LinGin Takes 1st in the 73rd Annual PSA Overnight

Glen, Scott and I had a great time racing this weekend.  Scott was aboard for the first time in a long time due to moving across town and becoming a landlord.  It was an important race for us; Argo beat us in the NOOD and to St. Mikes.  We were feeling the heat in the High Point standings!

The wind was a nice 5+ kts out of the NE for the start at Baltimore Light.  Scott and Glen did a great job of getting the spinnaker up quickly and jumping us to the head of the pack.  Argo wasn't far behind and we were happy to see some maneuvering among Laughing Gull, Windswept, Skybird and Argo behind us.

At some point, Argo started pointing further south than the rest of the fleet.  We wondered if he hadn't seen the note that the course would be changed to give the boats that draw 9 ft. a mark with deeper water than Sandy Point Light.  The new course was posted on the committee boat.  Did they miss it?

At the first mark, we lead the A30 fleet.  Argo rounded 11 minutes after us.  Frankly, we were disappointed that it wasn't going to be a more competitive race.  However, we did remind ourselves that we were only finished about 7 miles of a 38 mile course.

During the next leg the wind completely died.  It was fitful death, slowly decaying, coming back lightly and then a final glassiness.  We looked far behind and Argo and Laughing Gull were literally pointing 180 degrees from each other; both orthogonal to the course to the mark.  We wondered if the course would be shortened.

Argo sail/drifted toward the eastern shore during this bobbing period and we did a pretty good job of staying toward the rhumb line in the middle of the bay.  We felt good about this.  I was uncomfortable when Glen pointed out what appeared to be a wind line out to the east.  I was flabbergasted when, while our knotmeter read 0.0 kts., Argo, off in the distance, was throwing off a bow wake like she was under full power.


Slowly...waaaay too slowly, the wind line came to us.  As we converged with Argo at the next mark it was clear that Argo was ahead by at least 3 boat lengths.  Curses!


At this point we definitely got our wish for a competitive race!  With the wind up to 15 kts. and spinnakers up, Scott was loving it.  Glen and I did our best to keep the pole adjusted and help trim.  It was interesting to have 7 miles to work on covering Argo from behind.   I've always found it difficult to know where our wind shadow is.  The true wind + apparent make it tricky to predict.  


We figured out the wind shadow and with Glen urging Scott, "Be agressive Scott.  Now is the time to be aggressive," we found ourselves catching Argo.  At the next mark we were the inside boat about 1/2 boat length ahead. 


I'm not sure how we got the spinnaker down in that much wind, while bringing in the jib and the main, but we did.  (Having seasoned crew is such a luxury; I highly recommend getting some.)  That rounding gave us the headway we needed and we scooted ahead.


Usually the wind on the bay comes from the north or the south.  If you looked at the course for the PSA Overnight, you'd see we cross the bay four times: west to east, east to west, south to north and then north to south.  Because of this, there is always a long tacking leg in this regatta.  Oddly enough, we never had to tack on any leg of this course.  (Unless you count the bobbing around during the calm.)  The wind kind of circled around an we were either downwind or reaching the whole way.  How strange!


The last leg was a beautiful reach from Pooles Island Light to Baltimore Light on a moonless night.  The stars pierced the deep night sky and the breeze was strong and chilly.  It was great to hear an actual gun go off as we crossed the line in first!  


The High Point competition continues!  Bring it on Argo!  :)


(Since it was dark, I'm not sure of the finishing order at this point other than our spot.)    

Fun LinGin Videos

We love having a professional video/photographer along on LinGin.  Brian Palmer has captured some neat shots of LinGin over the years and we needed a central place to keep them all.

If you're new to LinGin or just curious, check these out.  Thanks, Brian!

LinGin at the 2013 NOOD

LinGin on a WNR at 1200X Speed!

LinGin on the 2005 Hammond Memmorial

"Shark Fishing with Children" on LinGin

WNR

Last night's WNR saw lightening breeze out of the south and an "A1" course for the A30 fleet. We had a decent start and, watching the many fleets before us, headed left. Argo saw a little more pressure near the shore on the right side of the course and headed that direction almost immediately. Second2Nun was the only one that follow Argo.

By the top of the course, it was clear that going right was the way to go. Argo had a signficant lead on the the fleet and we were trading tacks with Second2Nun. We rounded in second, closely followed by Skybird and Second2Nun. Laughing Gull and Asylum came next.

