Century Club: Ashley Love

First time out for the Good Trade, Peter Bowe's new (to him) J105.  Peter, Mike, me, Todd, Susanna, Mike and Maddie (3 couples and Peter, ha!) took the boat out for its first sail as part of the Tea Dance family program.  EYC was running practice starts and races with North Sails.  Went pretty well!

Thanks to the Downtown Sailing Center in Baltimore, we got 21 people in J22s in a challenger series-type practice to help practice for the Thayer Trophy 3v3 team racing regatta in June.  Conditions ranged between 0 to puffy with full-on hiking and 45 degree shifts.  If anything, it helped us learn about each other's personalities on boats!  You've got to be patient, adaptive and constantly on your toes!

Janel Zarkowsky and my connection to the Downtown Sailing Center got us a full day of practice yesterday with spinnakers.  Stuart Proctor and John O were instrumental in making it possible!  We had 13 women come to get on three boats with my boyfriend, Mike MCNamara and the odd lady out to drop some marks, blow some whistles and take some photos.  

The morning session was light air, but we got in some sets, douses and penalty turns.  Then we headed to shore for lunch as the breeze shifted to the south and had decent breeze for some practice starts and upwind/downwind legs.  

Teams were loosely formed by experience levels and weight (to keep all of the teams equal) and people swapped around roles to try out different things.  With so many coaches, ranges of boat experience and team vs fleet vs match racing, we learned a lot about the boats, ourselves and each other pretty quickly.  It was absolutely fantastic to finally meet the other talented Annapolis area women who, up until this point, we’d only heard of by reputation and/or competed against.  

We hope to visit the DSC again soon, maybe by using 6 J22s so we can get the full 3v3 experience.  13 ladies on the water certainly turned some heads.  We can’t wait to try out our skills against a bunch of fleet racers who think they know everything... 

It was 65 degrees in December, so of COURSE, we had to get out on the water!  We cruised around Batlimore playing Frank Sinatra-type Christmas carols on the boat speakers, waving to others who were out on land and on other boats enjoying the day.