Eastport to Solomons 2011

Was a nice day on the water Friday, with a building southerly. By the time the race started, we had 8-10kts from the SSW. The wind pretty much stayed that way all night, making for an upwind pointing match all the way down the bay. Moon was full and the weather perfect. Started off with favorable current so we worked our way across the bay to the deeper water over by Bloody Point. After looking at the GPS track, it appeared to be a good move because our tack angles were less than 90 degrees until the current swapped. After 1PM when the current went foul, the strategy was to hide in the shallows of the eastern shore. That we did....problem is that it was very lonely out there. Seems most people stayed a bit more west. Once we were there we were pretty much committed. One excpetion was Audry, a well sailed Merit 25. We traded tacks with them all night right up until the finish. Both of us rode the long westward leg from R76 back up the Patuxent on port tack bringing us to the cliffs over by Cove Point. Noticing the traffic jam of boats clogged up in the current near PR3 we opten to stay away from there. Local knowledge paid off huge on the final beat to the finish. While Audry tacked back into the Patuxent (flowing outward), we decided to hide behind the fish traps along the shore where there is favorable current and a lifting shore breeze. We gained 5 minutes on them in the last few miles of the race and beat them across the finish line. All in all, staying east was good...as most of the winning boats in their classes stayed east. Also, boats we knew that stayed west did not do as well.
GPS track is here: http://www.tqci.net/~jkriz/AkoniEastportSolomons2011.htm
Results are here: http://race.eastportyc.org/_/eyc/uploads/results/31st_Annual_Solomons_Island_Invitational-2011/31st_Annual_Solomons_Island_Invitational-2011_race1.html

Prep Time

Getting ready for Eastport and Screwpile! Been doing pretty well this year, but the competition is tough...we'll need to bring our best game. :)

Little Choptank and other tracks

It's been a while since I posted on the Blog and we're not sailing as much as we were last year due to work schedules. We did the SMSA Little Choptank race Saturday. It's a 33 mile race from The mouth of the Patuxent River, north to the Choptank River and back. 7 boats raced, 3 boats finished. It was an ugly 14 hour ordeal. VMG around the course was 2.62kts for us. After the start, we tried to hide from the current below Cove Point by sailing in the shallows and playing a big eddy there. We came so close to shore we had to tack away because of the swimming area. This paid off big and we came out on top of the fleet around the point. After that it was a drifty ordeal, mostly upwind. After dark (and long after we were supposed to finish) some of the boats that were behind us dropped out. Also in the evening we had to deal with quite a bit of ship trafic. Maneuvering and planning to be out of the way was difficult in the ghosting breeze and haze. We were slow boat in the fleet and 1st to finish!! A good day for Akoni even if it was a bad day of sailing. Here is the track from the race:
http://www.tqci.net/~jkriz/LittleChoptank2011.htm

Last month was the Sharps Island race. Not very eventful and caught by a dying breeze we finished 8 out of 10. In our fleet, we were 2nd out of 4. Here is our track from that:
http://www.tqci.net/~jkriz/AkoniSharps2011.htm

Frostbite #3 - End of Season for Akoni

Painful day on the water. I thought we were doing ok until Easy-Button decided to take us up. It’s not often that we overtake them to windward, so we were pleased to tangle with them…..but that got us too high on the course and the lower boats sped up to the mark as we crept down to it. The rest was history…dying breeze from behind. What’s a short stick heavy to do. Boats pretty much finished by SA/D. Akoni gets hauled out tomorrow, so this is our last race of a remarkably good season. Thanks to everyone that came out to sail with Akoni this year!
Spring Frostbites: 5th of 13
Sharps Island (38.9nm): 1st of 6
Double Handed (12nm): 1st of 8
Spring Invite (10.2nm): 4th of 5
Little Choptank (32.5nm): 2nd of 6
Summer Invite: 3rd of 6
Stars and Stripes: 3rd of 4
Screwpile: 8th of 15
GovCup (70nm): 3rd of 19
Patuxent River Regatta: 2nd of 5
Smith Point (59nm): 1st of 2 (against Pursuit)
Fall Series: 3rd of 5
Hooper: 4th of 4
Fall Invite: 6th of 10
Wednesdays: 6th of 14
Wednesdays PRO: 7th of 14
Middle Distance Series: 2nd of 8
Invitational Series: 2nd of 13
Club Hight Point? We'll see at the banquet, but I think we're in the running with Little Latitudes. :)

Akoni Hooper-No-Point 2010

Zoiks, I thought Smith Point was exciting. The winds were well into the 20's from the NW at the start. We entered in the spinnaker class along with Cheetah and Pursuit. Only Pursuit put up a chute. We were hitting 10's often on the long downwind leg to Hooper with double headsails. Most of the way to Hooper, we set another speed record for the boat, hitting a crazy 12.1kts....twice! Then promptly had an epic crash that put water up over the cockpit seat lazarette. Good thing it was latched and I'm glad we were not in a J-24 or we would have sank. We put the 2nd headsail away (#1)...took almost 6 minutes to wrangle in the mess. That is the wiggle on the track plot. After rounding Hooper, we needed to put in a reef, which Steve put in pretty quickly. It was funny when he said...that's it? Most of the way we were reaching to No-Point with the main resting on the spreaders...for a time I though the spreader might break. With the bigger broadside waves, the main would touch the water. We tried to trim it back, but the boat would spin out if we sheeted any harder. At No-Point we turned back and it was LUMPY! So wet, so bumpy, the water kept coming in and we got quite a bit of water downstairs. We could see the boats ahead...but just too far to catch the spin fleet. We did keep up with most of the boats in our rating range, finishing right with Shermax and ahead of Walkabout.
Thank you to Steve and Charles for putting up with this one. :)

Here is a link to our track:
http://www.tqci.net/~jkriz/AkoniHooper2010.htm
Next weekend is the Fall Invite...who's in?

crazy, just crazy!

Akoni 2010 Photo Video

Smith Point 2010

This year was similar to last, a slow ride down the bay to Smith with a fill from the south late. Although it took almost 9 hours to get downwind to Smith Point, when the wind filled in, it came in from the south giving us a spectacular 2nd downwind run. It took us less than 5 hrs to get back. Sailflow predicted this shift almost perfectly. After 8PM the wind filled in huge, much bigger than we expected. By 9 We were holding 7kts steady with surfing in the mid 8's and 5 foot waves. We were near dead down wind and it was very difficult to steer, with the boom and pole taking turns nearly kissing the water. At around 10:30 we broke our speed record for the boat, hitting 11.4kts!! We then got caught between breaking waves and had an epic wipeout...I thought we were going to destroy the chute with all the shreddy flogging. It took a bit to clean up, but we were still moving 6-7kts under main alone. We popped the 155 and continued up to Cedar Point. At cedar Point, we jibed over to port tack and rode the fastest reach on this boat I've ever experienced..breaking our speed record for a second time that night with an 11.7kt surf which lasted for almost half a minute. It was a great ride back and one that will be hard to top. Preliminary results have us winning this race which puts us in great position for SMSA season highpoint award and the middle distance series.

http://www.tqci.net/~jkriz/AkoniSmithPoint2010.htm