Posts Tagged: canandaigua yacht club

Gadgets / Sailing — No Comments
22
Jul 10

First RC Laser Regatta was Learning Experience for Three CYC Members

Below is an article that is being sent to the Canandaigua Yacht Club’s newsletter for consideration for use in the Aug. 1 edition.

A group of members have now purchased three RC (remote control) One Design Laser sailboats and there are two more to be ordered (this week, hopefully) and a couple of other people considering the purchase. Shortly, we’ll be joining the North American RC Laser Class Association and forming an official fleet on Canandaigua Lake and racing at CYC. The current leading name is the Canandaigua Yacht Club Remote Control Sailing Fleet (if the club will have us).

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On Sunday, July 18, three sailors from Canandaigua Yacht Club competed in a “first of its kind” (for CYC) Remote Control Regatta.

Remote Control Laser Sailing

Sailing RC Lasers at Canandaigua Yacht Club

Skippers Jack Bennett (#05), Bill Blevins (#254) and Nelson Habecker (#54) competed using remote control one design Laser sailboats in a series of round-the-buoy races.

Frank Sacco served as the PRO and his boat, Dr. Heeks also hosted spectators, Larry & Nella Neeck. The boat was also the mobile racing platform for the three skippers. The course was set just South of the mooring field and marks were attended by a spectator boat.

Three races were run, although the final race was shortened due to the number of large spectator boats crowding the course which unfortunately blocked the wind for the small competitor boats.

Bennett’s racer seemed to develop a mind of its own, and on multiple occasions did penalty circles for no apparent reason. Mark-set-and-spectator-boat driver Gary Schmidt was sent to rescue the wayward craft a few times throughout the afternoon.

Habecker’s craft was on course for the gun and a bullet in the first race, but at the last minute, the skipper decided to ride a wind shift directly into the beam of the Race Committee boat which left Blevins clear to overtake from behind and cross the finish line first.

Two other races were completed but the results are still under review for various reasons, and thus are still deemed unofficial.

Informal races are planned for Sunday afternoons at the South end of the CYC waterfront, sometime around 4 p.m., or whenever the crews and boats arrive and feel like sailing. Additional regattas will be announced in the future. For more information on joining in on the fun around this exciting sailing opportunity, contact club members Bill Blevins or Nelson Habecker.

If you are interested in obtaining a RC Laser Sailboat, visit http://www.sailrclaser.com. The boats are available as a ready-to-sail kit that includes the boat, 3 sails, transmitter and travel bag. All that is needed to sail are double A batteries. Setup time is about 5 minutes from the bag to the water!

Everyone is welcomed to participate (with a RC Laser or any other RC sailboat) or just come out as a spectator.

We’ll bet you haven’t seen racing like this before!

Photography / Sailing — 2 Comments
29
Aug 09

EF1 Tornado hits Canandaigua Yacht Club

Canandaigua Tornado, originally uploaded to Flickr by SailorBill.

Boats everywhere!

An EF1 tornado scored a direct hit on the grounds of the Canandaigua Yacht Club in Canandaigua, NY on Saturday afternoon, August 29, 2009.

There are trees down everywhere. Power lines were also down because the poles had been snapped in half.

Several boats were sunk in the mooring field with just the masts or a small portion of the hull showing. But the major damage was done in the parking area where “Shark Park” was a total mess. I don’t think I saw one Shark that was unscathed.

J-24′s were tipped off their trailers or blown across the lot.

The whole Vanguard 15 fleet was blown off the end of the parking area and most were in the water by the beach and underneath the North dinghy rack which landed on top of them.

The pavilion was off of the foundation and will have to be seriously repaired before it can be safely used again.

Wow! For a storm that reportedly lasted only 90 seconds, it caused a major mess. No one was hurt, so there is some good news.

Cleanup begins as soon as the insurance companies do their documentation.

More to follow… There is a post on the Canandaigua Yacht Club homepage with a note to stay away until Tuesday and to keep checking the site for updates.

I’ve posted damage photos on Flickr.

Photography / Sailing — No Comments
30
Jun 08

2008 Flying Dutchman Cannonball Regatta

2008 Flying Dutchman Cannonball Regatta

2008 Flying Dutchman Cannonball Regatta, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

Flying Dutchmans sailing, with crew hiked out and approaching the windward mark on Saturday, June 28, the first day of the 2008 Cannonball Regatta held at the Canandaigua Yacht Club in New York.

Photography / Sailing — 1 Comment
26
Jun 08

“GO” Fleet Sunset Start

Canandaigua Yacht Club GO Fleet start

Wednesday Night “GO Fleet” (Genoa Only) Start, (Photo by Tracy Blevins)

Sailing — No Comments
25
Jun 08

Beautiful evening for sailing

Evening Sail

Tracy sailing her 2.4 Meter, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

Tuesday night after work, Tracy and I headed down for an evening on the water.

