Regatta Report: Vineyard Haven and Wianno Opti Invite

Our opti and 420 sailors both sailed in two day events last week. The first was a 420 regatta at Vineyard Haven that took place on Monday and Tuesday. The sailors sailed their 420s over from Falmouth on Sunday night with Niki in a coach boat following them. The two boats we sent over consisted of Kyle Powers and his crew from Stage Harbor and George Robbie with crew Jack Winslow. They sailed in a 58 boat fleet coming in 28th and 37th respectively.

For some crazy reason they thought it would be a great idea to sail back from the Vineyard to Harwichport. They completed the trip in about 6 hours! A pretty impressive feat, but not something that I would like to take part in. Nice job!

The Wianno Opti 2-day Regatta began last Wednesday at around noon. It was blowing maybe 15-20 knots which is quite windy for even our most competent Opti racers. Our 7 sailors proved that they were up to the challenge of heavy winds  and confidently sailed in breeze both days. Colin superiorly coach the boys and managed to rig boats/fix boats/coach all in huge waves and breeze. Our top finisher was Brad Kelly who finished 9th in Blue Fleet and 23rd overall. Nice Job Everyone!

Pirate Day Be Upon Us!

Arrgh Mateys, Pirate Day be gettin' closer, make sure t' prepare yer best costumes an' bare yer swords t' swashbuckle other scalliwags on th' high seas!

There be treasure fer the most accomplished Pirates, so be sure t' act 'n behave th' best if ye be not wantin' to walk the plank into Davy Jones' Locker!

The day o' reckoning be Thursday August 5th during Sailing School.

See ye thar seafarin' heartys! 

Regatta Report: Stone Horse Laser Regatta

As sailors pulled into Stone Horse on Saturday morning the wind was quite uncooperative. By uncooperative I mean nonexistent. By the time the 56 sailors launched a weak Northerly had filled. In all races an I course was sailed, however in the first race the wind shifted to the East causing the last upwind to be more of a reach. By the fourth and final race a nice Easterly had filled probably around 10 knots. We had 49 boats in the full rig division and 8 boats in the Laser division. Our very own Colin Smith won all four races in the full rig division winning the regatta overall. Oriane Longerstay sailed very well winning two races and placing second in the other two gaining her first place in the radial division. 

A big thank you to Jeff Ward who organized the regatta, Peter McAvoy for running the race committee, Tricia Murray and Shelly Ward for dealing with registration and results and to everyone else who helped patrol, set marks, and record results. 

For full results from the Laser Regatta visit :

http://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_regatta_results.php?regatta_id=3058&show_sub_class=1

We sent four sailors and coach Niki Osvalds to Vineyard Haven this weekend for a 2-day 420 regatta. Make sure you send them positive sailing thoughts as they tackle a large fleet and big breeze. 

The sailing school photo happened today. If you would like to order a photo make sure to e-mail me at sarasallyevans@gmail.com so I can place the order. 

If you are going to the Wianno Opti Regatta make sure to notify me or Damian Noyes so that we can prepare a trailer to be sent over on Tuesday.

Thanks!

Sally

Approaching the Mid-Season Mark!

Wow! We have had quite the summer so far! June and July could not have been more amazing in terms of weather. With good wind and sun everyday our sailors have been given every chance to learn and improve their skills! We had our first rainy day on Monday which is quite a difference from last year when we had a rainy month!

There are still more regattas to be sailed. We have the Laser regatta coming up this Saturday. If you plan on sailing in the regatta make sure you register online by tomorrow! The link for registration is :
https://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_registration_form.php?regatta_id=3058

TJ Noonan and Nelson Millett sailed a tough regatta at Bass River Yacht Club yesterday. They made improvements throughout the day working on their spinnaker technique. They finished up with a solid 4th place!

This weekend we are sending 4 sailors to the Vineyard Haven Regatta. Let's make sure we send positive thoughts their way in hopes that they sail fast and stay safe!

There are two Opti Regattas left, Wianno (July 28th-29th) and Hyannisport (August 4th). If you haven't done two regattas already make sure you sign up for one of these!

