NOVEMBER 30,2009

PHOTOS FROM FALL 3

NOVEMBER 25, 2009

JOHN SAWYER LEADS NINE BOATS TO SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP

John Sawyer from Carolina Yacht Club in Wrightsville Beach, NC topped a field of nine Lightnings to win the 2009 Traveling Series Championship. John combined second place finishes at the District Championships, Southern Open, and Wrightsville Regatta with a fourth place at Augusta and a first place at Beaufort to win the series with a low score of 3.000.

YOU GO JOHN - AND CREW

NOVEMBER 21, 2009

Posted the Fall series results through todays racing.
4 races completed in a north east wind coming right down banks channel.
5 Lightnings and 4 lasers. Results on the sidebar.
Photos coming.

November 8, 2009

Another great day on the water Saturday.
Thanks to Jenny and Arland for running the races.
9 lasers and 2 lightnings.
Results posted - see sidebar.

CYC WINNER OF 2009 ST PETE TROPHY

Trophy is on the way.

Here's a link to the write up.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2009

Finished the regular sailing season today in 15-20 knots of wind , clear blue skies.
Thanks to all RC and competitors for another fun year of sailing at CYC.

Check the side bar for results of the ocean series
Check the CYC site for sound series.

Of special note: Awards ceremony is this Thursday at 630pm

Some changes in Fall series as follows
Fall 1 moved to 10/3
Fall 2 still Nov 7
Fall 3 still Nov 21
Fall 4 should be 12/5

SAYRA WEEKEND

Youth Challenge photos:

J24 Photos:

Results here:

Sound Make Up Race and J24's

Beautiful night tonight. Lots of boats and sailors. A pretty good breeze to finish the last race.

On another note Chip Till and his crew took 1st in the J24 at Charleston Yacht Club this past weekend. Check the links below for the newspaper write ups. Congrats Chipster.
Crew list below as well.

charleston yc open regatta saturday

charleston yc open regatta sunday

Murder inc crew:

Crew: Chip (helm), Dan Borrer (trim), Matias Heinrich (tactician), Tom Coker (middle), Elizabeth Derks (bow)

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Some are heading to CYC SC this weekend to try to win some more silver in our rival port city.

OCEAN 3

Tough day on the water for sailors and RC. Very light WSW breeze for the first 2 races but fortunately a decent seabreeze filled in for the third race. Tune in later for detailed description of what makes a seabreeze do its thing. Pierce Barden topped the lightning fleet. Martin Willard edged out Greg Zack for top laser. Check the side bar for results and pictures. Will post a short video shortly as well.

Lots of racing going on

Over the past week we completed Sound 2, Ocean 2 and the ever popular funsail.
Glenn Walker posted 3 bullets to take Ocean 2 in the Laser fleet. Jim Harris and crew dominated the Lightining fleet as well. Beautiful day on the ocean. Thanks to Jim Overton and his faithful race committee. Posted the results of the Ocean Series and the Lighting District event in the sidebar.

Invitations to this years James Match are in the mail. If any of you want to apply as a wildcard turn your application in to the CYC office. There were 2 wildcard spots last year. The event will be held in our club 420's again this year.

More photos of laser masters na' s + d12

Here are some more photos of the Laser Masters NA's courtesy of Sterling Powell and Anne Allen.

lmna #3

Here are some photos from District 12's race in Savannah this past weekend as well.
CYC had 4 sailors there.

Laser D12 Savannah

Will try to get some results up from the Lightning District race and maybe a regatta report shortly.

Laser Masters North Americans 2009

CYC impressed 95 laser sailors this past week. Big waves, good wind, extremely competitive sailing, open bar, multiple prizes, great food. Most of all the sailors appreciated CYC's southern hospitality. Thanks to the club for letting us hold such events. Thanks to all the volunteers who made the event possible. Here are two links to some super photos provided by Neal Harrell. So turn on the slideshow function, sit back and enjoy the show.

LASER MASTERS NA'S #1

LASER MASTERS NA'S #2

Becky and Emily interviewed at Charleston Race Week

Becky and Emily at CRW

2009 Ocean 1

LIGHTNINGS IN COLUMBIA

International Lightning Class

Southeastern District Championship 2009 Columbia Sailing Club

April 25-26

Four boats from CYC traveled to Lake Murray, Pierce Barden, John Sawyer, Richard Waldkirch and Paul Whitesides sailing Martha Fisher’s boat.

Columbia is centrally located in the district and has hosted the championship for past two years. 15 boats competed. Next year it is moving to the coast.

This year, lack of wind was the big deal, ironically it had blown hard for days leading up to the weekend, and the forecast was good but …….