I plopped in the fishing boat while Tracy got her 2.4 Meter rigged.

We met at the lift and got her pointed towards the middle of Canandaigua Lake at about 6 p.m.

The winds were light and other than me, there weren’t many other powerboats out creating chop. We chased each other around for about two hours.

The wind dropped off as she approached the docks and she got to try out the “Praddle” for the last 200 yards. We met again at the dock and put the boats away.

It was a great evening for sailing and putting around in the powerboat.

There were 10 or so cruisers out reaching up and down the lake. You could see each crew straining as we (or they) passed by to get a look at the little sailboat being chased by a bright red powerboat.

The sun was setting as we packed up and headed out.

As we were leaving, vehicles pulling trailers full of Force 5 sailboats were pulling in to the camping area to prepare for the Force 5 US National Championships being held at Canandaigua Yacht Club later this week.

The restaurant and bar are apparently closed on Tuesday nights so we picked up carry-out pizza on the way home and pulled into the driveway at 9:30.

Perfect.

Tonight is the “GO Fleet” race series. “GO” stands for “Geneoa Only” (whisker poles aren’t even allowed) and I’ll be out there with the cruisers tooling around a triangle course a couple of times.

Tomorrow night we are meeting friends after work and taking out several of the club’s Sunfish sailboats and participating in the Thursday night Sunfish races. That should be a trip! I haven’t been on a Sunfish since I was in eighth grade sailing on Brandermill Lake in Chesterfield, VA.

Stay tuned, that should be a real story!

Sailing — No Comments
6
Jun 08

Two “Guns” in first GO fleet races

I sailed in the Genoa Only or “GO” series races on Wednesday night at the Canandaigua Yacht Club. The fleet was divided in half with my 2.4mR sailing in the “B fleet”. There was a Capri 22, a Catalina 22 and a Beneteau 210 racing with my group.

The winds were extremely light and there were only a few boats out. I earned both “guns” and after the results were computed, managed to get two first place finishes. The corrected results are posted on the Canandaigua Yacht Club “GO” Fleet site.

A Beneteau 210 gave me stiff sailing competition and actually cut me a few breaks in the first race which were much appreciated, especially not taking me up at the finish line at the end of the first race and pinching me above the pin!

The finish line for the short triangle is directly lined up with the reach mark so if boats are overlapped coming from that mark to the pin end of the line, I could definitely see problems!

The second race was shortened to a two-leg windward leeward course. I rounded the upwind mark behind the first boat, but loosened up the whole rig and ran down underneath him on the downhill leg which by that point had turned in to a very light broad reach. I worked my way to the windward side after getting clear ahead, continuing on to pull out a 90 second lead at the finish line.

Winds were so light by that point that the “crash boat” gave me a much appreciated tow back to the docks.

Sailing — No Comments
1
Jun 08

Sunday June 2 Race Track

Open Fleet Race 2 Track

Race on Sunday June 2, 2008 Track

I got out on the water very early today. Winds were great, blowing at 8-12 knots. I sailed for about and hour before the harbor gun, signaling the beginning of the racing sequence and my start in 45 minutes.

I noticed a problem steering to the right so I headed towards shore and lighter winds, luffed up and looked inside of the rear hatch. A guide for the backstay had popped two screws through the fiberglass on the deck and the backstay control line, over the rudder post, was dragging on the right side of the rudder control cable. Poor design, or poor choice of mounting points for that guide if you ask me. The fiberglass where that guide was mounted was as thin as any on the whole boat. With that much tension on the backstay control line, I think I’ll fiberglass in a small wooden block and re-attach the guide with screws into the wood. Hopefully, I’ll not need to drill and bolt up through the deck.

The race started at about 2 p.m. (they don’t use GPS time here) and then the nice winds over the past 90 minutes, or so, dropped almost immediately to 4-6 knots for my race – though race committee recorded results as a 7-11 knots or “3″ on the Beaufort scale although I never saw one whitecap. I guess it was probably 7 kts. for the first couple of minutes of the race when they wrote down the information for the afternoon.

I had a nice beat up to the first windward mark, then things slowed down – a lot – with two very light reach legs, a slow windward leg and a really slow downwind leg followed by a short and slow leg upwind to the finish.

The course was a triangle and then windward and leeward legs with an upwind mid-line finish. The flags posted by the RC didn’t signal the mid-line finish but they said on Sunday’s they don’t use the square with the red “M” so I sailed what everyone else did and being in the back of the finishers made that choice easy.

Canandaigua Lake so far has been light and puffy. I hope there is wind here in mid-summer!

