SMSA Fleet Building Wednesday Night. Ironically a pretty small fleet this evening due to the high temps and light wind. Steve drove for this race and I trimmed headsails. A rights dispute at the line resulted in an imperfect start, but we managed a tidy spinnaker set and a nice, if slow, run to the first mark. A hectic rounding followed, but afterwards the wind filled in and we got a nice beat to a shortened finish.
(Photos courtesy of Steven Birchfield)
Decided it was too hot to run today so I opted for a quick paddle at Leonardtown Wharf instead. I was on a tight timeline so I did a quick hour out across Breton Bay and back. Got a nice workout in and covered a respectable 3.6 miles, and got to enjoy the pretty evening light.
Went for an early morning cruise on the Barba Roja with my brother and his boyfriend. The wind was impossibly light, but we did manage to get a kite up and ghost along for a couple hours. After we put the sails away we took a quick lap under power up Mill Creek to see where Pursuit is docked. As we were returning to the dock the fittings on the raw water strainer failed and the engine lost cooling. Steve was thankfully able to MacGyver a quick fix to get the boat running again for this Wednesday.
Went to the beach at Snow Hill Park for the afternoon and got a quick paddle in down to Cole Creek. Probably about a mile round trip. Perfect beach weather.
My twin brother was in town visiting for the weekend so we went on a nice long paddle around Mill Creek to do some exploring. We fought a bit of a headwind most of the way up the creek but had a nice time anyway. Did lots of boat watching in Solomons, saw some osprey, and got to take a little swim. A nice afternoon & a nice start to the holiday weekend.
Decided to help out with RC and enjoyed the best-attended smallboat race this year. Got to watch 10 boats on the line and some tight racing between five Lasers. Had a nice picnic dinner as well. A great relaxing evening.
(Photo courtesy of Steven Birchfield)
SMSA Wednesday Night Race A-7. A good crew and a nice tight race this evening. Everyone worked well together and we really nailed all the details. A long course allowed for a fun spinnaker drag race against Elan, but unfortunately we couldn't quite keep pace for the last two legs and lost them by 50 seconds. Nice to see everything starting to come together at the end of the first Wednesday series.
Went paddling with a couple friends and introduced one of them to paddling. He picked it up very quickly and had a great time. Launched at Forest Landing and paddled around some of the creeks & coves in that area. Did a little swimming too. A great way to relax for the afternoon.
Couldn’t even call this race a drifter as I sat still or went backwards for a good amount of it. We got to try another light reaching spinnaker we inherited from a friend's J/33, and it turned out to be a great fit for the boat. The wind died right at the start and we managed to stitch a small line of wind up above the Solomons bridge, and then proceeded to float for 45 minutes making no progress. Had a very slow downwind leg to the windward mark, and a nice beat back. About 100 yards from the finish the wind shut off completely, I lost all my momentum & helm, and we floated for 10 mins until the wind filled back in. Only one boat in our class (A Melges 32) finished on time. A hot but nice day on the water, though a little long & frustrating at times.
(Photos & new reaching kite courtesy of Sean Brady)
Took a nice 5mi lap off Clarke’s Landing. Lots of breeze out of the creek meant I had a nice workout going out, and got to explore some coves I hadn’t been to in a while. Did a little boat watching as always and spotted a tired but cool little IOR racer and a very original Catalina 30 in need of significant repair. I found lots of underwater grasses close to shore and the water was much cleaner than usual, so I’m hoping that’s a sign the Patuxent is getting healthier.