From Nick Aswad '11-- Nick doesn't mention in his write up that he won the event....
For our first regatta of the season, the KP Dinghy team trekked up to my home club, the Malletts Bay Boat Club, for the Vermont Laser Open. With a great weather forecast for the entire weekend, we were all pretty psyched to get out on Lake Champlain and for a little non-collegiate Laser sailing. After hassling all of the local Laser sailors for their spare sails (since ours aren’t exactly street legal), we made it out to the race course. There was a good turn out with close to 30 full rigs and 4 radials on the starting line. Unfortunately, the wind was light, and it was HOT. We floated around for an hour or so, roasting in the sun and seeing who could do the best front-flip capsizes. Together, Dan and Chris won this fierce competition.
After a while the breeze finally picked up to about 5 knots and we got 3 races off. An out of town sailor took the first bullet, I took the second, and Casey Gilmore, who just started skippering, and has never sailed lasers before, shocked everyone when he came screaming into the finish on a nice left shift and snagged a bullet in the final race of the day. When we got ashore, the race organizers put on a great regatta/birthday dinner for all of the racers and helpers.
Sunday was looking a little more promising with the wind blowing about 10 knots during the first 2 legs of the first race; but it didn’t hold up and we sailed 3 races in the same breeze that we had on Saturday. It got pretty light at times and some serious roll-gybing was required to make it on the downwind legs. Our results were up and down in the shifty light air, but when the day was over we all managed to look good in the standings. Chris would have finished about 5 places higher; but after crossing the finish line first in the last race, he found out that he was OCS, (despite what the results say, we still considered it a victory). Overall we all thought that the regatta was awesome way to start the year. Everyone was happy to have the KP sailing team racing at the regatta and asked that we make this an annual event for our team.
After a while the breeze finally picked up to about 5 knots and we got 3 races off. An out of town sailor took the first bullet, I took the second, and Casey Gilmore, who just started skippering, and has never sailed lasers before, shocked everyone when he came screaming into the finish on a nice left shift and snagged a bullet in the final race of the day. When we got ashore, the race organizers put on a great regatta/birthday dinner for all of the racers and helpers.
Sunday was looking a little more promising with the wind blowing about 10 knots during the first 2 legs of the first race; but it didn’t hold up and we sailed 3 races in the same breeze that we had on Saturday. It got pretty light at times and some serious roll-gybing was required to make it on the downwind legs. Our results were up and down in the shifty light air, but when the day was over we all managed to look good in the standings. Chris would have finished about 5 places higher; but after crossing the finish line first in the last race, he found out that he was OCS, (despite what the results say, we still considered it a victory). Overall we all thought that the regatta was awesome way to start the year. Everyone was happy to have the KP sailing team racing at the regatta and asked that we make this an annual event for our team.
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2 comments:
Cool - nothing like having 34 boats on the line in shifty lake sailing conditions to make for interesting starts and good upwind practice. This kind of regatta will no doubt help the team the next ime they trek to New England and take on the Tufts Jumbos at home!
Go Mariners!
Great pictures, thanks for sharing!
I currently am sailing a Laser radial.
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