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nbayracing.com 2009

"Covering racing in the Upper Bay because, pretty much, no one else will"

We are on pace for over 40,000 hits in 2009, from 20 different countries. Thank you very much for visiting and if we miss something you'd like covered definitely send us a blurb and pix.

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6.27.09.....Block Island Fog Week

I think the concept behind Block Island Race Week is something like: a summer vacation on a remote island with a lot of good racing.

The good racing was there, but the summer vacation steadfastly refused to show up.

A welcome mat that's bolted to the floor might be considered sort of a "tell" that there might be wind. There was wind. And fog. And rain. And cold.

How can that be fun?

Not sure, really, but it was. If you get to Block, it's crucial to arrive with a certain appreciation of the reality: it is mid-June in New England on an island sitting out in the Atlantic Ocean.

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According to Bob Evelyn, who has been racing at Block Island since the early-mid 70's, this was the worst weather he’s seen in the last 3 decades. So, if you go to Block in 2011, forget the fantasies of racing in a 12 kn seabreeze in a post-solstice deluge of sunshine. It could happen, but probably won’t.

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We had a preview of the entire week’s gloom on the way over from CT. I was helping deliver a J120 over from Essex and a little past Race Rock Light, we hit an oily ocean swell and some significant fog. It was eerie being out in Block Island Sound with intermittent schools of 4-5 foot long dogfish doing something weird on the surface…swarming? We hit a few of the slower ones. More on that later.

The next day was Sunday and would have been a practice day that we sorely needed on my ride, Ed Tracey & Tim Polk’s Omega 36 “Incommunicado,” but conditions conspired to keep us locked in…namely: a gale warning and a Cambria 46 that kept everyone inboard of it from exciting the docking area. We’d pay for that lack of a practice day, later.

The next day, Day 1 of BIRW, the RC decided it was a good idea to send all of us out for Block’s famous Round The Island (RTI) race. It was honking and the sea state on the Atlantic side was “lively, to say the least” (a favorite Adlard Coles expression). But, it was a hoot even though we screwed the pooch pretty mightily. Due to bad timing, and some other nuances of sailhandling, we developed a massive forestay wrap (kind of a theme for days 1 & 2) and we let the LS-10 “Lunatic Fringe” get by us, which landed us a spot off the podium in 4th.

Crap.

(left, the Coasties J120 struggles out of a wave trough)

Tying up, after the race, was also a bit of a challenge.

The Abbott 33 "Pirate" suffered a loss of rig on their approach to the finish line.

(left, lads aloft after the RTI race carnage)

The next day it was still honkin’ and in Race 1 our old friend Mr. God-awful Forestay Wrap made his appearance once more. This time it was so bad, we had to retire from the race.

Did I mention we hadn’t practiced?

Uber mensch that Ed is, he gave us a very, very, low key pep-talk and we sorted out some timing issues and the next thing we knew, we were back in the hunt, with 4 – 3 – 1 – 1 finishes in the next 4 races.

(Tim and Ed with the Rolex sponsored Day 3 First Place pickle dish; our 15 year old trimmer Ryan gets a T2P interview; we watch it all a few hours later in the tent...life is good!)

Going into the Last Day, we were in third and primed for a podium finish. But we literally lost the last race in the fog. I mean we REALLY lost the race in the fog.

Somehow we finagled a 6 out of the mess we made from sailing past marks, hitting marks, and making a bunch of sailhandling gaffs due to not having enough time to set up properly, once marks were located. Oh and, yeah, it was foggy. I think minimum viz was down to approx 100 yards by the time we finished.

Racing in 8 – 14 kn in thick fog is something I’ll not soon forget.

Anyway, the 6th plucked us out of 3rd and we ended up 4th overall.

Respectable, but not as satisfying as a podium spot. However the two bullets for Day 3 and a hefty pickle dish for Incommmunicado meant some redemption was earned from Inc’s disasterous go at BIRW in 2005, when they lost their rig.

As we were saying Saturday morning, upon departure, we had some good days and we didn’t break anything. Sometimes that’s enough to ask for!

(left, for all the cloudiness in the sky, the water clarity certainly tried to compensate. You don’t get 7-8 feet of visibility in the Chesapeake by late June, that’s for sure)

The golden rule of all vacations is: the day you leave will be the best weather-wise.

Here, the sky opened up to reveal this modest little chateau on the north end of Fishers Island.

