National: Plane Insane Report
Posted by: alimeller on Oct 09, 2006 - 02:43 PM
Regatta Reports
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The SSA 505 fleet runs a fall event each year. It is the BEST time of year to race on the Chesapeake.
October is the best time of year to sail or race on the Chesapeake Bay. The SSA 505 fleet – now fleet 40 – has held an event in October of each year, almost since the fleet started building at SSA. This year was yet another fun event.
Saturday
Fall weather is largely frontal driven, and a front delivered right on schedule, with overcast skies, cool temperatures and BREEZE, Saturday morning. The PRO postponed to wait for the Thomas Pt. Light hourly update (to see if had moderated at all). The Thistle fleet wasted little time in deciding they were not sailing. Frank Kortbeek had flown in from Edmonton via Toronto, to check out Ali’s 505 for sale, so Frank and Ali were determined to sail, racing or no racing. Their rigging efforts encouraged a few others, so the 505s launched, with a not-extremely-enthusiastic race committee going out in the cold and wind, to run races for a small number of 505s. Most of the 505 teams in the dinghy park were pickup teams, and some correctly decided conditions were more than they could handle, and stayed ashore. Four teams made it out on the water: Frank Kortbeek/Ali Meller, Dustin Romey/Jesse Falsone, Alan Salisch/Bob Patterson, and Anthony Johnston/Dave Burchfiel. The Watsons were planning to sail up from WRSC along with Brendan Connell/Sam Carter, but they bailed given the conditions.
Frank/Ali were the first boat out and once passed Greenbury Pt. the breeze was ON! Ali estimates it was about 25 knots. The breeze moderated slightly by the time the racing started. I have always suspected some crews of believing anyone could drive a 505, and two crews set out to prove the point. Dustin Romey teamed up with Jesse Falsone in Jesse’s boat. Apparently Jesse won the coin toss to drive the boat. Anthony/Dave made it out, capsized and sailed in, where J (whose team had decided to not sail) convinced Dave to go out again, this time with J in the front of the boat. They missed the first race.
So the first race started with three teams, Frank/Ali, Dustin/Jesse and Alan/Bob. Frank/Ali had slightly better height upwind and led from Dustin/Jesse at the windward mark. But Dustin/Jesse had the better hoist and rolled over the top of Frank/Ali with both teams doing bear away sets and wire running. Dustin/Jesse picked their gybe spot, gybed, but discovered they were a little high of the leeward mark, so sailed low rather than wire running. Frank/Ali went a little further, also found themselves a bit high of the leeward mark, but were able to wire run a bit of the way back and then sail a higher than DDW angle to come up through Dustin/Jesse’s lee, and lead at the leeward mark. Dustin/Jesse split tacks, while trying to keep things simple, Frank/Ali went to the right corner. Dustin/Jesse were looking like heros half way up the beat, but the last shift was a rightie, and Frank/Ali crossed Dustin/Jesse and led at the weather mark again. Dustin/Jesse went for the dramatic gybe set move, while Frank/Ali had a slow hoist and then a slow gybe. When the teams converged, Dustin/Jesse were on starboard. Frank/Ali could not cross and luffed the kite to slow down and cross behind.. Frank/Ali were too high to wire run to the finish, but were able to make it sailing low on port gybe, while Dustin/Jesse had to gybe for the finish, as they were in the right corner (looking downwind) after crossing in front of Frank/Ali. A slow gybe turned into a disaster when they splashed it in, making what was a very close race an easy win for Frank/Ali.
Somewhere up the first beat or first run, Alan/Bob had gone for a swim, and by the time they came up, they were well out of the race, and decided to call it a day, sailing in.
The RC announced only one more race, as we only had two 505s racing at this point, but as they went into sequence, J/Dave turned up so we had three starters again.