Mid-Season Evaluations will be ready by Friday next week. They will be available to be picked up in the office if you already requested that, or they will be mailed to the address marked on your registration.

See you all on the water!
Sally

Sailors in Opti A practice sailing backwards

Windy Day Calls For RAD Sails

As I'm sure you all know, Nantucket Sound can have gnarly breeze, and huge waves. Our kids tend to be some of the toughest sailors out there. I frequently hear "there isn't enough wind" in 8 knots of breeze, or "light wind is boring". One problem we face with all of this breeze is having sails that are too big for smaller sailors. We purchased three RAD sails this year. RAD stands for reduced area design. They are designed for our club 420s and allow sailors of all sizes to sail in every wind condition. Yacht clubs around the country are adding a RAD line in their regattas so that smaller sailors can competitively race 420s without worrying about windier conditions. Below are some pictures of the RAD sails:

X-treme Stone Horse Sailors Prove Talent at Opti X-Treme

 

We had an early start yesterday with hundreds of young sailors piling in with a look of fear and anticipation on their faces. The wind was coming out light from the East, and fog was building towards Chatham. However, the inevitable southwesterly seabreeze was on everybody's mind and finally clocked in at about 11 o'clock. We had twenty competent sailors on the Green Fleet line sailing five races. Graham Robinson was our only Stone Horse representative coming in a respectable 15th place.

On the red white and blue line we had 93 sailors, sailing out past the outer harbor jetty in pretty gnarly wind and waves. We had great success in white fleet taking the top three finishes, Drew Kelly in 1st, Brian Mitchell in 2nd and for his first placing of the season, Owen Ward in third. In Blue fleet Michael LaCava came in fourth place and Nicole Welch came in fifth place after winning a race overall! She was successful in that race by splitting with the fleet and going to the left side of the race course upwind after the leeward mark.

We had an awesome barbeque and ice cream sundae line afterwards with some of our younger chefs helping grill and delicious salads and deserts provided by various families. Thank you very much to those of you who helped out with that!

Also remember to thank Mrs. Mitchell for organizing the majority of the event, along with Mrs. Murray and Mrs. Quirk who slaved over the computer in the stifling office yesterday, while everyone else was enjoying being on the water!

Double check to make sure you didn't lose any gear, or take anyone  else's by mistake. We have a lot of extra gear in the lost and found, and a lot of messages on the answering machine about missing gear.

Thanks again to everyone for making it such a great regatta!

results can be found at : http://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_regatta_results.php?regatta_id=2937

Stage Harbor Success

On Friday 15 Opti Sailors went down the street to compete in the very competitive Stage Harbor Opti Invitational. The day started off slow with a long sail out of the channel into some thick fog. By 11:30 the weather cleared up and races were sailed. Only a few raceswere sailed, and again our s

ailors persevered with consistency and focus. At his first Regatta Colin Steiger won an impressive fourth place in Green Fleet! Drew Kelly and Ellie Mitchell tied for first place in White Fleet, with Drew Kelly winning the tie breaker. Brian Mitchell came in a close third place.

In Blue Fleet Michael Lacava sailed into third place and Brad Kelly tied for fourth place, unfortunately losing the tie breaker and finishing in fifth.

Congratulations again to all of our opti sailors who participated, it is great to see so much progress! Let's hope we have even better results this Monday at Stone Horse's Opti X-Treme regatta! I hope to see all of our young sailors on the water, and friends of Stone Horse cheering them on!

Thank you to everyone for attending the presentation by Ken Read last night. There was quite a turn out, and hopefully the amazing video footage and awesome stories will inspire our younger sailors to achieve great things at the level of circumnavigation.

(for more pictures from Stage Harbor go to www.shyc.com)

Team Race Victory

Yesterday we sent eight members of the 420 race team to Hyannisport Yacht Club for an inter-club team race. They sailed five races working on different situations and techniques involved in team racing. In one particular race they did a fantastic job working into a play 4, a 1-4-5 combination. Overall they won 4 out of 5 races, coached into the win by Coach Osvalds, and they did so while maintaining their cool and sailing clean fun races. Congratulations race team!