The northern 2/3rds of Fishers is pretty exclusive and if you are a mere mortal, you can't get throught the gate.

Yes, the entire 2/3rds of this fairly large island are gated. New York has some pretty weird islands....it gets even stranger on Plum, a few miles south of Fishers.

Oh yeah, and one more word on the sharks...this, from the Storm Trysail Club's press release after the RTI race,

"Ramrod, the Farr 40 owned by Rodrick Jabin (Annapolis, Md.) caught a four-foot sand shark on its keel, which might have seemed the most unusual happening save for the fact that several other boats experienced the same thing. “We were going 12-16 knots downwind, then all of a sudden we were doing 11-13; we had to back down to shake him free,” said Ramrod’s mast man Matt Weimer (Annapolis, Md.)."

Dorothy, we aren't on the Severn anymore.

6.05.09.... Another 2 - 20 Night of Wind

At left, Tim Polk does a great job of concentrating on keeping the boat moving (in a non-existant breeze) instead of thinking about saving a lot of money by switching to GEICO.

A great thing about getting to sail in a bunch of different weeknite venues (the upside of not currently campaigning my own sailboat) is getting to see a bunch of different designs out on the courses.

The chute with the googly eyes is set on Geoff Schneider's Nightwind 35, "Nightingale."

The Nightwind 35 CB is a Bruce Kirby design (pretty obvious when you see the boat's lines beam-on). Kirby (whom most people know probably owns the record of Most Production Boats Ever Built because of the success of the Laser-with more than 182,000 built, worldwide....I dunno, maybe the Sunfish has sold more) designed the boat in 1979 and hull number one hit the water in 1980. Somewhere between 13 and 15 hulls were produced.

It was designed as a centerboarder, but weighs in at almost 6 tons, approximately 1,500 pounds heavier than a J35. 1,100 pounds of the three-quarter ton difference is due to increased ballast on the Nightwind. Upwind sail area on the two boats is virtually identical. There's a vast difference in ratings, the J35 owes the Nightwind 51 seconds per mile.

According to Wikipedia, Bruce Kirby still keeps a Nightwind at the family dock on Long Island.

Nearby T-storms sucked all the punch out of the NE gradient breeze....things looked bleak, prestart.

"Nightingale" finds a little breeze as it fills in from the left side.

The left paid big dividends...meanwhile we, on the right, needed a bail-out.

Hobie 33 "Chaos" finds a lot more breeze at the finish.

6.05.09....Nap 2 Newp

Annap to Newport Race is going on right now and you can track it here

We would not be opposed to seeing the Sunfast 3200 do well in this, the one we got to climb all over after Harbor Cup last October.

It seemed like a neat ride with a lot of potential and as far as we can tell, it's the smallest vessel doing the A2N this year.

Looks like fast fun ride down the bay, today, but tomorrow looks somewhat less promising...it might be a long slow ride to Rhode Island.

We're hoping everyone gets in safely!

5.31.09.... Big

Some pix from Thursday at HdG.

Above is B & B Taylor's Wauquiez Centurion 40, "N-Titled 2." We have to hand it to these peeps...trying to nose a big horse like this around a short course such as HdG's Thursday night circuit in 10-15 with just 4-up is a handful, even when it's non-spin. (We were just 3-up on the J24 and it was a workout).

It's a pretty boat but seems a little incongruous among the Hunter's and Laser 28's and Soverel 27's of HdG's NS fleet.

Nonetheless, we say hats off to them for plunking down the coin for such a beautiful ride, and best of luck on the race course. It's one more unique vessel at a Thursday Night venue that offers everything from starboats to...well....40 foot cruising boats!

And, btw, the proper way to pronounce Wauquiez? is here (Voh'kee-ay)

5.29.09 JUMP START

If you're thinking about getting into the i550 game (and let's face it, who isn't...something like 10 plan sets sold in the past 2 weeks!) then here's a way to jump start your build...Peter Ross of Peter Ross Yachts has this one up for sale! It's a bit of a departure from the usual i550 because it doesn't have a coach roof, but it's not the only one built like that....the boat's designer Chris Beckwith is also building a flush deck model.

To say that Peter is an exactling builder would be a bit of an understatement. This hull should be stiff and fast! (you'll have to talk to Peter directly about whether or not it'll measure in) Shoot him an email at:

pross at prossyachts dot com

5.15.09... Sporties, 19th century style

I ran across these 2 shots while cleaning out some files on another laptop. I can't give photo credits because I have no idea from where they came.