The downwind leg saw the breeze get even lighter (floater conditions at times) and unfortuntately for us, the big boats caught up with us on the way back from their longer course. The RC properly finished the race at the red nun allow, I think, all classes to get a race in. Argo took first and we took second. The rest of the fleet looked very even coming in, but we didn't stick around long enough to see the actual order. They were moving at a snails pace.

It was a beautiful evening to be on the water and I think we all had fun. I know I did!

2012 Wednesday Night Race

Glen posted a re-cap of the WNR I missed while I was in CA for business this week.  Catch it here:

Alberg 30 Racing Blog

2012 NOOD Day 3

We headed into Day 3 with high hopes.  Tied with Argo for first, we needed to beat them to take first.  For reasons we're not altogether clear on, LinGin is not as fast as Argo in lighter air.  We prayed for moderate breeze!  We did not get it.

We sailed the best we knew how but could never get the boatspeed we needed, and Argo was not about to give us the opportunity to get leverage.  In the end, we took second behind Argo with Windswept in third.

For about 30 minutes the RC waited to see if there would be enough wind for another race.  With little time before the awards ceremony and the Bay looking quite calm, they told us to all head back to shore.

Of course by the time we were in Whitehall Creek, there was a nice breeze blowing.  We'll get 'em next year!

LinGin finishing the WNR

Rachel Meinhold grabbed this cool shot of LinGin finishing the Wednesday Night Race under spinaker earlier this week from the AYC webcam.  Thanks, Rachel!

2012 NOOD Day 2

The second day of the NOOD started with light winds and a heavy ebb current.  The race committee got off three races in a building breeze.

The first race was remarkable in that the wind was barely strong enough to allow the boats to cross the starting line.  We got a bit lucky in that we stayed close to the line before the start.  However, at 2 minutes before our start, the wind died and we realized we might not make it over.  We did cross, but after 20 minutes of sailing we were maybe twenty boat lengths course-side of the line.

In the first race, Argo beat us.  They were clearly faster in those conditions; we had a sizable lead after the start and even when close to them we couldn't keep up.

For the second race there was a decent breeze and while the current wasn't as strong, it was still a factor.  We wanted to go west toward Hackett's Point to get out of the deeper water, but Argo went east and we decided we need to cover them.  Unfortunately, not only did Argo beat us out going right, but Laughing Gull went deep to the west and pulled ahead too.  We took a 3rd and Argo taking the gun.  That put a boat between us in the scoring--not good.

The final race found us with a good breeze.  Skybird fouled Argo at the start and gave us a bit of a lead.  At the windward mark, we had a very close bunch of boats: Laughing Gull, Windswept, Argo and us all rounded together.  Painfully, we were in fourth.

All day we had been doing a bear-away set and then gybing a short while after the set.  Argo had been doing gybe sets all day.  As we came around the mark, we were a foot or two behind Argo and in their haste to get the chute set, they rounded the mark wide, leaving a nice hole for me to nose into.  We were both on starboard, but for Argo to raise their chute, they need to gybe first.

Gybing onto port, Argo tried to cross us, but clearly couldn't and had to immediately gybe back.  It was a great moment, since they couldn't set the chute until we gybed or they slowed down enough to go behind us.  I wish I could say I saw that coming, but I didn't.  I think I'll remember next, though!

We got our chute up quickly and at the same time the pressure went up significantly.  We passed the others going downwind and charged around the leeward mark.  After a heavy air jaunt up to the windward mark, we quickly popped the chute and charged back toward the finish.

The chute ride was a wild one.  We had a tough set with a twist in the sail.  Brian did a great job getting it untwisted and we all worked together to keep it under control.  The adrenaline was pumping between the chaos of the spinaker and the excitement of taking the lead.  Pretty soon we rocketed across the finish line.

The great news for us was that Windswept successfully beat Argo, give us a boat between and tying the series 7 points to 7 points.  Tomorrow's race will determine the winner of the NOOD and the Maple Leaf Trophy.

I'm really proud of our crew today: Glen, Ray, Brian, Ryan and David.  They all put in a lot of hard work and it paid off!

2012 NOOD Day 1

The first day of the NOOD had a slow start.  Fog socked us in, followed by breeze, no breeze and massive shifts.  Finally, in the early afternoon the race committee felt the breeze was steady and stable enough to send us on a race.

Waiting in the fog

This had to be the strangest start I've ever seen...I wish I had time to grab my camera.  We were the fifth class to start and by the time we started, the J30s were heading back downwind under spinaker.  Moments after the start our breeze shifted roughly 180 degrees, turning our upwind beat into a downwind leg.

