bay Challenge team race
Sat-Sun, June 19-21 - Sonar LIS Championships
Saturday, June 26 - Summer Solstice Party begins 6:30p
Sunday, June 27 - Club racing