THE SAILING BEAT

This Monday, April 30 marked the third race of the Dahlgren Yacht Club (DYC) racing season. Monday's race was the PHRF Spring Low Point Series race #3. Conditions were beautiful, sunny, and windy at the start with a strong S-SE breeze at 8-14 knots. The 9 boats at the start were Radio-Flyer, Ol'Blue, Melee, Night Moose, Blue Heaven, All-Ridy-Then, Dionysus, Honey-Do, and Destiny. The 1710 start was flawed with Ol'Blue and Blue Heaven over early. Monday's racecourse was TA[2], a 2 lap 7.53 nautical mile triangular course. The race started with all boats close-hauled beating out towards the channel and the first mark, "29". The second leg was a reach in towards the second mark followed by a spinnaker run on the third leg roughly paralleling the shore. After completing the 1st lap and rounding the pin, all boats repeated the course for the second lap. Several rigging mistakes, minor gear failures, and mishaps were reported along with the standard bruises, scrapes, and cuts typical for the conditions. In the end, first over the line was Radio-Flyer followed by Melee, All-Ridy-Then, Night Moose, and Ol'Blue. Once handicap corrections were applied, the top finishing places were 1st Radio-Flyer, 2nd Melee and 3rd Ol'Blue. After securing the boats and gear, and cleaning up the mayhem, skippers and crew hung around to reminisce and celebrate their victories and losses!

This Monday, May 7 will be race #4 of the PHRF Spring Low Point Series. Skippers or crew wishing to participate in the PHRF Monday Night series, or the daysail / centerboard series should contact the DYC for details. In addition to the PHRF and Centerboard series, DYC will be running a race during the Colonial Beach Festival on June 9 and is hosting invitational events including a Daysail regatta on June 23 (originally planned for June 9), the St. Clements Island Pursuit race on September 15-16, and the "Under the Guns Regatta" on October 7. DYC is planning to run a novice sailing / racing series for those wanting to learn but not quite ready for prime time. Again, DYC is looking for people willing to crew on several local and newly arrived boats so anyone interested in participating in any of these events should contact the race committee.

This coming year will continue to be exciting so bring your boat out to race or just show up and crew. See you out on the water! Jibe Ho.

Josh Colwell, DYC Race Governor, skippers Night Moose berthed at Dahlgren Marine Works and is an Image Scientist with Boeing-Autometric. He can be reached at jcolwell@autometric.com

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