Most of the Albergs quickly set our chutes and for about 5 minute we were heading straight toward the windward mark, and the J30s were under spinaker heading straight at us (and their downwind mark).  Very strange.

Ultimately, Argo took the lead and by the first mark, Windswept had us too.  For a bit on the downwind leg, we had Windswept, but by the rounding he had us again.

Heading back up to the windward mark for our second lap, we went right along with Argo and Laughing Gull.  Windswept decided to head left, but at the windward mark it was clear that the right had been significantly favored.

This leg was very frustrating as Laughing Gull came up from behind in a lane of pressure and simply drove over top of us.  Adding to the joy and excitement of the moment was Ray, who while trimming jib for us, kept blurting out, "Here comes Laughing Gull and boy are they fast".  After the third or fourth mention of the Gull's superior speed, I politely suggested he zip it.

Rounding the windward mark for the last time, we saw a window open up.  As Argo and Laughing Gull bore off to round, we caught up to them a bit.  The course has two marks that you have to round and as we followed them to round the second, they rounded tight and then wide, leaving a space for us to sneak inside.

Well, you don't have to give much of an invitation, and I took this one.  Garrett, Ray and Glen did a great job executing a quick gybe to get us a very nice angle on the mark.  We poured all of our focus on going as fast as we could for the rest of that leg.  When we reached the finish, we had a nice lead on the others and took the gun.

We had a great time in a hard fought race.  It was nice to see everyone out for the season and look forward to the next two days of racing.

The storms brought some crazy clouds

A Wednesday Night Race 1,200 Times Faster Than Normal

We LOVE Brian Palmer. He's a great guy and all that, but he's also a camera geek! That means we have cool shots from the top of the mast. We have cool shots like the famed crab riding a jellyfish. (We're still not sure how he got that shot.)

Last Wednesday, Brian taped a video camera to the end of our boom and recorded the race. Sped up 1,200 times faster than normal it's a fascinating watch.

LinGin at warp speed

One cool thing to notice is that after the start, David takes the helm. He's done that a bunch this summer and I couldn't be prouder of him! Here was my brother, Andy's, comment:

Also, great to see Dave driving most of the time... although Tim seems bored - not sure you guys need him anymore?

The truth kinda hurts! :P

Why We Do Wednesday Night Races

There are lots of great things about doing the WNR. We build some great relationships and have a lot of laughs. We love being competitive and challenging ourselves to do our best.

However, the reason I do the WNR is to see my kids having the time of their lives. An example:

LinGin does some shark fishing :)

Those kids were having the time of their lives on the way home from the race. It started with the three of them sitting on the boom going downwind on the way home. David decided it would be cool to jump off the boom into the water and grab the mainsheet in the process. It worked like a charm and the girls followed.

The rest of us on the crew couldn't stop laughing. That was such a blast and that's why I do WNR and always will!

WNR Race 6: Success!

After a mad-dash from Baltimore to Annapolis, I jumped aboard LinGin at 1743 hrs., much later than we usually head out. We had Tim Peek, Mackenzie, David, Pat (a friend from work) and Pat's son, Zach. It was hot and sticky with a south wind around 8-10 kts. On the way out we saw storms in the distance, but felt they were moving in the right direction (away from us!) and decided to keep heading for the line.

Mackenzie took the helm on the way out and we found the bottom at Greenbury Point. I can't fault her though. First of all, George Washington himself wrote about going aground at Greenbury Point, and second of all our depth meter read 6.6 ft. when we hit. Man, I hate those NavMan instruments...they are junk. All ended well; we were off in no time and steaming toward the line.

I drove for the start and amazingly we we had about 6 minutes to the start when we arrived at the line. Sweet! We put in a tack or two and at the final run to the line were able to keep Harry from barging and Jonathan was far enough down the line that couldn't pinch us out. We had the best start we've had all year. Sweet!

After a good sail up to mark A, I gave David the helm so I could prep the spinnaker. David had sailed a good bit of the way home from St. Michaels the weekend before and I had been impressed with his ability to keep her going upwind. We rounded mark D (we had course A2) with a healthy lead.

As we came downwind, we thought about raising the chute, but it started to rain and the wind picked up considerably. With a good lead, there wasn't and good reason to raise it, so we stuck with white sails. Everyone agreed the Tim Peek's incessant cackling and yelling, "bring it on Mother Nature" while standing on the bow in the rain probably caused the storm to subside prematurely.