Our local band of travelers camped along the lake in a great spot, with Richard’s crew Mickey Southerland taking the award for the most refined accommodation. Mickey’s camping ensemble is truly a thing of beauty. Standing room tent, sleeping cot with duvet’, pillow with special meaning, side table, reading lamp, area rug. He does not have a CD player but just turns the one up in the truck. He is the senior member of the tribe so we don’t say anything about the music.

Paul Whitesides and Martha Fisher have Martha’s grandfather’s boat (George Fisher was a great lightning sailor, and Martha must be genetically pre-positioned because she sails very well.) The boat has big history. Paul put a lot of TLC in the boat this winter it looks great and goes fast.

Saturday started with light wind dropping off mid afternoon to nothing but then coming back up late around 4pm and solid all night, what’s that about? The locals said this was normal, maybe we could race at night? The first race was very bad for team Sawyer we could never break out and all the zephyrs bypassed us. Fortunately the race was discarded for being shortened to only two legs, note to PRO’s, three is the class minimum.

Race two started as the wind was coming back. We noticed more wind on the left side near the dam rounded the first mark 3 or 4 and after five legs finished third. Rum drinks on shore were promised so we all sailed hard for the club. I don’t take beer on the boat so my crew situation was getting a little testy.

Life on the porch overlooking the lake, Mickey’s music in the background, rum drink in hand is not bad, and the breeze was so steady.

Sunday; we have one race in the can so we have a lot to do today. The wind has dropped off but the air feels dryer and colder, good signs. We sailed four races today, race 2 &3 in 6-8 mph wind, team Sawyer did well finishing 2 and 1. So we are at a total of 6 points and no one near. Race 4 we are dreading, wind has dropped to 3mph and is looking to go to nothing. We finished 12^th. Lesson learned, minimize tacks, and don’t sail out on the corner chasing wind certainly when you are in first place. Basically we sailed far right into better wind on the downwind leg but the wind filled in from the left and lifted the fleet to the mark. The RC shorten course to a very short third leg weather mark. End of story.

Wind was again on the lake so race five was sailed. We rounded back in the fleet at the first mark probably due to thinking about race 4. Got our heads back on the downwind runs and got in good pressure and in phase with the wind shifts arriving 3^rd at last bottom mark with Paul and Martha close behind. Pierce leading the race and Terry Tyner in second both were out of range so we worked with Paul, maintained a lose cover and finished 3^rd. We both actually closed on the leaders.

Race 4 put us in second with Terry Tyner from Columbia winning. The Wilmington boats were very competitive with all four boats finishing in the top six places. Good sailing.

John Sawyer

See the results here.

SILVER AND MASTERS COUNTDOWN

CYC sailors have been busy picking up silver at various regattas. Chip Till along with Paul Whitesides, Becky Nygren , Emily Aspland and Matias Heinrich took first in the J24 class at Charleston Raceweek - good job guys. Results here.

Laser Sailors already have 2 district events under their belts. In Beaufort , SC Martin Willard took 2nd and Glenn Walker took 4th place. Results and photos here. At Lake Norman Martin picked up another 2nd place trophy. Results on the D12 website here.

On another note the Laser Masters NA's are less than a month away. 63 sailors are already pre-registered and we have quite an international flavor. Check the Website here to see who's coming. A big thank you in advance to all those who are volunteering their time, effort and expertise to run this event.

TEAM CF TAKES 2ND IN CLASS AT BVI SPRING REGATTA

Team Cape Fear holds their heads quite high after the fifth and final race of the BVI Spring Regatta. Skipper Tom, with first mate Rhett Hissam at his side, helmed the S/V Abbey to a decisive first place finish (...bullet, number one, ahead of everyone else, numero uno ...yes, not hard to tell we've already hit the refreshment tent) sealing our second place class finish. Not even the local team on Saga Boy could keep up with us today. Mr. Chill put us at the boat end at the start so close to the RC that we could smell the jerk chicken cooking down below. With a 20 degree starboard lift at the start we had the fleet pinned for the first 10 minutes of the race. Although there were some doubts as to our complete understand of the CSA (Caribbean Sailing Assoc.) rating system, our stopwatches toward the end of the race hinted that we'd somehow pleased the wind gods today.

At the post race debrief, we considered possible positive influences over the boat's performance. There was serious consideration given to Will Brown the human whisker pole, Mary's lucky coffee stained hat, Kim the boom girl, draining of the water in all tanks, the S/V Abbey's ability to scream downwind (even out of the Puerto Rican sandwich - you had to be there...), Tom's expectation of open (very open) channels of communication , or maybe it was just the mushroom tea over at the Bomba Shack... naaaa....

