| 20.Jun.08 | Drat! I almost achieved a perfect rounding (we all need goals). But after an hour of riding I finally encountered a car on Corn Neck Road. Does it count that it was a police car? Anyway, I took the traditional two lighthouse counter-clockwise tour this morning, leaving town on the Old Town Road and the Three Sisters Sandwich Shoppe, the new Town Hall, and the airport. Saw the sun rise just past Southeast Light. A highlight of the morning was achieving a new PB of 37 mph down the north end of the island. I don't think I will be able to better that without more gears or less weight (either me of the bike). Too much wind resistance at that point. We got two more races in today and it was the best BIRW ever in terms of the number of races. Only two times before (since I've been racing) have there been nine races and this week we had eleven. We had a postponement on Thursday that lasted several hours, but other than that there was little waiting around. Sue Miller, the PRO, has obviously learned from Brad Read that more racing and less waiting draws more sailors. KIMA decided to play in the first division today, rounding several marks in first place. With two good starts and "the beach" finally paying in race #10, they managed to pass GHOST before the final upwind mark, but SAVASANA came from behind to beat them at the finish almost overlapped. In the second race they got the boat again and legged out to the left but decided to cover the fleet before reaching the port layline. After a few fortuitous tacks, they again wound up near the top of the pack. On the last mark they rounded behind WOODY and just ahead of POWERPLAY. Those three went down the right side together. ECLIPSE, who was another ten or more boats back, tacked early and made huge gains in the center of the course. At the end it was ECLIPSE edging out POWERPLAY and KIMA with WOODY fourth and SAVASANA fifth. KIMA's 2-3 was good enough for first for the day. The final of the regatta was ECLIPSE, SAVASANA, and GHOST. Hard to find more skippers more deserving than Damian, Brian, and Ken. It was a truly exceptional week. Personally, I like the 12-20 boat regattas better than the 20+ boat regattas. It is just not so hard to find a place on the starting line and find lanes going upwind. The week was a delight! Another consequence of the smaller fleet was that there were no protests heard during the whole week. Hope you enjoyed reading. |
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| 19.Jun.08 | It was a fourteen deer morning. I got on my bike at 4:40 this a.m. and took a new route out of town on High Street past all the bed-and-breakfasts. I arrived as Southeast Light at 5:08 and witnessed a beautiful sight from the rock where Southeast Light used to be (the Rhode Islanders amongst you will appreciate that terminology). Since there was a full moon last night, the moon was setting in the West just as the sun was rising in the East. It was mostly clear, but there was a cloud bank on the horizon from which the sun peeked out. For a very brief time (at about 5:20 a.m.) you could see both the rising sun and the setting moon. Then I came back through town on Spring Street and then back on Corn Neck all the way out to the North Light before returning home. Yesterday, and again today, I also saw a ringneck pheasant. And birds, birds, birds constantly singing. Again, there was wind (out of the West) early in the morning which presaged a good sailing day. It is always fun to visit the tent after the Around-the-Island because everyone has stories to tell. I'd say that most of the 105-ers do not relish this race, but I also think that they would miss it if we had a week of 'round-the-buoy racing. I learned that GHOST moved their crew back and put on backstay during the close reach up the East side. WOODY had all their crew on the rail with their trimmer (and were able to sail very high). JATO passed six boats by going West after rounding 1BI. KIMA's tactic of sailing the rhumbline in the second leg while everyone else was protecting their wind did not gain or lose too much even though they were the last to set their kite. Boats that controlled their sails and avoided broaching did well on the long reach under kite. Today, we had a little problem getting started. It was a better beach day than sailing day. We got out on the course on time, but the wind refused to build from the SW until about 1 p.m. Up until then the wind lingered at about 3-4 knots, but by 1 p.m. it built to 6 knots and steadied from 230 to get the first race off. The boats in our class coming out of the right seemed to make out better and KIMA gradually moved up through the fleet and finished fourth after fending off JOYSEA and GHOST and getting passed by WOODY. SAVASANA won this one. In the second race, we got a great start at the leeward end, but again the right paid off. Inexplicitly, all the other classes had the leaders come from the left (according to RC helper Todd Berman). After the first mark, the boats that went toward the Island did so much better than the boats to the West. We had to pass both MORNING GLORY and TWO FEATHERS to finish eighth. I would expect that the standings were more closely bunched because some of the boats at the top dropped back and some of the boats at the back did well. SAVA won two races and ECLIPSE was deep in the first race. So we have 9 races after four days and the possibility of two tomorrow. Stay tuned for the final results. |
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| 18.Jun.08 | Go Celtics! I watched the whole blowout, so the birds did not wake me this morning. Forgot to mention the thunderstorms that have been rolling through at night. On Monday night at 9:30 p.m. it was severe and actually damaged several of the J/105s at the BIBB slips. At least GHOST, KIMA, and ECLIPSE had their sterns damaged when the strong winds from the north pushed them against the docks. All had spring lines properly deployed, but the pilings holding them had some flexibility that allowed them to push away the fenders and damage the sterns on the dock. Several other PHRF boats were also affected, but it was nothing that a little Bondo could not temporarily repair. Last night there was more thunder and lightening about 10:30 p.m., but with no damage this time. So today we had another perfect day for sailing and we went around-the-island. The wind started out at 260 and the RC set a weather mark out at 1.5 miles to the west. It built from about 6 knots at the start to 12 knots at the finish. We did a counter clockwise round as per usual. KIMA got to the weather mark in the middle of the pack and held low on a rhumbline course while the other boats went high. Some set their spinnakers before they reached W4 and kept them up until 1BI. KIMA passed some boats in the reach to W4 and was 6th after the south end. In the long tight reach up the west side it was JOYSEA, GHOST, and KIMA duking it out for the entire length of the island. POWERPLAY was close to passing us to weather, but we managed to hold them off. Once at the top mark (1BI) there was a choice to be made. Jeff Johnstone's rule is to flop over to starboard if the heading is greater than 270. Otherwise keep going west. We sort of followed that advice, but JATO came out of nowhere to go far right taking fourth. We had no idea where they came from, but their last leg was pure gold. We picked up JOYSEA and GHOST by staying outside. The top three boats all the way around were SAVASANA, ECLIPSE, and BAT IV. Tomorrow we have forecasts for good wind, so maybe they will get the total number of races up to 10 even before Friday. What a week! Today the throwout came into effect with seven races so be sure to check the latest results. |
