Canandaigua Lake RC Laser Sailing

Four RC Laser sailors raced in Week #5 of the seven-week Fall Series. Jackets, long pants (except for Jack Bennett) and socks were in order as a few of us thought that we were racing in the Frostbite series already!

Winds were strong and steady and blowing out of the North at 10-12 mph with some gusts above 15 mph and of course there were the normal 20 degree shifts to each side during the races. Everyone agreed to use the standard “B” sail since the other sails are still on backorder from the builder. There were a couple of moments when the “C” would have been nice, but almost everyone kept the bow on top of the water on all legs.

Steady winds allowed for five races to be run in a little over an hour.

The courses were a mix of two-lap windward – leewards with a reach leg thrown in every so often. The final race was a windy-lew with huge triangle out to the special mooring field warning buoy tacked on to the end. Even then, with great winds, it was still a quick race.

Everyone had at least one race where they did not finish (DNF). A couple of sailors were stopped dead in their tracks after finding a floating patch of really long strands of grass wrapped around their keels and rudders causing them to have to go rescue their boats with the dinghy. At collision at a mark rounding took out at least one competitor.

The “big boat” RC Volunteer party was being held at the club so we ended after 5 races and headed up to the clubhouse.

The race results have been posted showing Low Point standings for the Fall Series. The file showing the CHIPS3 High Point scoring has also been updated.

For the running 2010 Best RC Laser Sailor competition, the “Batting Averages” have been computed and there are no changes in ranking since last week.

0.867 Bill Blevins
0.662 Jonathan Gorbold
0.607 Gary Schmidt
0.465 Jack Bennett
0.456 Nelson Habecker
0.424 George Walter

Racing continues on next Sunday on the waterfront at CYC at 4 p.m. for week 6 of 7 in the Fall Series and then we will be moving to a 2 p.m. start time for the first race.

Remember, if you would like to come out and race with us for the FrostBite series starting on October 24 you need to get your boat ordered now! Just give the distributor Steve Lang a call at 615-773-2920 or visit his site to place your order for an RC Laser. Everything you need comes right in the bag, ready to sail with the addition of a few AA batteries and 5 minutes to put your sails on the boat.

See you on the water!

After a week off from radio controlled sailing, the RC Fleet members returned to the waterfront to race late on Sunday night and learned the fleet has now grown to six competitors.

Jonathan Gorbold, the 2010 Commodore of the Canandaigua Yacht Club, showed up on the waterfront with a brand new RC Laser! He managed a 4th in his first official one-design RC Laser race and then took a bullet next race and a second in the final race of the evening!

The RC races were started rather late Sunday night because the CMOR regatta held on Canandaigua Lake over the weekend had pushed the normal Sunday “big boat” starts until later in the day so at the normal race time, most of the RC sailors were out sailing J/22s, Vanguard 15s, Catalinas and Ensigns.

The fleet agreed that everyone would sail with the standard B sail and rig because the last four boats that were ordered were sent with the A sail and rig on back-order. Until the light air sails are back in stock at the distributor and everyone in the fleet has the ability to use multiple sails, we’ll just continue to race, even in light air, with the B sail to keep things level.

Winds were light all day but by 5:30 p.m. the RC sailors were all in the water with a course set and they did manage to get in three two-lap windward leeward races. The fourth race was canceled because of both darkness and lack of wind.

Races from this weekend have been scored and posted in the Race Results section of this site.

We will be scoring each individual “Series” – ie: Fall, Frostbite, Winter, Spring, Summer, etc. – using the SailWave regatta & sailing scoring software and standard US Sailing low point Appendix A scoring but also we’ll score the whole year using the Chipstead or CHIPS3 High Point scoring method and post both sets of results online.

Remember, if you are interested in coming out to sail with us or just to watch and socialize on the dock, we generally meet every Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. during the Summer and 2 p.m. the rest of the year on the waterfront at the Canandaigua Yacht Club.

You can read about our model radio controlled sailboats or place an order for one from the builder’s site at http://sailrclaser.com.

If you don’t yet have a boat, are thinking about buying one or you just want to try your hands on the controller of an RC Laser, there is plenty of time between our races and before or after racing to let you play.

Come on out as there is plenty of good weather left this year before it gets too cold!