Look at the prod on the one on the left. Tell me these guys didn't get some horsepower out of these turbo'ed gaffers back then. I guess these are pretty close to what would be considered a sportboat, back in the 1890's.

It's funny how the advent of cheap mass-marketed sailboats after WWII turned the concept of sailing more toward having a home on the water, rather than something that was a gas to sail and race! Obviously, there were some boats with more of a strictly racing purpose that came out of production shops in the 50's, 60's and 70's, but for the most part the emphasis was on cruising with a grudging nod toward "speed."

But maybe, after living thru a crushing economic depression & coming home from a world war, guys had had enough excitement. Maybe the plan was just to chill out a bit on a boat with a bedroom and a kitchen. Whatever the motivation, the tendancy toward racing platforms demanding a little more athleticism (and paying off with a lot more excitement) sort of got derailed there, for a few decades.

The good news is we're back on track, with a vengance.

5.11.09.... Chill

(left) Post race debrief in the Magothy last week...the garb doesn't exactly conger up the word "summer."

People were griping pretty fiercely about the temps in Annapolis for the J24 Worlds, and I don't blame them.

I mean, come on, it's May. The teams from down south were especially vocal.

It seems like the past few springs have been colder than normal by a large margin of error. I'm sure there is glut of empirical data that would back up the above statement.

Weather happens and it should not be confused with climate. Climate is long term, weather is today, tomorrow and yesterday. That having been said, this weather is making weeknight racing feel more like frostbiting.

We caught a break at HdG lastThursday...we got there early to step the mast, tune the rig and get the rest of the boat ready to race. Things looked ugly at HdG and furthermore, the racing that day at Naptown for the Worlds had been pretty bad..I think they got in one light-air crap-shoot on an otherwise cool, gloomy, afternoon. But, like a miracle, things cleared up at race time for us,and a decent little SW'er filled in for twice around the course.

Sometimes things just work out , and the next day in Annap, they finally got a full race card in on the last day of the event. You gotta have a little faith, is all.

And, also, never get me started on the topic of environmental alarmism.

Before and after....3:00 pm and 1820 hrs:

Some more shots from HdG of no particular importance:

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5.06.09 HdG Connections

A nice shot from Becky Damore at Sail22.com and we appreciate her letting us use the image, in that it's pretty timely for us.

The boat (bow #30) is "Hedgehog," at the J24 Worlds of, course, happening down the road a piece, in a venue not being particualrly well appreciated on Tuesday and today (Wednesday) as "America's Sailing Capitol." Annapolis has served up a giant can of cold condits and very little pressure, the RC only squeezing in one race in the past 2 days.

Ian Southward's "Hedgehog," seen here on her way to winning the first race of the 2009 Worlds, has HdG's Max Skelley and Chris Crockett on board. Everyone knows who Max is and everyone who races in the 24 fleet at HdG knows who Chris Crockett is, as lord knows we've seen enough of his stern throughout the years.

These guys currently stand in 7th place in an unbelievably deep fleet of 79 boats, and that's with a Z flag penalty and a race to toss, so they are definitely still in the picture. There has been some serious scoring inversions with just 3 races in the bag and every boat in the top ten has a finish of 16th or worse. To me, that says there are a lot of teams competing who brought some serious game to Naptown for the Worlds. When a team like Mike Hobson's "Meltimi" is sitting at 37th, you better believe there is deep talent setting up shop off "R2." Mike beat Culter , the Twins, Ingham, Parker and some other heavyweights in an East Coasts some years back. Looking at the results from Day 3 with "Millenium Falcon" in 45th place almost makes me glad we didn't qualify!

So, we on Tom Schwartz's hull 4201 will schlepp up to HdG tomorrow night to race the boat for the first time this season, after some massive winter projects have been completed and the boat is just about ready to splash (hopefully by 5 pm). Fx is for some breeze, which, after the Star Wars non-event, and a light affair on the Magothy last week, I will definitely appreciate. I hope we see the 15-25 they are talking about. Even if Chris Crockett's light blue hulled "Crockadero" won't be showing us the way to the next mark.

Again, thanks to Sail22, L.L.C for letting us use some of their images. In fact, check out the blurb, below, on one more thing they are doing to promote our sport.