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| 17.Jun.08 | The birds woke me up at 4:28 with their singing and I got off at 5:15 for an hour bicycle ride. I counted one pickup truck, two cars, three walkers and nine deer. The first pair of deer were seen immediately after turning south on Corn Neck Road and the others were in a groups of three and two. I took the long trip south past the marina in New Harbor, the cemetery, and West Side Road, then to Cooneymus Road and the "Sit a Wee" bench before passing Rodman's Hollow and then getting on Lakeside Drive, past Fresh Pond, then to Mohegan Bluffs and Southeast Light to Spring Street, through town and back up Corn Neck Road. It was somewhat distressing to see the new development of colonial homes being built across from Champlins marina. It reminded me of the mainland and the homes were not in character for Block Island at all. After a short (30 minute) postponement the RC got us started and managed to run three more races. KIMA did not manage a good race as they did yesterday, but in the final race there was finally an "incident" as the wind pushed up into the low teens. (Day one had no protests from any of the classes – very unusual for the first day or racing.) The first two races were sailed in very light breeze from the SW. In the final race the RC set our course as 1.3 miles to 205 degrees with four legs. Unfortunately, there were two marks out there an the one at 1.3 miles to 205 degrees was orange, and we were supposed to go around the yellow mark which was actually at 1.05 miles. Four boats went around the orange mark at 1.3 miles and asked for redress. The request for redress was denied because the bearing and distance are only "approximate" and if there is no "Charlie" flag flying we were to go to the yellow marks first. So yours truly learned a valuable lesson and withdrew from the final race because we were the only one of the four that did not go around both the orange and yellow. The other three boats that were disadvantaged were SAVASANA, BAT IV and POWERPLAY. So after two days we have six races under our belts and tomorrow we are projecting an around-the-island race for race seven. The weather so far has been cooperative and we are hoping for more during the week. We started today with a fog bank, but that burned off pretty quickly and the wind built all day to the low teens. Please check the results at blockislandraceweek.org. ECLIPSE seems to have the best speed and is being sailed the best so far. But who can predict what will happen in the next three days? Please stay posted |
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| 16.Jun.08 | You could say it was a chamber of commerce day, at least as far as sailing was concerned. They completed three races on the first day of Block Island Race Week, courtesy of Zuse, Inc. There was south breeze consistently from 185 to 195 (south) at 6-12 knots. They started us right on time with five other classes (we were 4th of five). By the time 4 p.m. rolled around we had gotten in three races. The shifts and currents may have been a factor, but we found that speed ruled the day. KIMA had a particularly good day. In the first race we rounded the initial weather mark in first place (going right) and were also first around the second mark. But the wind had moved right, favoring the left gate (looking downwind) and we took the right gate, giving up five boatlengths to the competition. We also seemed to go the wrong way and gave up four places to the other boats. We ended up fifth (I think). In the second race we were way late to the start and went well to the right. Other boats headed for Block Island and suffered severely. We worked our way up to the top five the first time around and finally overtook ECLIPSE on the final upwind and held on for the win. So in our worst start we had great speed and finished first. In the final race we got another good start, but stayed in the center and it seemed that the boats to the right and left went around us. We were just behind GHOST and WOODY and took seventh. I'm thinking that ECLIPSE is the leader of the regatta after the first day. In the final race, JOYSEA led after the first leg and the seond leg (at least). If we ever have this weather for the rest of the week it will be a miracle. Sailing in light air with five (as we are) is not a disadvantage in these conditions. More tomorrow. |
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| 15.Jun.08 | It was a great day for practice before the regatta. Despite starting with some rain and being overcast, the wind was out of the NNE (080) at 12-14 knots. We got to tune with BAT IV and JOYSEA and showed pretty much even speed most of the time. Unfortunately, there appear to be no divers here, so we will have to clean our own bottom (outside of New Harbor) tomorrow morning. We have a five person crew (including two of my sons), so we are light. The skippers meeting revealed only that there are six classes and one circle. Where we start will be revealed tomorrow morning. According to the scratch sheets we have fourteen boats, including RIGADOON and SHE'S THE BOSS, who I did not know were going to be here. Back tomorrow.
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| 14.Jun.08 | I'm here. We sailed over in a breeze that was supposed to be from the ESE, but it turned into the usual SW (where BI is from where I start out). It seemed like every turn to the west was accompanied by a rightie. So we powered down to Pt. Judith and then sailed for a while in the dying breeze and then powered the rest of the way in. On the way we saw the NYYC Anniversary Regatta taking place in BI sound. Due to a scheduling SNAFU of sorts we missed that one. At least two boats (POWERPLAY and BAT IV) are doing both by sailing to Block after the regatta finishes on Sunday. We have a small group this year (12 that I know about), but combined we have some 54 years of experience at Block. Should be fun. What's changed on BI? Not much. The honeysuckle smells as sweet as it always has. And the house that they had started last year along the beach is a little further along, but by no means nearly finished. I guess the contractor is on island time. I'll update tomorrow to tell you who is here and how our practice day goes. |
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