scott rosen with dave timberlake made great strides figuring out good ol' 7101, showing some serious jets by the final non-race.

http://www.starclass.org/search.cgi?Action=view&Event_id=385

serge's value is going up by the minute folks. the last few years, he helped Peter Costa get two top 5 district finishes. This year, hot off an olympic campaign, he coaxed Peter Cusick within spitting distance of a blue star, finishing a strong second.

Speaking of serge, you should talk to him and try to learn from his experiences before his head gets too big and he won't talk to us any more. He may still talk to you; however, it looks like he will only sail with you if your name is Peter. Maybe we can drag Peter Rodriques out of retirement or get Peter Vessella back to the east coast and have serge sail with them.

Rezac and i had good speed with the leaders, and spent a majority of the regatta battling between 2nd - 5th places. we had three really good legs in each race, and had a fair bit of good luck, but unfortunately, some of our old, bad, non-conservative habits resurfaced on one leg in each (trying to cover both sides of the course, going for a home run), which caused us major grief and frustration, and lost boats. probably didn't cost us our overall place in the series, but one of these days we may learn from our idiocy, and upgrade our star to the color blue.

Rosen/Timberlake and Braverman/Rezac had a good race back to the home port.

We were in the lead early, but the newer Saab with the older boat made a good move passing us at the Throgs Neck tolls. After a short break, we lifted our anchors again. They were leading by a few dozen boatlengths on 91, but failed to tack and overstood Hartford. We tacked at just the right time, made a clean getaway over the Charter Oak Bridge, and never looked back.

Tell Todd that we saw all 49 thistles sailing down the mass pike in the other direction.

Constitution Cup

July 3, 2004

Saturday June 26th

Second race, everyone was (unofficially) OCS; three boats rounded one government mark, and two rounded another.

Thanks to Gary, Joe, Peter & Hannah for the races and for herding the fleet back to the club in visibility < 20'.

Saturday June 12

Saturday June 5th. JFK Regatta

My thoughts on the racing:

Ron Rezac and i hadn't sailed together for almost a year, so our strategy was to keep it very simple. Get off the line at the favored end, keep the bow pointed at the mark, play the shifts, and use the shifts to check in with the competition as needed. That's it folks, nothing fancy.

I have had bad habits in the past of sailing off the race course, so my crews have gotten very used to screaming at me to keep me on the course and letting me know when the bow isn't pointed in the direction of the mark. Saturday was certainly no exception, and Ron did his part!

First race, we decided to protect the left. First, to get out of the current, and second because it looked like there might be a slight geographic off of nahant. We saw most of the PHRF boats go left too, and the ones that didn't got hammered. Fortunately, most of our fleet went left as well, so we let Scott and Chris go off to the right on their own, and herded the rest of the fleet towards Nahant. 7101 looked pretty good out on the right for a while, but got hammered on starboard tack coming across the current. Unfortunately, we went too far to the left, and overstood the weather mark a little (doh!), but it didn't cost us too much, and rounded first right in front of Ted and Apostolos.

Second and third races, the committee boat was favored, but port tack seemed to be the more direct course to the mark, so we started at the boat, and tacked both times. The tide was high by that time, so current was not a factor in our decision making process. Ted and Apostolos seemed to make some gains over to the left, but we had a hard time convincing ourselves to get over there, because the angle took us far away from the first mark. However, we used each port tack header as an excuse to take a quick bite to the left to get closer to or in front of Ted and Apostolos. They continued to go back out to the left, and sailed away from the mark, so we tacked back onto port and sailed directly to the mark to round first in the last two races as well.

Good practice for the fleet, especially in the open waters where we will sail our North Americans.

But we all need more practice; will take a few more weeks to get the rust out. Districts in a month. NAs in two.

Newcomer Alli Struski with Will Crear, sailed the star very well her first time out, and will be pushing the top in due time. She had a little excitement on the dock after sailing as her brand new halyard got stuck in a vintage 1932 halyard lock. Fortunately, there were enough capable hands to pop the rig out with the sail up, and take care of business.

Couple of other notes:

The starting line we were using was probably as long as we're going to see for the North Americans. Even though there were six boats in our fleet, we had at most two boats near the line for each start....