We're pretty pumped right now, and pretty into the refreshment... Best to all. And honestly, we'd recommend this event to anyone who's been down here. We've really had a blast...




Best Regards,

THOMAS E HISSAM

TEAM CAPE FEAR BVI PART 3

Team Cape Fear holds their heads a bit higher at the end of today's racing. This was mainly due to the "Committee" agreeing to the correct course (with the assistance of the our "mashing" the GPS button and establishing an MOB at the Start/Finish line). Two more races today. After day one, we entered the day in 3rd of 15 boats in the Bareboat B catagory 3rd not 4th for protest threw out the 3rd place man for 28.1, not sailing the proper course. Once again we were on the Norman Island course with the possibility of 8 different courses.

The wind vacillated from 80 to 110, Cowen skippered today driving with Tip Chill calling great tactics (well assisted by lots and lots of input from the rest of the team). We started both races on starboard, the first one 1/3 down the line. The second 8 seconds late at the committee boat windward of the fleet.

Race one was around a windward mark leaving it to starboard, then leeward mark then finish. Even though we did not get the shore lifter that others in the fleet profited from, we came in 4th. We went for clean air especially since there are so many 50 and 51.5 in the class that like to roll us. We had a great downwind and leeward rounding.

The second race was around the windward mark, Pelican Island and Flannigan island. We managed to stay in clean air, had a bit of quick tack and back at the windward mark, then kept the others at bay. This was the course where we lost the committee boat location yesterday, so we let the GPS wisely point the way.... That let us lay the line perfectly and take a #2 place.

Saba Boy is out front having picked up 2 more bullets, but we have second overall in our grasp. We'll just see if we can hang on to it in tomorrow's final races.


BTW, boat name is ABBEY and pictures can be found at YachtShots.com


Best Regards,

THOMAS E HISSAM

Team Cape Fear does the BVI Spring Regatta

Part 1

We got here on Sunday, and took the 39.3 Beneteau Cyclades from Road Town to Nanny Cay. The Race from Nanny Cay to Bitter End was some 25 nm. The wind was from the East about 110 and blew 15-23. We were only 4 on the boat, Chip Till, his friend Kim, Will (Duke Student that crews on Mary Harrison's Tartan) and I. A 50 footer was on port tack at the boat and caused some consternation, buy we had a good start and pointed well. The rain was intermittent. The only snag we had was negotiating the current between Peter and Salt Island in a header in the rain. That cost us. The rest was uneventful going around Cooper and all the Dog Islands leaving them to starboard. We took 6 of 12, about 30 minutes out of first.

The next day were some dinghy races at Bitter End. We represented the USA in the Nation's Cup. It was light wind (8-10) and we are big boyz. I did the Laser and finished in the middle, Chip and Will almost sunk the Hobie Wave, althought they had great starts.

The race back to Nanny Cay was great! Chip put us in the right place to shut hte door on 3 - 50 footers. It was most downwind. We took 4 of 11. Believe it or not, after adjustments, we finished 4th. 20 seconds out of 3rd to a 47 ft, 1 minute out of 2nd to a 50 ft and 1:30 out of first.

We decided to get serious now. Finally took the anchor off the bow and stowed it below along with 200 ft of heavy chain. Perhaps we will be more bow up downwind. Mary Harrison and Bob Cowan are here now and the race begins soon.



Best Regards,

THOMAS E HISSAM

Part 2
First day BVI Spring Regatta, Team Cape Fear holds their heads relatively high finishing 2 races with a second and a seventh (out of 15 Bareboat B Class boats) possibly putting us in third place overall. That latter finish being due to the thought process which goes something like, hey we can't find the RC boat but we know the fleet in front of us knows exactly where it is so we'll follow them... That, of course, is followed by that uncomfortable feeling that comes when they all tack away to where you thought you outa be going in the first place... But hey, that's racing in paradise. By the way, racing in bareboat class isn't necessarily the screaming and yelling, gnashing of teeth, fiberglass crunching type thing we're used to on Tuesday evenings in Banks Channel. Today we raced up and down Drake Channel in the first race and then circled around a couple of islands and select rocks in the second. We're racing Tom Hissam's Beneteau 39.3 out of the Tortola Moorings fleet. Tom's crew for the regatta is made up of locals Mary Harrison, Chip Till, Kimberly Booker and Bob Cowen. We've pulled in Duke University's Will Brown for his giant brain capacity (along with his long arms which makes him the perfect human "bearing out pole" for the headsail). We'd write more now but we need to head off to the refreshment tent and on to some good Caribbean food.

