Tuesday, August 23, 2011

SONAR FLEET 1
NOROTON YACHT CLUB





FLEET RACING:

There was lots going on last weekend...Hinman Masters, European Championships (yes, we had two boats participating), vacations, questionable forecast. Despite all this, eight boats made it to the line for our Sunday fleet race. Those who went out were greeted with the best racing day we've had this year.

Some think it was because Peter Galloway, our PRO, wouldn't have it any other way. Others know it.

With breeze in the 13 -16 range (a few puffs up to 19) out of 200ยบ, Peter was able to run two W2s and a W1.

Since I now have the video bug in me, here's one for Sunday. It's a little shaky at times...one reason no one calls me "doctor."...but I hope you like it anyway:



After the three races, our winner for the day was Rick Doerr who took two guns and a 4. Rick's team included (l to r) Christi Hart, Nick Connery and KC Hart.


Full results can be found here: http://www.fleet1.org/

JUST FOR FUN:

I saw this on YouTube. It's just some guy doing Billy Powell's piano solo on They Call Me the Breeze, (which is the background in the above video). I thought it was good enough to share. Watch if your interested.




TEAM RACING:

Noroton participated in the Hinman Masters last weekend. Here is a report from Lee Morrison...

Your Noroton team started slow and after the 1st round robin ended up with 6 wins, out of 11 races, but in a 3 way tie for the last slot in the gold fleet.  In the first tie breaker, Noroton beat American and American beat Annapolis – stilled tied.  For the second tie breaker, add up individual race finish points.  American beats us by 1 point.  In the silver fleet Noroton finishes 9-1 to give your team a solid silver fleet win.

Most of our losses in the 1st round were very competitive races where Noroton lost by narrow margins.  In our second race we had a very disappointing loss to Annapolis after being in positions 1-2 at the last mark.  In our race against Texas we acknowledged a foul on the 1st leg that gave them a 1-2 at the weather mark - which they were able to hold onto.  Eventual event winner, St. Francis YC, and our race against Southern were close but we didn’t prevail.  Most disheartening, was a loss to Eastern.  We went out to sail again after an almost 4 hour break to face Eastern.  The current was ebbing pretty heavily making it difficult to stay below the starting line. We didn’t sufficiently anticipate this effect and all three Noroton boats wound up too far down the line leaving the committee boat end open.  Two Eastern boats got away cleanly at the committee boat and never looked back.  To summarize, in most races we did not win the start which hurt us – especially against the better teams that wound up in the gold fleet.  Positively, we were able to team race our way into wins after trailing at the 1st mark.  Most notably, this was how we beat gold fleet teams NYYC and American. 

It was a great event with beautiful weather.  Every day featured clear sunny skies and 10-15 knot winds coming straight down the channel between Jamestown and Newport.  NYYC did a fantastic job with the logistics, the RC was outstanding, and I believe the vast majority of competitors felt that umpire calls were fair and accurate. 

Lee

SONAR EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS:

As mentioned, two Noroton members participated in the Sonar European Championships, a "pre-worlds" regatta hosted by The Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club in Scotland. They were Bruce Kirby and Steve Shepstone.

While the regatta was won by Skip Shumway, our guys performed well with Steve taking third and Bruce taking fifth. Second went to Simon Barter from GB and fourth was current world champion Dave Franzel.

Here is a link to the results: http://rncyc.com/sailing/racing/results/

UPCOMING SCHEDULE:


Sat-Sun, August 27-28 - Grand Masters
Sun-Mon, September 4-5 - Labor Day Series
Sat-Sun, September 17-18 - Kirby Cup
Sun, October 16 - Closing Ceremony/awards night. Time TBD

UPCOMING REGATTAS:

Tuesday Aug 23-Saturday Aug 27 - World Championships, Rhu, Scotland
Thursday Sep 22-Sunday Sep 25 - North Americans, Wayzata, MN
Saturday Oct 1-Sunday Oct 2 - ACC's, Noroton YC (NOR available on Sonar.org)

IMPORTANT LINKS:

Fleet 1 results: http://www.fleet1.org/
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