Out tubing for the day on the Shenandoah River. The morning started a bit cold, but warmed up quite well, and we enjoyed a lovely relaxing day on the river. The river was running slow, but the water was crystal clear and we had a great time floating, rope swinging, and enjoying the sunshine.
Century Club: Jonathan Nepini
Thursday, September 11, 2025
Number of days:
1 day
High tide at the ramp
Today's route
A late evening paddle off Clarke's Landing to the beaver dam. Unusually high tide meant I could get all the way back that way. I got snapped on a trail camera on someone's pier - probably not the nature they were hoping to capture! There was some traffic at the ramp so I had to float around for a while before I could head in.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Number of days:
1 day
A disappointing finish
Dewey was out of town, so he gave me the helm on Dangerous for the last race of the season. We started the race downwind in moderately light conditions, and I couldn't decide how I wanted to strategize, waffling between gybe angles and driving directly to the mark. As a result, I was at the back of the fleet by the upwind mark. I clawed back some space on the upwind leg, but RC shortened course and it was too litle, too late. Nice crew work for the most part, defeated by my bad tactics. 8/8 for an uninspiring end to the Wednesday night season.
Monday, September 8, 2025
Number of days:
1 day
Today's route
I took a quick paddle off Forest Landing this evening and took advantage of the unusually high tide to get into the back of one of the creeks. A river otter was decidedly not pleased with my presence, and made an appearance to bark at me. A neat encounter, even if I wasn't exactly a welcome visitor.
Monday, September 8, 2025
Number of days:
1 day
Today's route
Out for a quick evening paddle in cool, cloudy, breezy conditions. I ran up one of the side creeks in McIntosh Run and back to the Wharf. Not exactly the nicest day for paddling, but good to get a bit of fresh air.
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Number of days:
1 day
In the bow seat with a lap dog
After some patience waiting for the rain to clear out, we managed to get out for a short ride on the powerboat late in the afternoon. We rode down near Pott's Point, and then up past King's Landing. Cool conditions and a touch of drizzle prevailed, but it was nice to get out and get some fresh air.
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Number of days:
1 day
Sunfish in the sunshine
Up at my friend Lelia's uncle's place on the upper Patuxent for the weekend. We took a nice leisurely afternoon sail on his Sunfish. Light conditions prevailed, and I gave Lelia a lesson on the points of sail. At times the current was so strong relative to the wind we sailed upwind back and forth in front of the dock, and once I couldn't get enough forward momentum to swing the boat through a tack and had to gybe instead. We ultimately did get to take a little tour of the area, and headed in before the evening's forecasted thunderstorms.
We were sitting out on the pier after sailing enjoying the view as the storm rolled in, and watched a neighbor pull a bad gybe on his Hobie Cat, capsize, and get blown into the tall grass on the other side. Tim and I sprung into action and rode over on his powerboat to pull him back across the river. The neighbor was very appreciative of our assist, and thankfully the storms didn't arrive in earnest until after we had the boat packed away and had come inside for dinner anyway.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025
Number of days:
1 day
A great sunset, complete with god rays
Another race to the bridge - we got a clean start, and sailed a great upwind leg to get there. We executed a clean rounding and a tidy downwind leg, but got in a bad spot at the end and cost us a place by seconds. Still a great race in great conditions, and 3/8 overall - pretty hard to complain about.
Tuesday, September 2, 2025
Number of days:
1 day
Today's route
Took a ride from Clarke's Landing to the Kingston Creeks to do some exploring and window shop a couple waterfront lots (out of range for me, naturally). Beautiful, light, fairly cool conditions made for a pleasant paddle. Things were a little slow as I'm still catching up from my big weekend down in Deltaville, but nice to be out here as always.
Thursday, August 28, 2025 to Monday, September 1, 2025
Number of days:
5 days
The delivery crew
Inspecting sail trim
Headed out for battle on Day 2
Squirreling the kite
Last day crew
Pushing hard upwind
Instead of dragging the Olson all the way down to Deltaville, Dewey and I made arrangements to race with Frank and the gang on team Whirlaway for the Stingray Point Regatta this year. We packed up the boat early Thursday morning, and set off in pleasant, moderate conditions for the trip south. We put up the #1 when we got on the Bay, and power reached for a bit until the wind built into the high teens. We geared down to the #3, for the first time it had ever been up, and enjoyed a pleasant couple hours of sailing. About when we got to Smith Point the wind shifted on the nose and started building, and we spent the rest of the trip having a rather wet motor. All along the way Susan prepared delicious snacks. We landed around dinnertime and enjoyed a great first night of camping.
Day 1, the Stingray Light Race, provided shifty, variable conditions. We got off a clean start on a reach, and I coached very active trim on the headsail to keep us ahead of our competition. We worked our way through strange shifts, and managed good performance on the upwind leg. We rounded the first mark, popped a spinnaker, and sailed a great kite run to the next mark. We gybed around and kept good performance for the remainder of the race, finishing second of four boats.
Day 2 delivered breeze in spades, with sustained high teens gusting to 20, and far bigger wave state than we typically see in Solomons. We raced three races and pushed the boat hard, but had lots of problems with the spinnaker in the first couple races. Dewey and I put in lots of good work on sets, gybes, and douses, but it was a real struggle. The wind lightened up a bit for the third race, and we were able to fly a spinnaker with more confidence. We ended the day in third.
Day 3 was a bit more tame, and offered great sailing conditions. We were the sharpest we'd been all weekend, and with the exception of some unexpected halyard trouble we sailed clean races with tight spinnaker work. We were much more in the mix than yesterday, but still couldn't climb out of third for the day. We ended the regatta third in class overall.
We packed up the boat and headed north first thing in the morning. We started on a rather heavy close reach, which gave way to light conditions by lunchtime. We motored for a couple hours, and eventually went back to sailing for the remainder of the trip home.
As always, the regatta was a fantastic weekend of hard sailing, great parties, warm hospitality, and a fun time by all! This event is one of the highlights of my sailing year each year.