Best Regards,


Tom Hissam

Results

WIND AND BIG CHOP - FINAL DAYS ON SOUTHERN CIRCUIT

Day Eight & Nine, St. Pete – Wind and big chop

Saturday night St. Pete put on good food and a banquet for the fleet. SPYC is 100 this year and this is the 62nd annual Winter Championship hosted by SPYC. Lucky for us St Pete and Lightnings are securely connected. Junior sailors and the under 30 sailors are strong, close to half of the fleet. An all girl junior team from Canada received the award for best new female sailor.

Had our last drink in the bar for this year, hope to be back soon.

Sunday started out in 16/17k with lots of chop, a little colder too. 5 legs at 1.1 miles. One general recall with a zee flag on the second start. We started better but still could not hold our lane. We did tack out on port in clear air and were 11 or 12 at the weather mark. We finished 29^th so over all a pretty depressing race. Second race, 3 legs at 1.1 miles. Our start was the worst yet, Oxygen mask were about to deploy before we could get underway, and we round the weather mark not last but close. Worked back into the fleet downwind and on the third leg finishing 38^th. We actually felt better about this race but obviously need help on starts.

For more complete results go to www.lightningclass.org

John Sawyer, Lightning 14318

RESULTS

Katie Takes Charge

Day Eight, St. Pete – Katie takes charge

Friday night the Lightning posse struts purposefully to dinner, Sawyer in the lead, with his rag tag team of misfits straggling behind. After dinner a regae concert awaits – the original Wailers, as in “Bob Marley and the Wailers.” Our team arrives at the venue and is disappointed to learn that tickets are $22 a pop. No way we’re paying that. It’s already damn near 9:00 pm - pretty close to our bed time. We’ll never stay long enough to justify the cost. Then a new leader emerges. Katie Elmer pulls out a giant wad of cash and starts paying cover charges all around and commands, “we’re going in!” Sheepishly the Lightning posse complies. Inside, cold beer and Margaritas await. Some hours, beers and margaritas later the band plays its last and our team shuffles back to the Ponce de Leon, having closed down the bar. Our leader for the night had made an excellent call – but how will we feel about it in the morning?

Flash forward to Saturday morning. Team Wilmington now shuffles down to the St. Pete Sailing Center. That excellent call didn’t seem as great at 7:00 am as it did the night before. Even so, the Lightning posse boldly perseveres.

Three races, starting 13-14 knots and diminishing throughout the day. Despite the diminishing winds, the weather is excellent. Plenty of sunshine and good racing conditions throughout. Team Sawyer finishes 29, 38, and 31 in a fleet of 55. Small errors really take a toll in this fleet – like mistaking the four minute warning for the five minute warning. “Why are these boats lining up on the line so soon – they’ll never hold those positions for a minute and a half. Oh, Sh#*!” Team Waldkirch struggles as well – they seem to be off their game even more than team Sawyer – seems like they just can’t roll with the big dogs. Maybe they should have gotten their beauty rest after all.

John Sawyer, Lightning 14318

RESULTS

Drifters and Rum Drinks

Day Six, Miami to St Pete

A simple slow day, took the less traveled route through the everglades, crossed Tampa Bay from the South via the suspension bridge, arrived in St Pete at about 3pm. Richard Waldkirch, Mickey Southerland and Katy Ellmer, soon to be Sherwood, are here for this leg and we collect Dan Morton tonight at the airport. St Pete is very friendly to sailors, the bar is great. Ordered a few rum drinks prior to the competitors meeting and class association meeting. We don’t remember much from these meetings, hopefully I did not accept a class job. I did get stuck with the fleet dues again this year because they had not been paid. Fleet 511 owes me $25.00

Day Seven; St Pete

58 boats are registered, 10 am start today with 3 races scheduled. Wind was workable going out but faded and was too light and shifty. We were postponed on the water and after and hour towed in. Hug out in the shade at the sailing center. Wind looked OK at around 2:30 and we tried again and again were towed back in. Rum party tonight, and probably 4 races tomorrow starting at 10 am. Meeting a lot of sailors.

Back at the yacht club, and I do mean yacht club – posh – open keg, and chicken wings and other stuff – just can’t figure out how to spell horse duevers (sp?). Sorry we went out to the drift fest in the first place. This is where we should have been all day – drinking beer and watching March Madness. The Devils are kicking ass. Started yesterday. There’re not playing today. But there is an air of anticipation. It just can’t be escaped. Talking smack? Maybe we should be. If we are then for good reason. “Just a few more please bar keep. Please don’t kick us out. Do you know who we are? We be the CYC . We been kicked out of better places than this before.” She doesn’t know who she’s messing with. Morton stands up. Starts talkin. Golden honey flows. Everyone stops – listens. Everyone clapping. Young women crowded all around – in adoration. We have to get out of there. The bar keeper who just minutes ago was trying to kick us out is now begging us to stay. Too Late ! Must save it for the race course.