Dustin/Jesse had worked on their setup, and now had an upwind speed edge on Frank/Ali. The three teams drag raced on starboard towards the Greenbury Point shore, with Dustin/Jesse tacking in front of Frank/Ali to lead at the weather mark. Dave/J were a bit slower and dropped back up the beat. Both leading teams hoisted and wire ran on starboard. Dustin/Jesse gybed, with Frank/Ali trying to gybe on their air. Dustin/Jesse escaped, but then Frank/Ali went higher, with Dustin/Jesse going up to defend. When Frank/Ali bore off and ran low to the leeward mark, Dustin/Jesse were setup a little too high to run down comfortably. They had a useful lead, so they opted to douse early and gybe twice. This almost worked well, except the rudder stalled on the first gybe and led to a late, slow and sloppy second gybe, allowing Frank/Ali to close up. Dustin/Jesse rounded first, but as they did Dustin noticed that the trap twings were still set up for downwind and asked Jesse to fix it. The result was Dustin full length in the water, the boat nearly head to wind, and Frank/Ali inside and desperately trying to avoid sailing over Dustin’s head! Fortunately for all, decapitation was narrowly avoided (Afterwards, Dustin mentioned being missed by about eight inches), and Frank/Ali ended up abeam and to windward, taking away Dustin/Jesse’s height advantage. Again Dustin/Jesse tacked first and worked left, while Frank/Ali went for the right corner. And again the last shift was a rightie, allowing Frank/Ali to cross Dustin/Jesse and lead at the second windward mark, though only by a couple of boatlengths. Both teams hoisted, and wire ran out on starboard. Knowing that Dustin/Jesse would try to gybe on them, Frank/Ali carefully picked their gybing spot and gybed to port quickly and then flailed a little getting the kite full and the boat going. Dustin/Jesse closed up and went high into attack mode, with Frank/Ali also holding high to avoid being rolled. The two teams blazed towards the finish, holding slightly high of the committee boat end. Frank/Ali held high until they felt Dustin/Jesse were so high they had to gybe to get back to the finish, and then Frank/Ali went DDW for the boat end, trying to avoid having to gybe. About three boatlengths from the RC boat, Ali realized this was not going to work, and gybed the main only, the boat stayed upright and they went aross the line in first, gybed back and doused. Dustin/Jesse were just a couple of boatlengths behind. Even though we now had three boats, and could have argued for another start, Frank/Ali decided two races was enough, waved goodbye to the RC and headed for the barn. The two remaining teams followed suit.
Back in Annapolis harbor, the boatshow was in full swing, along with some teamracing demonstrations in Vanguard 15s. Two of the 505 teams sailed by to check this out and say hi to their friends, before pulling the boats out, popping open some beers (the regatta provided all the beer) and telling stories about the great racing. This segued into a party at J Bergquist’s place. Good fun!
Sunday
Frank Kortbeek was only able to sail on the Saturday, as he had an early Sunday morning flight back to Toronto, where his daughter was playing in a soccer tournament. Ali had teamed up with high school sailor Jeff Samelot (first time in a 505) for Sunday. Jesse had reverted to Thistles given the moderated breeze, so Dustin teamed up with his college crew, Mike Cilenti, putting him in the back of the boat. Brendan Connell made it up after a LOOOONG sail from WRSC, with Sam Carter crewing for him. The fleet was joined by Keith Davids/John Torgeson, Chris Gildea (first time racing)/Mike Renda, Nicholas Place/J Bergquist. It started out about 12 or 13 knots (no whitecaps), but dropped off to less than 8 for the racing (no wire running), and less than that for the last race.
John/Keith controlled the day, leading at every mark but one (though not by much). Ali/Jeff were overlapped with them at one windward mark, but quickly found themselves doing a 720, a penalty for their temerity in leading and for being within range of Keith/John. Dustin/Mike were ahead of Ali/Jeff in the second race for awhile, but Ali/Jeff pulled through in that one, to have a consistent score line of 2,2,2. Dustin/Mike missed Sunday’s first race, but finished 3rd and 4th in the other two, while Alan/Bob went 3,4,6, and J/Nicholas went DNC, 5,3. A noticeable performance was Chris Gildea/Mike Renda who made it out for two races on Sunday, finishing 5,7. This was the first time Chris has raced his 505.
The breeze was dying, and by the third race was fairly painful. All early-morning fast talk of a fourth race was dropped, as it took long enough to drift around the course and then drift (and rock) in. It turns out that rocking a 505 is considerably faster than paddling a Thistle; no big surprise.
It was great to see so many newcomers racing 505s! Welcome to Sam Carter, Anthony Johnston, Dave Burchfiel, Alan Salisch, Chris Gildea, and Jeff Samelot. This was either their first time in a 505, or at most they have been in the boat for a few months.
Results: http://www.severnsailing.org/results/2006/108505.shtml
Thanks to PRO John Quay and his RC. Great work! And particularly thanks for going out on Saturday and running races for the four 505s that braved the elements.
There was plenty of regatta beer available Sunday after racing, which came in handy as we all worked to straighten Dave Burchfiel's mast.
Thanks to APS for sponsoring the event.
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