Greetings!
Easter has PassedOver and now we are racing baby! Tuesday, as in tomorrow night, we will be holding our first Tuesday Match Race Drills of the season. This weekend we have BOTH IRC practice on Saturday and a Grade 5 Match Race scheduled on Sunday. Slap on the sunscreen and we will see you on the water.
For a few comments on upcoming events and to learn about our newest Sapling read on young person, read on.
|
| Rules Corner from the Congo Cup |
 Here is a LINK to video of the last day of the Congressional Cup. It is about a 30 minute video but we've broken it down for you. Take a look at these three time stamps: 4:39 - Watch for a Spinnaker Tack. Not an ideal move with a spinnaker up. 6:06 - A CLOSE Slam Dunk. Remember when a boat tacks to windward of another boat and the leeward boat establishes the overlap from behind before the windward boat has completed the tack, rule 17 does not take effect and the leeward boat has full luffing rights. From the video's angle it looks even more of a fine line than it was but Brady managed to JUST overlap in time, luff head to wind and give Simone a penalty. That sent them up for the finish.
7:04 Finish - Simone was trying to do his penalty turn at the finish and shrimped the spinnaker. Brady at the last minute jibed behind and his spinnaker brushed Simone's backstay. This canceled the penalties so that Simone no longer had a penalty, but of course he was still anchored by his spinnaker just feet from the finish line. Brady luffed up and crossed to win by inches. It took the umpires a few heart-stopping minutes to unwind this scenario and declare Brady the winner. Exciting Stuff!
|
|
Team Racing - All Different... or Not
|
 | | Team Racing at St. Mary's |
Over Easter I was at St. Mary's Maryland umpiring the Prosser Trophy which is the MAISA conference championship. It was also the qualifier for the collegiate team race nationals. I am not sure why I choose team racing as one of my assessments to become an umpire but it just turned out that way.
Travelogue Warning: The trip down was a bit of a mission. Friday up at 5am, work, work out, 9am meeting at Oakcliff, 10am LIRR to Penn Station, 12pm Amtrak to Union Station DC, Rental Car, fighting holiday weekend traffic to Lexington Park MD and land of the strip mall, arriving at 6pm! I found the very cute and quaint Solomon's Island and some Oysters which made the travel worth it. Rumor has it that there is a fun race that begins in Annapolis and finishes at Solomon's Island. Must try that one day.
The weekend's purpose though was for me to umpire. I joined a nicely mixed group of umpires, young and old and we umped! The biggest difference I found between match and collegiate team racing is that the second you finished umpiring one race you had to book it back down to the starting area an do another race!
The actual umpiring was very similar to match racing and with the high and puffy winds the racing was intense. The winds were on the high end and the races kept rolling, so much so that we were done my mid-afternoon on Easter Congratulations to the teams headed to Nationals: St. Mary's, Hobart and Georgetown.
|
Season Opener - Grade 5
|
 Our Season Opening Grade 5 has a great line up: Team Q, Doug Shannon, Stephen Yip, Anthony Pulgram, and an Oakcliff House team.
If you haven't signed up and would like to participate, you are welcome to email us and / or just show up before noon and we will either farm you out to a team who is short of crew or use you in as an umpire or the race committee.
It is going to be a beautiful weekend!
|
|
Spring time around a boat shop is a stressful time on land so we are very much looking forward to getting out on the water and making it all all better!
Come Join Us,
Dawn Riley
Oakcliff Sailing Center |
