Yet another gorgeous Tuesday evening, but yet again, a little two much breeze for our "sweet spot." But a fun finish up in the harbor!
Century Club: Tim Ford
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Beautiful evening with less than beautiful results for us. But I'll take it.
Saturday, August 10, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Quick trip and kayak to check on RAINBOW. No harm. Earlier the folks at PSA had rescued SOLEIL, who had slipped her mooring and gone on a short walkabout to the leeshore. SOLIEL was undamaged. Now that's a robust build!
Thursday, August 8, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Went to PSA to reduce windage on both boats. Kayak ride to check on a few boats moored. Then the rain started and that was that. High water was not to Isabel Level, but it was high, never seen it higher at PSA!
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Boat work at PSA and short kayak. Then battled the fierce Harbor Tunnel run, northeast bound, to get to Clinton Street for the Tuesday evening race. All for nuthin' as the approaching storms lead the RC to cancel -- smart choice!
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
I was fooled by this fake fox on the pier...wonder if the ducks are?
a puff to 17 on the instru
someone got weather, all we got was wind
Sheesh. I'm convinced the city is a wind factory. I mean, I've always known it but last night was a text book example of:
- when the temps reach 90+ and the streets are 100+, the resulting localized mesoscale (or microscale?) Low generates whole bunches of breeze.
- witness: Station 44043 about 5 nm SE of our venue, out by 7 Foot Knoll, saw only 4-8 kn between 1830 and 2000 hrs.
- same thing with Tolchester Beach, which saw only 2-6 all evening.
- whereas: when the windline got to us, we had 10-15 on with gusts to 18 kn.
That's a big difference.
Still a beautiful evening on the river and we could not complain about the heat. For a change.
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
PHRF B start
PATRIOT fly by
Nice conditions for a change this year! Breeze and not too hot. Although some of the DW work was a little sticky when the breeze dropped below 10 -- which wasn't often.
I think we beat the 2nd place boat by about 12 minutes corrected time, which is not too shabby. We just happened to make all the right decisions, including heading to the beach (west side) to dodge current. Fortunately, the breeze built over on that side, too. It doesn't always work that way. I remember adopting this same strategy about 20 years ago, same race. We went left and all the boats in the middle caught a lot more breeze than we had. We tried to climb back into the center right, but by then is was way too late. -- chronicled in the 2nd half of this write-up from 20 years ago:
http://www.nbayracing.com/HeadOut.htm
Fun race and VERY weird to sail through the remnants of the Key Bridge. Nice job by BCYA but hey folks, read the RRS on the definition of FINISH. The entire boat doesn't have to cross the line to finish !!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
As a full-fledged geezer, I have difficulty with extreme heat. So it was a daunting challenge: I wanted to kayak but it was pushing 100 degrees and god-only-knows what the "feels like" temperature was. It was going to be me against the Sun. Plus I'm still on the Deer Tick scrip, which warns against any sort of "prolonged Sun exposure."
Yeah well...
...so, what you do is: wear a long-sleeved white shirt, dunk it often in the drink and also dunk the hat. Then, put both on, sopping wet, and let it dribble down into hot parts of the bod. It works. In the breeze, which built all day, I actually felt chilled when clouds blocked the Sun.
NICE!
Chilling in a breezy shadey spot in the little lagoon on the east side of Cedar Island, I noticed a rather large barge/pusher combo seemingly headed into the creek. I watched in amazement as these guys threaded the narrow, twisty and unforgiving fairway into Blackhole Creek. Major props to the master at the helm...I wonder if the twin outboards provide more manuevrability than a single prop on an inboard. Reckon they would.
Later on, we bailed on sailing with the Tuesday night dinghies. It was gusty and there were T-storms in the area. Turns out the breeze laid down 30 minutes after we decided to put the boat back on the dock and the storms held off for hours.
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
god's flashlite
Futility Point
Did NOT get the money shot of 31+
Boy, talk about contrast! Last night we had nuthin,' this evening we had plenty!
TPML2 had 22-25 gusts to 32 and that's about what we had in the Magothy for the Wednesday Night race.
I took a kayak out to see what the breeze looked like in the river, but after about 90 seconds of paddling in the headwind, just around the point, off of the south side of the club, I gave it up. I made about 20 feet and said OK, I give up.
It continued honking when I got to INCOMMUNICADO and did not let up all night. We went off with a reef and a 3, shook out the reef downwind and, in an unprecedented move, DID NOT put up a chute. I think we still got a 2nd. Great night but not drinking, due to being on Doxycycline for a nasty deer tick bite, it was a little harder to decompress and no where near as much fun.
Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
...did not happen. There was no wind.
Earlier that day it was blowing a nice 12-16 SE, until approx. 1500 hrs, when a tiny rain blob in SW Balto County blew up and became a large, throbbing, orange-red lightning producing convective system. The good news is that by 4pm, it had dropped temps from 95 to 78 degrees in Canton.
The bad news was: it sucked every bit of breeze out of the area and racing was cancelled.
Of course, when we got to the dock, it had begun blowing softly from the SE again.