5.06.09...By Whatever Means Necessary

For the 5 years nbayracing.com has been in existence, we been some cranky sumbeeches about the electronic interface with all things racing .

Things like slow reporting of results and crappy coverage of big-time events really frost us.

On this site, we've extolled the virtues of things like LZ's YachtScoring and Sailing Anarchy's On The Water coverage, which have brought us a good deal closer to the racing, along with massively better access to the information we all want concerning big regattas.

Now sail22.com has joined the fray, by posting instant messages on Twitter, from close, "on the water" proximity at the J24 Worlds. Hey, it ain't ESPN, but it sure as hell is better than nothing.

They also send pix to a Flickr account and provide links to the pix on the Twitter messages. Pretty damn cool and a real boon to we poor desk jockeys, who either didn't qualify or who have had Life interfere with our being in Naptown for the Worlds.

So cheers to Sail22...we hope they get tons of positive feedback and heaps of new business from their efforts at the J24 Worlds!

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5.05.09...AYC Goes Live

We've always taken a puerile delight in ragging on AYC (because of old greivances and slights that are too boring upon which to elaborate).

But we have to give them major props for their new webcams!

Now you can watch the Wednesday Night Races finish from the comfort and convenience of your own couch! With fresh nachos and cheap drinks! How cool is that?

And, in an unparalelled act of generosity & noblisse oblige, they're allowing us to watch (brace yourself) without even having to be MEMBERS!

So, a golf clap for AYC, they certainly deserve it for this endeavor. Come on, now...polite applause.

(above) J24 Worlds participants head for the annex after a day of brisk anchoring. Image frrom AYC Spa Creek Camera. There is also another camera facing out Spa Creek toward SSA and David Taylor. SLick!

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5.2.09...Historic

In our relentless (some might say "obsessive") quest to the get the racing world into sportboats, at least for round-the-bouys stuff, we give you another glimpse into a event taking place on the other side of the planet.

The Bay to Bay Race, which takes place on the waters of Queensland, a few hours north of Brisbane. This is a race for trailable (or, as we Yanks would say, "trailerable") sailboats and it's one of the most popular sailing events in Australia.

And no wonder. It's a two day race through waters that look like this, below, with an overnight stop at "Garry's Anchorage" which is on Frazier Island. Frazier Island is the world's largest sand island.

This is an aerial shot from Google Maps. Just right and slighty above center, there's a white speck...that's a sailboat for scale.

Today (which is pretty much tomorrrow in Oz) marks a special day in history, e.g., the start of the Bay to Bay Race 2009, when, for the first time, two i550's squared off against each other: Andrew Clauson's "Tokyo Trash Baby," the first i550 on the planet, vs. John Quern's wasabi green "Baby Faced Assassin."

The bad news is: early reports say that John's i550 lost its rig!

More on this later here.

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4.13.09........OUCH

If you didn't catch this on Sailing Anarchy click here to see what becomes of a somewhat soggy J30.

It isn't very pretty.

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4.04.09......Breakfast at the AP Hotel

It's been a long winter and if you've forgotten what AP over Hotel signifies, it's "Races not yet started are postponed. More information ashore."

That was all she wrote, for CBYRA's Star Wars regatta, this past Saturday. By noon we were done, all races abandoned due to high wind speeds.

You certainly can't blame the EYC PRO. Racing in puffs consistently in the 30's with a few blasts up near 40, would have been one thing in July. In early April, with a bunch of rusty sailors, most of whom had very little or zero experience in the loaner J80s, with water tempertures in the low 50's, cancelling all racing was pretty much of a no-brainer.

Not to mention there were thirteen $500 damage deposits at stake. Think a few of those deposits might have gotten eaten up pretty quickly in those conditions? I don't think I've done a race, ever, in windspeeds above 30, where something didn't get broken.

So, while there was dissapointment, there was very little grumbling (I might even suggest, none whatsoever) when the RC said we're done for the day. Even though, for the last couple of hours, a lot of us had been watching the Opti kids out in front of EYC having a blast in the big breeze.....

....at least it looked like the ones who were not completely terrified were having fun.

It's hard watching a bunch of 10 year olds having a blast while you are sitting on the EYC deck wishing you were out there, too. But, dId I mention the 500 dollar damage deposits on the borrowed boats?