Here are the stats from today’s track as recorded by my Velocitek SC-1:

Sunday Open Fleet Race June 2, 2008
Canandaigua Yacht Club
Canandaigua, NY
Total Race Distance Sailed : 6.534 Km / 4.06 Miles

2.4mR #161 – Bill Blevins
Total Avg. Speed : 3.62 Knots

Best 2 second run = 5.27 Knots
Best 10 second run = 4.84 Knots
Best 60 second run = 4.59 Knots

Best 100 meter run = 4.68 Knots
Best 500 meter run = 4.18 Knots
Best 1000 meter = 4.04 Knots

I will link to the race results when they are posted. I think I came in 2nd.

Sailing — No Comments
1
Jun 08

View from the cockpit of my 2.4mR today

Cockpit view from a 2.4 Meter

View from the cockpit of my 2.4mR today, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

Have you ever wondered what sailing downwind in light chop and 5 knot winds looks like from the cockpit of a 2.4 Meter?

Sailing — No Comments
26
May 08

Sunday Afternoon Race #1

race one

Sunday afternoon Race #1, (Photo by Tracy Blevins)

Tracy took this photo of my little 2.4 Meter sailboat in front of two Catalina 25′s on the downhill leg of the first Sunday afternoon race of the season at Canandaigua Yacht Club . Very shifty and light winds allowed for practicing all points of sail on each of the legs of the triangle course. I did manage to get the gun but I haven’t seen the results yet for the handicaps. Fun!

Sailing — No Comments
24
May 08

Our 2.4 Meters Have Spots

Getting Our Measurement Dots

Our 2.4 Meters Have Spots, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

Gene Hinkle drove up from St. Petersburg, FL this week to deliver boats in Rochester for Canadian customers and today he stopped by the Canandaigua Yacht Club to place measurement marks on the hulls of our 2.4mR sailboats.

Gene is the official measurer for several international sailboat classes including Sonars and 2.4 Meters. He had to make due with a tape measure today since his new templates are over in Qingdao waiting for him to return before the 2008 Paralympic Games begin later this year.

Thanks a million Gene!

(P.S. – I’m glad you connected with Dave Troyer about “Krugerrand” too. That was cool!)

Sailing — No Comments
20
May 08

Canandaigua Lake 2.4 Meter Sailing

Note the relaxed position with his arm resting on the side of the cockpit! (Photo courtesy of Pam Bettencourt)

Bill trying to catch up with Tracy sailing her 2.4mR on Canandaigua Lake. (Photo courtesy of Pam Bettencourt)

(Photos courtesy of our friend Pam Bettencourt)

Thanks for the photos Pam!

Sailing — No Comments
17
May 08

CYC Race Committee Volunteer Training

CYC Race Committee Volunteer Training

CYC Race Committee Volunteer Training, (Photo by Bill Blevins).

Tracy and I attended a race committee volunteer training course this morning at the Canandaigua Yacht Club. It was pretty much like all of the other RCs we’ve worked with in the past except for a cool computerized horn system that automates the audible signals with the timing sequences. It has a nickname which is slipping my mind at the moment.

“Ollie”?

Maybe. I think it was “Ollie”.

Photography / Sailing — 4 Comments
3
May 08

No, I Didn’t Buy a J-24, Today Was J-Daze!

2008 J-DAZE J-24 Regatta

2008 J-DAZE Regatta, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

I took the Skeeter out this morning and photographed the first few races of the 2008 J-Daze J-24 Regatta that is being hosted by Canandaigua Yacht Club this weekend on Canandaigua Lake in Canandaigua, New York.

(I secretly wondered how many times Canandaigua could be used in a sentence. Now I know.)

2008 J-DAZE J-24 Regatta

2008 J-DAZE Regatta, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

I watched the first few starts and they seemed to have about 35 boats on the line. I measured steady winds at 11 mph with some puffs to 14. (The racers will say it was much higher.) It was a perfect day for racing with an occasional sprinkle of rain but the predicted storms held off until the evening after racing was finished.

Everyone looked like they were having good times – even the folks that ripped a headsail on someone else’s rigging – The collision was near the bottom of the course as the boat that rounded and was heading back upwind on port tack and tried to thread the needle between a whole lot of boats coming downwind.

That’s racin’!

2008 J-DAZE Regatta, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

I may try to wet the hull on my 2.4 Meter tomorrow and see if I can pace on the outside of the race course with J-24s. More storms with heavy rain are moving through this evening but tomorrow is looking like it will be another great day.

All of the small versions of the photos and a slideshow are posted over at flickr.com and I’m going to give Pam and John (Albatross J-24 #3024) a disk with the full-sized images if anyone wants a print from the higher quality photo.