David had a good rounding at the red nun, but as we sailed upwind to the green can, his tactician (read me), sailed him into a huge header while Harry split tacks (he tactician didn't tell him to cover) and made up a lot of ground. However, David did a great job of threading the boats in the harbor as well as avoiding the Etchells class and the absentminded boats that had finished motoring willy-nilly through our course.

We took the gun and had a very nice trip back to Mimi's, listening to lots of police officer stories from Mr. Peek.

Looking at the scores this morning, it looks like LinGin edge out Second-2-Nun (Harry) in a tie to win Series 1 of the 2011 WNR. Sweet!

Glen Writes up the Miles River Race

Great post from Glen our Miles River Race success:

http://www.glenbecker.com/2011/05/a-perfect-day-2011-annapolis-to-miles-river-race/

Thanks for all you do, Glen. We all love spending time with you and Emily!

Albergs (and LinGin) Mentioned in the Capital

Pretty cool!

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/sal/2011/04/27-56/NOOD-regatta-to-feature-championship-contests.html

2011 NOOD Day 1

It was just like old times today. Glen, Brian, Scott and I took LinGin out on a gorgeous day and had a fantastic time. There were four races in winds ranging from 10 to 25 kts. Scott had SEVEN, count them, SEVEN, sets, douses and resets today. Brian and Scott had dozens of tacks and Glen had the pleasure of scrambling all over the boat. Needless to say at the end of the day we were exhausted!

J Bergquist and Calliope were on fire today! Finishing 1-1-5-1, J was fast, chose the right side of the course reliably and had some excellent crew work. We were solid in our chase after J: 2-2-1-2. We're only leading by one point, but there are four more races scheduled so it will be exciting to see how it turns out.

We seemed to pick the wrong side of the course and I had a few terrible starts. I also misjudged a few port-starboard crossings, costing us some speed and distance with abrupt tacks. We had excellent spinnaker work with very few mistakes. By the end of the racing we seemed to have knocked the rust off and were working pretty well.

Tomorrow David and Mackenzie join the crew. We're looking forward to the help!

An oldie, but a goodie!

This video was made by Brian Palmer back in 2005 when we had an epic race back from Oxford. Watch the whole thing and you'll be "in" on a LinGin crew joke about Scott and sandwiches.

Hammond Memorial Sailing Regatta from Brian Palmer on Vimeo.

WNR Race 1

The first Wednesday Night Race of 2011 saw high winds as a storm edged by to the west of the course. We had a nice start; AYC has given the Alberg class its own start this year, so the line is not crowded. The A1 course was quick and the wind was high enough that despite all of Garrett's work setting up the chute, we couldn't fly it.

Calliope passed us going into the harbor to take the lead and looked poised to take 1st right at the finish. With the wind coming out of the Spa Creek bridge, we pinched to stay above the moored boats. Calliope stayed with full power, sailing low and fast, but into the moored boats. When she had to tack onto starboard at the docks, we ducked her, but the extra tack she had to take to get to the finish line cost her the race.

Nice work crew!

Once back at the dock, Nick used his grinder to remove the broken turning block that's been stuck on the boat for a year. Check out this night picture.

2010 NASS Race to Oxford

From 2010 Oxford Race

For all you loyal LinGin blog followers, I posted a recap of the race to Oxford on the Alberg 30 Racing Blog:

http://racing.alberg30.org/2010/09/2010-nass-race-to-oxford.html

The race back was two gybes and other than the dinky first leg, all under spinnaker. A regular foot race, that we won. Damp and steady around 10 kts, it was fun, but worthy of a write up? Meh.

The 2010 NOOD

Photo Credit: Brian Palmer

The 2010 Annapolis NOOD (National Offshore One Design) regatta was fantastic this year. We had eight boats registered for the event and seven out on the line for every race. There were the usual faces: Windswept, Argo, Laughing Gull, Second-2-Nun and LinGin; as well as some new ones: Skybird (with a new skipper!) and Backfin. We once again had the Spring Rendezvous at Lake Ogleton during the same weekend as the NOOD. It was great to visit with everyone and swap sea stories about the racing during the rendezvous.