We also got to witness a 5o5'er getting launched out of SSA. Looked like a blast and they had a big old RIB following them closely all the way out the river and I would assume all the way back in. What a great day for practice on a 5o5.

So, while people were ripping it up out on the river, the hoist went unused and the 80's sat there, forlornly, at the dock and we made the best of it.

Killing time by grabbing a nap on a park bench is nice on a Saturday morning, but it ain't racing. Besides, I didn't even have a proper hangover to make it all worthwhile.

But no one got injured and no boats got all beaten-up and no one lost their 500 dollar damage deposit, so all-in-all, it was a pretty good day on the water. Or near the water. Close to the water. Not on it.

Not this time.

Heck, it's only April.

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3.29.09........RUST NEVER SLEEPS

We have CBYRA's "Star Wars" coming up, this Saturday (raced round-robin on loaner J80's), and it was decided that a practice session out of JPort on one of their J80 rentals would be a good idea.

Turns out, it was a very good idea.

(Note to self: trying to cheat out an A-sail gybe by bailing early to get to the weather rail a.s.a.p., and not helping the trimmer by running the lazy (now "working") sheet all the way aft to get the entire sail past the headstay is SLOW when the g.d. thing wafts through the fore-triangle and ties itself into a Gordian Knot around the tuff-luff)

At first the day looked a little sketchy, but all the forecasts were in alignment that the fog would disappear by 10 am and a bulding southerly with a big, all-day righty, was in store.

By 11 it was obvious that the southerly was sleeping off a hangover and might not show up until afternoon. We could all understand that, but then, at about 11:20 or so, the fog dissipated and the breeze finally staggered in, a little raggedy at first, but, after a while, getting comfortable with a solid 10-14 and building to 16-18, from the (YAY!) south. Anyone who's ever sailed the Chesapeake (or anywhere else) when the water temps are in the low 40's knows that a south breeze brings incredible temperature swings, back and forth, from 52 to 75 in a matter of seconds. Personally, I love that. I love it when the breeeze feels cold, some clouds go overhead and darkens the course for a 30-40 seconds, and then the sun pops out and a warm finger of much hotter air finds its way down to the surface and all of a sudden it's summer for a few seconds.

The down side is you do end up flinging off clothes and putting them back on again, trying to find the proper mixture of layers.

We were fortunate in being able to tune against another 80 that had Chris from Annapo JPort on board as a coach. These guys were fast, but we felt like we had decent boatspeed, considering how little time most of us on board had spent on 80's. We weren't always spot-on with timing on our sets and douses, but there was a definite tendancy toward group improvement ( kaizen) and we didn't feel like total J80 newbs by the time we did our last couple of sets (although, on our last douse we spent some time on a Quest for Seafood).

Speed drills, some DW work, a few start sequences and some much appreciated Ibuprofen the next morning...not too shabby, considering it's still March!

For a slightly more exciting tale, of sailing a J80 on the west coast, click here. Pretty amazing story (with a happy ending) including a post (#25) from one of the sailors involved .

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3.23.09.....SMALL STUFF

Snakes, Planing.

We've been bludgeoning people over the head for months (years) about how small sportboats are going to be the way of the future (finally) for buoy racing.

Check out today's headline story, "Get Bitten," on Sailing Anarchy about the Coral Reef Regatta, and then click on over here to have a look at the small sportboat presence at this year's Charleston Race Week.

An incredible 35 Vipers are entered, and the Melges 20 and 24's make up another 43 entries. Throw in the 3 SB3's and that's more than 80 small sportboats, over half the number of entries in this record year of participation at CRW!

Major props to Justin Scott, the Viper640 class president, for the absolutely amazig job he's done of showing off the Viper at different venues and promoting the class successfully. (photo courtesy of Justin Scott, www.viper640.org )

Camp Op

For folks up in the N.E. corner of our lovely state, who might be looking for something for the kid-bobs to do this summer, other than watch 15 hours of TV a day, might want to click HERE to get the particulars on the North East River Yacht Club's junior sailing summer program.

Looks like fun!

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3.11.09

I took this shot today out a window of our building, at work.

You know what they say, "when the redtail hawks begin to munch on squirrels, can spring be far off?"

I think this is definitive proof: spring is in the air.

R.I.P., Rocket J.

3.11.09

17 Days...

OK, we've been laying low and suffering through this retched thing called winter. I know that "weather" isn't the same as "climate" but this winter has brought us more than 1,500 record lows across the nation and over 1,100 record snowfalls (source: wbal.com). Al Gore can go chew on a sausage, as far as I'm concerned.