2008 J-DAZE J-24 Regatta

2008 J-DAZE Regatta, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

Feel free to leave a comment and tell about the Saturday afternoon races, the party, Sunday’s races and the results!

Sailing — 3 Comments
20
Apr 08

International 2.4 Metre Shakedown Cruise

2.4mR first sail

International 2.4 Metre Shakedown Cruise (Photo by Tracy Blevins)

Tracy and I headed down to the yacht club this morning after a big breakfast and got one of our new boats out in the water. I sailed it today just in case there were kinks that needed to be worked out.

Sure enough, when we made the turn into the parking lot, we could see three guys intently studying the hull and rigging and the controls inside of the boat. These things sure do get attention!

Tracy helped get the sails on the boat while I mounted the new cockpit spray cover with some marine goop and a couple of screws. I put in the keel drain plug and then donned a fleece jacket and my spray top and we were ready to go. One of the club members came over and gave us a hand with the lift.

The whisker pole ring on the boom immediately broke. Tracy ran to the truck and grabbed some tape and we just bound it onto the boom. I have no idea how I’m going to get the loose line inside of the boom to do the repair but for now, the boat works, just no whisker pole practice. I’ll study the boom for the other boat and try to come up with a solution before we do any racing.

We raised the sails and Tracy gave me a big push away from the dock and I sailed away. After an hour or so I headed back to the dock and we lifted out the boat and put her away for today. I have notes on things that still need to be ironed out.

Sailing was pretty straightforward. The boat handles nicely. It took about 10 minutes to get used to steering with pedals – you push your left foot down and the boat turns left and vice versa with the right foot. Having been a tiller sailor for years, this initially seemed backwards, but it didn’t take long to get used to it.

John Kruger from Gavia Yachts emailed last night to say that the “extra” cam cleat that we found (and I blogged about in an earlier post) was for the semi-automatic adjustable seat. Very cool. They thought of everything with this boat! I need a longer line for this adjustment though, because I am 6′ 2″ and I think I need to sit as far back as possible. With the seat back as far as the adjustment would allow, my knees were comfortable, but they were right at the underside of the console. Sitting back will probably take care of that little problem.

The jib luff was never as tight as I would have liked, but before I cut off the extra line running inside of the hull from the downhaul to the cockpit controls, I wanted to see how it worked. I had taped the loose end to the forestay, but didn’t leave enough slack to pull the jib downhaul all the way into the deck.

The stock vang is odd. I may have to shop for dingy vangs with different swivel shackles. I may try to flip it around too so that it is adjusted up on the boom rather than at the base of the mast. I may try that next week one night when I go out.

The ride is not dry, but it wasn’t terribly wet either. The bilge filled up 3 times during the hour sail, but I was actually quite dry. The newly designed cockpit cover works well. Most of the water that entered the boat came through the holes for the stays and jib twings. Only one or two rogue waves got me. Had I had on my dinghy pants I would have been totally dry. I was wearing my “big boat” spray pants and they aren’t quite as dry as they were several years ago. I have a pair of Gill dinghy pants on the way and they should be here next week.

I dropped my little Garmin eTrex GPS under the seat as soon as I got in the boat but with so much going on during this first sail, I didn’t bother standing up to try to locate it. I have no idea how fast I was going. It felt pretty fast! (I have a Velocitek SC-1 on the way too and that should be here next week.)

All in all, it was a great day! Fun, windy and wet. Now if we can get the other boat out so I have competition!

Tracy shot video and photos today. The photos are over on Flickr and the video is posted on YouTube.

Sailing — No Comments
19
Apr 08

View of the cockpit of a 2.4mR

Cockpit view of a 2.4 Metre Sailboat

2.4mR cockpit (Photo by Bill Blevins)

We went to the Canandaigua Yacht Club today and set up one of our boats.

A busy weekend is planned next week at the club where they rent a huge crane to lower all of the larger boats into the water, and we have to keep clear, so we could only get one set up today. The other is lonely up on the hill behind the club. We’ll get it in the water in a couple of weeks.

The 2.4mR did draw a lot of attention from the folks there setting up their big boats.

We managed to squeeze in to use the lift to get the boat off of our trailer while the guys were out on the lake working to set the mooring buoys for the summer.

We met a lot of nice people.

One of them said, “Ya’ll don’t look handicapped”.

I’m sure we will get that a lot. The 2.4mR is the current official boat for singlehanded racing for disabled sailors because within the class rules, they can substantially modify it for their disabilities as long as it doesn’t break the 2.4mR rule and they can measure equally with the other class-legal boats.

Our goal is to get a few more people educated about how great these boats are and get them out on the water in their very own International 2.4 Meter!

We’re going sailing tomorrow. Check back for the full story on our first adventure on the water!