...A gentle reminder:

CPYC RC and almost all other Star race committees around the area use horns and flags to start per RRS 26.
You should learn to read the flags in case you miss the audible. NO EXCUSES.
26 STARTING RACES
Races shall be started by using the following signals. Times shall be taken from
the visual signals; the absence of a sound signal shall be disregarded.
Signal Flag and sound Minutes before starting signal
Warning Class flag; 1 sound 5*
Preparatory P, I, Z, Z with I, or black flag; 1 sound 4
One-minute Preparatory flag removed; 1 long sound 1
Starting Class flag removed; 1 sound 0
*or as stated in the sailing instructions
The warning signal for each succeeding class shall be made with or after the
starting signal of the preceding class.
you can also get the rules here: http://www.sailing.org/rrs2001/rrsintroparts1to7.pdf

And what i remember from Ron Sandstrom from high atop the RC cabintop: None of us had enough vang on the runs. The top of the sail has pretty significant power, and he felt that we all needed a little more vang to grab it.

Supporting my habit?

We seem to have a shortage in the fleet of life jackets and droop hiking harnesses, as people have been running up and down the dock scavenging for either the last two weekends. i have a spare of each, and am willing to rent them out on a daily basis -- for one six-pack or post race draughts for me and sailing-partner duJour. Cavicchi-like keystone light or comparable is NOT a suitable potable payment -- Sam or better.

Acknoweldgements:

Our PRO duJour Ron Sandstrom, Peter and Gary gave each of us debriefings of what they saw on the water and how we could do better. Very helpful to have coaches out on the water looking out for each us.

Thanks to Hatch, Danny, Jim and Ron for the gorgeous weather and three great races. Double thanks to Jim Frasier because i forgot to thank him for last week (sorry Jim -- my bad. I knew you were on board).

Thanks to John Economides and Larry Bradley for running the regatta, chasing us around in Larry's lobster boat, and for quenching or thirst on the ride home -- that's always a very nice touch.

Big thanks to Denise Economides and Todd Rake for excellent post-race BBQ. And of course, thanks to Mike Gahan, Birdstone and Smarty Jones for providing pilot house entertainment.

Thanks to Rezac for hiking his ass off, keeping the rig up, and keeping me headed in the general direction of the mark.

Anyone i forgot to thank can blame it on my post-race beverages. (apologies in advance)

Saturday May 29, Sunday May 30

Five boats showed up on Saturday, including Carlos Rivero, our PRO for the day. Blowing dogs off chains from the west, so we worked on boats, and called it a day at 11 hoping for more suitable conditions on sunday.

Came back on sunday and it was still hooting from the west, although not nearly as much, and the forecast was for slightly less breeze. Sunny, a little chilly, and the water is still pretty cold. A brave four boats launched into the wind off the Westerly hoist as the barge blocked the leeward hoist.

The toughest part of the day for most was leaving the pier, and getting back in, although we all made it in and out safely. Scott Rosen and Chris Stow quickly turned back as their vang car exploded. Three other boats made it out to the racecourse to play. After stowing 7101, Scott and Chris doublehanded a laser out to the race course to plane around, visit RC, watch the races, take pictures, and do a little swimming.

And the racing....

10-20 from WSW-WNW with gusts up to 25. RC set us up on the 'BH' (Boston Harbor) course.... a short course up the Deer Island shore towards the Winthrop Channel, back to the yellow by Deer Island, starting and finishing in the middle. Four very quick races.

The wind was pretty puffy including a couple of wacky puffs with 45 degree shifts which came down the course, causing autotacks or boats on different tacks, on the same heading, merely boatlengths apart.

Good conditions. Great day to get the cobwebs out. We all came back with big grins on our faces after an exhilarating day, none bigger than Dennis and Kevin who bagged the last race and sailed screaming reaches out to long island and back. Special appearance, hot off an Olympic Campaign by Uber-crew Serge. Newcomer Alli Strumski was all fired up to go, but rightfully cautious about taking her maiden voyage with a rookie crew in her newly acquired yacht.

8052 Ron Sandstrom/Steve Braverman 1 1 1 1
7629 Ken Woods/Serge Leonidov 2 2 2 2
5995 Dennis Unger/Kevin Browne 3 3 3 DNC
7101 Scott Rosen/Chris Stow DNC DNC DNC DNC

Thanks to Danny, Hatch, Dev, Alli, Elliot, Ari, Hannah, and eventually Scott for RC.