But: in 17 days we start practicing for CBYRA's annual "Star Wars," hosted by EYC and raced round-robin on a bunch of J80's. We'll have some stuff on that (the event is April 4th) and then go into club racing at various venues up here, etc.

So, yeah man, let's get it started! We hope the weekends are warm and dry for those folks who are getting ready to splash soon. Until then, we'll be plugging along on the i550 build. See you on the water, soon, I hope.

Shooting for as brilliant a finished product as John Q's boat in Australia, but his raises the bar a bit, especially with the brake lights!

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2.4.09.....Put this on your calendar and then sign up! It's Friday May 22, starting at the usual spot off the Severn. This would be a hoot double-handed!

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2.3.09

Will the Dinosaur please leave the room...please?

An Open letter to our beloved PHRF of the Chesapeake:

Guys: it’s time.

It’s time to get rid of the stupid penalty for using both A-sails and Sym sails on the same PHRF cert in the same season.

Really. It’s arbitrary, it’s outdated and it does nothing to foster competitive racing. In fact, if anything, it fosters less competitive racing.

Here are some PHRF OA's (organizing authorities) around the country who have seen the light, moved out of Jurassic Park, and stopped nicking boats 6-9 points for hoisting a legal, measured in A-sail:

PHRF New England,

PHRF SoCal,

PHRF NB (Narragansett Bay),

PHRF Lake Erie, PHRF Lake Michigan and Lake St. Clair.

I've talked to at least 4 people in the last few years who have approached their local PHRF officers here on the Chesapeake, from Baltimore to Deltaville, about getting this idiotic policy changed so that they can move into the realm of 21st century sail design, without incurring a penalty....and the PHRF officers are intransigent. Their attitiude is something like, "We hear this every year and we've decided to stick with what we have." Read: "Every year some kook wants to make more work for us so instead of actually analyzing the pros and cons of the issue, we just say 'no' basically simply because we can."

And people wonder why PHRF fleets are dying?

Honest to god, the only rationale I've ever heard a PHRF officer use for denying this simple revision is "we don't want to start an arms race." Like PHRF has ever given a rat's royal red arse about an "arms race"....seeing as how many restrictions they put on PHRF skippers being able to update any part of their inventory, whenever the hell they want....e.g., ZEEE-ROW....a big zilch.

So now, when you are forced to race against that Antrim 27 or that Hendo 30, because the demise of PHRF racing has so many unlike boats lumped into one fleet, don't even think about popping an A-sail on that reaching leg, where the asym would be a huge help...don't do it unless you are prepared to take a 6 second hit or you are willing to say syonara to your entire Sym sail inventory for the rest of the season.

Ya know, in a crappy economy, maybe a few of the lofts would be thankful for an increase in A-sail builds. Maybe North and Q and Skelley and UK should be the ones lobbying PHRF Ches to revise this moronic policy. Maybe the local reps and the PHRF board would listen if the lofts got on their backs.

Because they sure don't seem to be listening to anyone else. But, hey...they're on your side because they don't want you to have to get involved in an arms race.

Thank god for One Design.

Evelyn 32-2 "Remedy".......A-sail built by Halsey-Lidgard

and Evelyn 32-2 "Phaedra" doing the Sym-sail limbo.

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1.18.09

Winter's Majestic Beauty Dept.

Our bud and long-time NBAYRACING contributor "Searoom" sent us a bunch of shots of iced in North Point boats. Just a little pictorial spread on how much we love and appreciate winter in these parts....gosh, isn't it grand?

Someone got some spiffy new flopper-stoppers for Xmas! These babies really reduce roll in a seaway and when these guys go bumping the bottom for Norfolk Spot next June, the amount of chum leaving the cockpit should be significantly diminished. It's also good to see Survival Suits coming in more fashionable colors this season!

Below, bubbler vs non-bubbler. We're thinking bubbler wins this one.

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1.18.09

Ptero Land

Another Evelyn has landed in the Southern Bay, this one being the storied Evelyn 42, "Pterodactyl," now owned and brought to the Chesapeake by Gene Thayer.

"Pterodactyl" joins the other "Ptero," Evelyn 32-2, "Pterobyte" owned by Jim Baldwin and campaigned out of Deltaville.

