Century Club: Ashley Love

Walk through/sailing footage.  Driving the Boatyard Bar & Grill Filmboat. 

Four days turned into three days (one waiting and two of insanely exciting racing).   I felt so welcomed by the fleet and by the Strykers aboard Mayhem.  Sailing has an incredible way of bonding people together very quickly!!

The USNA Mids RCed a practice with Allan Terhune coaching and EYC hosting the debrief.  LATE MAIN GYBES!

Mayhem is saving my life.  What a group of fine human beings!  TOGA!

Last minute entry into this regatta with new teammates on an old boat.  We bookedended really solidly to end up 7th out of 23.  So proud of our instant chemistry and power of positivity.  

Last week night of sailing for the year!!!?  SO SAD.

Had Scott Steele and Kirstyn Roberts aboard in BREEZE ON conditions.  What a blast!

Filmed it

Corporate charter aboard Lady Sarah.

Filming

J70 fleet and Wilkins Auto night.

Finally a race!

Ran the leeward mark, start and finish pin boat for the day for the Snipes, Day Sailors and Lightnings.

Two days of starts at the Chicago end and two days of finishes at the mac end. 

Downtown sailing center graciously hosted us for our last Sonar practice before the event next weekend.  We had a lot of new team racers to fill out 4 boats with spins.  It got pretty breezy near the end which was great because we think the event will be windy. 

The DSC hosted us again in their Sonars to get in more practice with boat handling and pass backs (upwind and downwind).  So grateful to them!  We all donate each time, do some minor work on the boats to try to leave them better than we found them and introduce more people to this Baltimore treasure.  

USNA hosted and blasted the competition away.  I learned a ton by watching and filming.  

Whoa, that was hairy!  Trimmin' jib and spinnaker for the first time in conditions like that (gusting over 30 knots).  

Don't you love when you get back together with people you sailed with loooong ago and new people you've never even met and you just click!?  Sailing was our common language (even if some of our terminology came from different dialects).  The support, our reason.  The competition, our energy.  The stretch, the growth our mission.  The ending is just the beginning.  My peeps Elizabeth Shaw O'Toole, Madeline Gill, Suzy Leech, our teammates Janel Zarkowsky, Sarah Renz, Amy M. Gross-Kehoe, Martha Parker, the inaugural New York Yacht Club Women's 2v2 will NOT be the last for the Storm Trysail Club team!  Storm Trysail Club Members Only.  We wish the other STC Team Race teams the best in the upcoming events!!

Including the practice day. 

First session wit Kim!

It was nuclear! 

2 days on the bay and they were wild.  Big fleets are really somethin' else.

Pivot.  The word of this stetch of time in history.  The Wilma Lee takes kids out through the Annapolis Maritime Museum to learn about dredging for oysters and replenishing the oyster beds!  They can't take out the kids as often and easily as they're used to, so we filmed the experience!

First time out for the Good Trade, Peter Bowe's new (to him) J105.  Peter, Mike, me, Todd, Susanna, Mike and Maddie (3 couples and Peter, ha!) took the boat out for its first sail as part of the Tea Dance family program.  EYC was running practice starts and races with North Sails.  Went pretty well!

Thanks to the Downtown Sailing Center in Baltimore, we got 21 people in J22s in a challenger series-type practice to help practice for the Thayer Trophy 3v3 team racing regatta in June.  Conditions ranged between 0 to puffy with full-on hiking and 45 degree shifts.  If anything, it helped us learn about each other's personalities on boats!  You've got to be patient, adaptive and constantly on your toes!

Janel Zarkowsky and my connection to the Downtown Sailing Center got us a full day of practice yesterday with spinnakers.  Stuart Proctor and John O were instrumental in making it possible!  We had 13 women come to get on three boats with my boyfriend, Mike MCNamara and the odd lady out to drop some marks, blow some whistles and take some photos.  

The morning session was light air, but we got in some sets, douses and penalty turns.  Then we headed to shore for lunch as the breeze shifted to the south and had decent breeze for some practice starts and upwind/downwind legs.  

Teams were loosely formed by experience levels and weight (to keep all of the teams equal) and people swapped around roles to try out different things.  With so many coaches, ranges of boat experience and team vs fleet vs match racing, we learned a lot about the boats, ourselves and each other pretty quickly.  It was absolutely fantastic to finally meet the other talented Annapolis area women who, up until this point, we’d only heard of by reputation and/or competed against.  

We hope to visit the DSC again soon, maybe by using 6 J22s so we can get the full 3v3 experience.  13 ladies on the water certainly turned some heads.  We can’t wait to try out our skills against a bunch of fleet racers who think they know everything... 

It was 65 degrees in December, so of COURSE, we had to get out on the water!  We cruised around Batlimore playing Frank Sinatra-type Christmas carols on the boat speakers, waving to others who were out on land and on other boats enjoying the day.

The trip that never happened.... The events down in Florida all got cancelled for this winter, so Tea Dance is staying put!

Sailed with 5, which seems to be working great.  Had pro Jackson Benvenutti on board to learn from him.  It was tough having so many chefs, for sure!  Called breeze all weekend.

It was light and weird for sure!  

Photo- Mary Lees Gunther Fox

We left the dock at sunrise to film the Jeanneau 54 doing a sunrise anchorage/cruise in Mill Creek. 

Second time out with Christina 

Coaching Lauren Carlo!  