Now we’re off to confront St. Petersburg on our own terms – to be continued ……

John Sawyer, Lightning 14318

Becky Wins Hula Hoop Contest

Day Five, Miami:

Sailed two races today in 15/17k. 0.9 mile legs, we are whipped. Made some bad decisions and finished poorly. Put the bow into a wave up to the mast downwind, pretty sketchy but no damage and we stayed upright. Got some good surfing down wind but we were slow upwind, two 720s in the last race did not help. I think fatigue brought on the fouls.

The bright spot was last night, Becky won the women’s hool-a-hoop contest and has a cool lightning glass with flashing LED lights to show for it.

On to St Pete tomorrow.

John Sawyer, Lightning 14318

RESULTS

John's Adventure moves down I-95 to Miami

Day three, I-95 & Miami:

Lots of driving today, but it is sunny and warm. Coral Reef YC is beside the US sailing center but is a lot nicer. Good outdoor shaded terraces, CRYC has it’s little slice of waterfront. Boat and car parking is very tight but works.

Two trips to different airports today to collect Becky and Toby. Thank god it’s sunny and warm, I am in full compliance with my sailing agreement with Becky.

John Sawyer, Lightning 14318

Day four, Miami

48 boats are registered. We were postponed today for wind. Sailed three races. Race 1 in 5/7k smooth water finished 17^th. Race 2, 6/10 a little chop, finished 25^th. Race 3, 6/10 dying to 3/5 and chop, finished 25^th. This is our first in Biscayne Bay, I don’t think we have the current in mind. Some of the usually top ten are about where we are so it was a long day for everyone.

RESULTS

John's big adventure Lightning Southern Circuit 2009

John Sawyer is doing the Southern Circuit. Check out his reports below from the first leg of the
series in Savannah. See full results at end of report. You go John!

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Day one, Savannah Yacht Club:

42 boats are registered; Bob Cowen and Toby Wells are sailing with me on this leg. The Wilmington and Skidaway river course complete with mud flats, oyster beds and 8 feet + tide is a really unforgiving place. Usually I break something on the boat here but so far all is holding up. We were looking OK in the first race until we missed a wind shift on the downwind finish with 50 yards to go and lost 5 boats finishing 22^nd. Wind was ENE at 8/12. falling tide all day. In this fleet an OK finish for me is anything in the teens. Race two was no better, in a dying wind we finished 27^th. Hopefully we will make better decisions tomorrow and at least get up to mid fleet.

Savannah is gearing up for St. Patrick’s day everything is turning green, fountains, the river, faces, beards. The clubs hospitality is great. They even washed our car windshield, while we were out racing. The Canadians and snowbirds are sailing in shorts, we are layered up in 55 - 60 degree overcast conditions.

John Sawyer , Lightning 14318

Day two, Savannah Yacht Club:

A great finish today for us. The day started in dense fog no breeze and the gnats were having bike week at the Yacht Club. The RC wisely postponed ashore while we all hung out inside. The weather improved and by about 1pm we were ready to start race 3 in sun and 8/10 k. Our starts have been terrible, today we got some practice through 3 general recalls, finally got started with the I flag. We did better on the start and worked the current to our advantage and finished 4^th today. Overall we were 18^th for the regatta.

I started driving to Miami for the winter regatta at Coral Reef YC with a stop in St Augustine tonight. Pulled off the road at 7:45 to watch the space shuttle launch which was many miles away but still an amazing sight. Even from my distance the audacity of the space program and astronauts to ride a rocket into space was right there. It really was a fireball, red exhaust, black soot and smoke arcing into space very fast.

John Sawyer, Lightning 14318

RESULTS

January 4th, 2009

Time to crank up the sailing season for 2009. Have posted an unofficial schedule and NOR for
this years events - so get out your crayons and fill in your calendar. Of note is the increase in the Ocean Series to 5 weekends this year. Also of note is the increase in the number of discards to 3 if 10 or more races are sailed - so if you miss a weekend you might still be in the running.

Ten lasers started the year off on New Years Day in pretty cold conditions. Thanks to Kerry Primmer for running the races. Plans are for laser sailors to practice the first Saturday of each month through the winter - usually everyone is rigged up by about 1 pm.

Speaking of laser sailing , plans are moving along for hosting the Laser Masters North Americans in May. Looks like the big boys are coming from all over to compete. Check out the CYC website for some cool videos of laser sailing and of the club itself.