One thing I love is learning about the boats that come out to race with us that I don't know. Backfin was skippered by John Finley, who last raced well over 10 years ago. I have it on good account that John is the second longest original owner of an Alberg on the Bay--he purchased his boat six weeks after Bruce Breiding in 1965. That means that John has owned Backfin for 45 years! His sails are vintage; they were signed by Bert Jabin (who was on the rules committee back in the day). John had his daughter out racing with him and he hopes to make some of the other races this year as well. Welcome back to the racing scene, John! (By the way, I still see Bruce Breiding out sailing Phantom, #113, out on Whitehall Bay whenever the breeze is up.)

One neat thing that happened in this year's NOOD is that one of the editors of Sailing World, Mike Lovett, crewed on LinGin for day one of the NOOD. We really enjoyed having Mike along; he was great crew and we learned quite a bit about the sailing media world. (Did you know that Sailing World magazine is generated each month by only 3 full time editors?) He wrote a nice piece about involving kids in sailboat racing. You can read it at http://ow.ly/1MlVo. (You'll need to scroll down about to the April 30 entry, "Saving Sailing, One Kid at a Time".)

The first thing I can say about the NOOD is that the weather was perfect this year. Beautiful sunny days with good breeze. It was ideal. The race committee did a great job of setting the courses, which were all windward-leeward, about a mile from top to bottom and usually two laps. That doesn't necessarily sound crazy until you consider that if you were doing foredeck on Friday when we had four races, that meant you packed, set, doused and reset the spinnaker eight times during one day of racing! I don't know about the others, but my foredeckman's wife, Krista McWilliams, said that Garrett was so tired Friday night that he couldn't talk. The good news is that I'm pretty sure that he had a smile on his face while he slept that night.

As for the racing, T.C. Williams drove Argo to 3 bullets on Friday and never looked back. He won the Maple Leaf Trophy (the Association's trophy for the NOOD) for the second year in a row. The next four places, however, were tightly contested. I don't know the actual times of the finishes, but we had numerous races where three or four Albergs finished within a few boat lengths of each other. The leaders at the top of the first mark were often racing to catch up again the second time around. It was nail biting!

Lanny Helms, our Racing Commodore, had a excellent series proving that his new spinnaker not only looks good, but can make Windswept fly downwind. New skipper and the new owner of Skybird, Mike Nikolich, showed that he'll be one to watch out for this season. He knows how to make that boat go. Laughing Gull put us on notice that they are out for silver this year. Jonathan Adams got the gun on the last race of the regatta, nosing out Argo in the last few seconds a VERY hard fought competition.

I didn't hear of any major mechanical failures during the racing and I don't think there was a single strategy that won the day out on the course. Some of our crews were a little rusty coming out of the off season. I, for one, could use some practice starting! I think I speak for everyone when I say that it was some of the best racing we've had. Beautiful boats, closely matched in tightly contested one-design racing. Love it!

The results can be found here. Brian Palmer put some great photos he took of the regatta on his Facebook page. (I think you need to friend him to see them.)

Even David was whooped after a full day of the NOODs.

Wednesday Night Races: No. 1, 2010

A windy, chilly, but beautiful evening greeted us for the first WNR of 2010. It was an exciting evening as we started off by realizing that we were missing the battens for the main. Ugh. We were too far from the dock to turn around and get them and then make the race on time.

I called Mackenzie and being the trooper that she is, she and Andréa drove to Mimi's, found the battens in the garage attic and zipped them out to us via the powerboat. Sounds fun, but not so much when it's 50° and blowing 15-20kts! They both were soaked, but we were glad to get the battens.

We quickly raised the main and as it got to the top of the mast, TWANG!, the rope part of the wire/rope halyard snapped. With 15 minutes left before the start, we looked around and David piped up, "I'll go up, Dad." We grabbed the bosuns chair and had him up the mast in no time.

If you've ever been up a mast, you know it can be pretty scary up there. A few degrees of heel on the deck doesn't feel like much, but 40 feet up, it can translate into 10 feet of motion! In rough seas, like we had tonight, it can be quite difficult to hold on.

David did it like a pro! He went all the way to the top, tied a line to the broken halyard and even checked the sheave. I was very proud.

We ended up starting a few minutes late. It turned out battens were the wrong set and a few of them bust through the pockets...not good. Harry (484) and Mike (550) were the only other A30s out there, but we caught Harry at the Naval Academy sea wall and came in 2nd. Not a bad start to the season.

Now for the NOOD this weekend!

International Friendship Regatta

I posted a summary of our experience on the International Friendship Race over on the Alberg 30 Racing blog. Go check it out!