Practice and racing with Jackson.  Learned a bunch. 

Only one more left after tonight!  So thankful for running lights that make it possible to keep racing this late in the year.  We actually had a proper debrief on the dock and sorted some things out.  It's never too late in the season to sort things out. 

True North, a docuseries by Suzie Galler hired us for the day to capture drama and action from offboard and drone of the J35 Valhalla during the 2020 Hospice Cup from aboard the Boatyard Bar & Grill.  It was crazy windy!  We had a great day with great shots.  I hope we get to collaborate again soon.

Two bad spinnaker sets really cost us!  We were short handed.  I should've gotten the main trimmer to do the guy initially so I could run forward and help out the bow.

Sooooo glad Baltimore keeps a racing well after Annapolis stops for the year.  I wouldn't know what day of the week it was without some evening sailing to look forward to!  It was light.  There was a 50 degree lefty after the start, which we didn't know was coming and were on the wrong side of.  We caught back up to the entire fleet though when a container ship went through the course. 

We filmed aboard the Schooner Woodwinds with Captain Jenn to film some 360 video. 

It was a light night and I wore a bright yellow shirt from the Crab regatta.  We're ahead of Circus at the very end, but to no avail.  Could have lifted them up, match racing style..., but that would have been pretty annoying. 

The waterway out to the racecourse was closed due to Pence speaking at Ft. McHenry, so it seemed like racing was doomed!  But fret not.  We on Artemis rallied the boats trapped inside the safety zone to do a fun race!  We chose a course, announced it over the radio, grabbed a fog horn and started a 5-minute sequence!  7 boats joined in to race past the Downtown Sailing Center in front of all of the little tikes learning how to sail.  Kites and evertying, RIGHT in the inner harbor, which we rarely get to do.  Good times.

No wind, but we left the dock anyways to bring the boat around from Mullers

Coaching Lauren Carlo.  We worked on speed control today with red light/green light/orange light and then translated that into coming up to a full stop next to a speed marker.  It's harder than it sounds, but all important stuff to ya know, be on a starting line, come up to a powerboat that wants to throw you a beer or... dock!

Bryan, Gareth, Airbnb guest Christina, Lauren Carlo and I left the dock at 5:20, sailed  then motored through a storm and had a lovely night cruise down to Annapolis. 

Ladies night 

Held out of SSA with Nikki

Racing was cancelled, but we went out anyways.

What a FIASCO it was!!  I wish we could do it all over again...

We beat our arch nemesis in the last 6 minutes of the race!

Lauren's first time on a sailboat!  She's a natural...

got stung by a jelly fish.  Witnessed a rudder sinking. 

Another light, hot day of racing.  Storms almost came in in time to cool us off, but not quite. 

Brought the boat south to spend the night closer to the starting line of the Race to Baltimore.  Took off in the evening, saw some wildlife, got Garreth "trapezing" while driving with a boat hook attached to the tiller extension.  Slept like a log.  A bit hot. 
 

race to Baltimore took two start attempts cuz of current.  Swimming, doing bow barefoot, did well. 

As a celebration of Dave Gendell's new book!

Coaching Christian and Colton, two small 10-year-olds with me on one full rig laser.  It actually worked GREAT!

The courses were parades with odd downwind starts on port.  

Only managed to get a practice start in between two monster storms!

The weather forecast of 3, gusting to 20 was very accurate.  It felt like we experienced everything a boat would in an offshore race in the span of 2 hours.  Confusing breeze, sideways rain with lightning and thunder, becalmed about to throw the anchor out to prevent moving backwards in the current when the breeze died and a 180 degree windshift to sail two legs, out and back, both upwind...  We sang songs, we made up lyrics, we laughed and had a ball.

photo credit:  Mary Lees Fox Gunther. 

Scott Nixon from Quantum came aboard the BB&G Film boat to co-commentate and tell their sponsorship story during a JWorld Thursday Night race.  It was a perfect night and we got to film all 4 classes.

Coaching Sofia and she took out her own laser and sailed it single handed in 10 knots of breeze!  We didn't do any gybing, but I was still so proud.  

Light air, so a lot of crew work to keep us goin' quickly!

Unwind from a Monday on the water.

Swapped out the rudder and brought Artemis II home from the Old Bay Marina.  It was light and on the nose, so we motored the whole way.  It was a grand entrance back through the Key Bridge, past the Fort and home to the Downtown Sailing Center. 

Dusted off the laser and raced for the first time in probably 3 years.  It was sunny, warm and windy!  Amazing sunset.  

A good friend took a few of us out on her motor boat for an evening cruise.

Double-handed outing to race the Gale Force Sailing Course with Todd Jenner.  Average 7 knots, ripping ebb, no class rules!

Done.

Helped do boatwork while Artemis II is on the hard at Old Bay Marina.  Helped prep for bottom paint job.

A busy doctor plans to spend her annual vacation fulfilling her long-held dream of sailing from Gibraltar to the small island of Ascension in the Atlantic. But everything changes when she sees a damaged, overloaded boat full of refugees nearby. Knowing that at least a hundred people could drown, she begins to organize to help them but slowly begins to fear that it will be impossible to do so.

Watched it.  Loved it.

Visited our friends who live aboard a boat to see what life is like.  It's pretty great.

Hosted a game of "Kings" with Baltimore sailing friends.