So a trip down the bay for Black Seal Cup, or the distance race coming back to the bay, this summer, down to Hampton Roads, could get interesting if you are going to be racing against either of these 2 still-very-competitive and relevant designs from the mid-80's.

We've been a big fan of Evelyn designs here at nbayracing (since we've owned one) for their low-cost raceability and their value as terrific club racers. Okay, maybe not so much their build quality, as a lot of the boats need some TLC, mostly in terms of needing stiffening after 25+ years of hard racing. Yet, with a little bit of blood, sweat and tears, an ailing Evelyn can usually be brought back to an amazingly competitive level.

For those who'd rather forego the sweat equity, as far as we know, the hugely successful and superbly refitted E 32-2 "Remedy" is still for sale up in Mystic, Connecticut. Contact John Fries at UK/Halsey Mystic for details.

note the keel mod on "Pterodactyl"...the P.O. did a bunch of upgrades and mods and "Ptero" was a known quantity on the Great Lakes, sometimes doing back to back Mackinac races....a nice way to spend the month of July it sounds like, to me.

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January something 09...another cold, dark stupid day in stupid winter.

Happy new year and all that. We'd like to say that we're excited about the new year and all the great stuff that nbayracing is going to "feature" in the coming 12 months, but you know that's B.S., because most likely it will continue to be a bunch of recycled, stale news, augmented by the editor's oblique and often clueless takes on local racing.

But you'll keep coming back, because, let's face it, there's no where else to go, as far as local, above the bridge stuff is concerned.

So, like I said, Happy freakin' new year. Right.

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January whatever.

Bog turtle and Indiana Bat (swear to god)

I hate to be a total downer but it looks like these grotty little bastards are all that stand between NPSA (and the rest of the Patapsco) having a nice place to enjoy life (such as it exists) and having a big ass, godawful life-altering LNG plant screwing up the river and whatever enjoyment we can eek out of it from time to time, when we aren't working 19-hour days to raise the fealty we owe to the Government so that it can continue to dominate our lives, make horrendous decisions and wreak havoc with what used to be called "common sense."

Without these critters standing in the way, look for a LNG plant on your nearest corner. Let's hear it for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and here's the story in Pravda, who for once seems to give a rat's red ass over an issue that actually affects people, instead of their usual obsequious nonsense, which consists of sucking up to our Great State's One-Party politicians.

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12/14/08

MORE ON THE i550

Even for most of the die-hards, frostbiting is over, at least for the big boats. Just about everyone we know has yanked theirs for the winter.

So, other than finalizing plans for Key West and watching the Vendee and the Volvo on the internet, there isn't much to do except work on boats from inside a heated basement or shop, or in this case, build one outside on days that are tolerable, which have been few and far between, lately.

You can go here to see how the Baltimore effort is progressing (or NOT progressing, from time to time), but also near the top of that page there are links to other U.S. builder's blogs that do a pretty nice job of documenting the progress being made elsewhere.

The discussion about the "where and when" of a 2009 i550 Nationals in still in progress.

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12/5/08

ECONOMY SIZE

The economy continues to tank, but more and more i550's pop up in various states of build, some getting very close to completion.

We are psyched that, as far as we know, at least 160 plan sets, template sets and kits have gone out to various folks around the planet.

With the cost of running big boat programs escalating and the amount of discretionary income plummeting, we're telling people to dive in, buy the plans, or a kit, and get busy building. It's a fun project and, if you've never built a sailboat, a great way to approach the boat-building learning curve. There is a ton of info readily available to walk you through the myriad steps of the build, and there's a terrific community of active builders who are blazing the trail, figuring out what works and what doesn't, and then publishing their build histories on the internet.

Go to the class site at: http://www.i550.org/ , register and check out some of the stuff on the fourms...it's a lot less combative than SailingAnarchy and completelty devoid of porn, so it's work safe! Okay, maybe not the HATS thread....

When a new Melges 20 comes in at $47,000 all up, we are thinking the i550 makes an enormous amount of sense. Here's a boat you can put on a trailer, ramp launch and hoist new sails for $6 - 8 K...and in a few years race it One Design. Or, get busy real soon and race it one design next summer (2009) at the first annual i550 North American Championship (location To Be Determined).

This might be the economic stimulas package your racing habit needs.

______________________________ MORE STUFF FROM 2008 at nbayracing.com/2008.htm ____________________