Our sportboat fleet here at Lake Champlain Yacht Club was a success this summer. We had six boats out for most Wednesday Nights, and for our five race Monday Night Series. Yours truly won the Wednesday Night Series over a J/70 by one point on the last race of the series, the same night Oracle won! :) That J/70 won the Monday Sportboat Series. It was validating to see that mixed fleet racing can work.
We had a blast battling the J/70s, but we would like to host a weekend Viper regatta next summer, and if it works, maybe invite VX Ones and J/70s the following year. Mark E. on #42 Mojito spoke to a bunch of folks at HPDO about the idea, and got a good response, suggesting we could get about 12 boats to come up, which would be a nice target for our first year.
The time has come to think about dates that would work for class members and our club.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks,
jason
Sounds Fun! I'd be interested in heading to VT.
When does your club open/close? When is the best sailing up there?
It was great meeting Mark and Micum down at the HPDO! The regatta itself was an absolute blast; I hope they had fun! I'm sorry we missed you in Rye, but congratulations on winning the Wednesday night series!
I mentioned to them that the Marblehead fleet has been talking this summer about possibly bringing the boats up to the lake to race with you guys. Kay mentioned that Vermont may be the perfect place to have a camping regatta--get some space (maybe in the boatyard?) and pitch some tents, who knows. I know I've always wanted to sail on Lake Champlain, and it sounded like Barry could be game as well. We may be able to get a couple more Marblehead boats, we'll see.. Also, I know there are a few Canadian boats that are up for making the trip.
Either way, I'm totally up for a one design regatta in VT; June, August, or September would probably work best for me.
Do you guys race handicapped with the J/70's and Vx's? or do ya'll just start together? Seems that could be interesting. Not sure if it would be very fair for the J/70's but I've personally never sailed with a VXone...I bet we match up with them decently. Either way, I really like one design racing, as long as I have enough Vipers to race against, I'm happy :)
Cheers,
Cole
Nice..Fletcher's in, so am I :p
I would love to sail in Champlain again. We had a major JY15 regatta there years ago. I forget the name of the club but it was on the south eastern part of the lake. Nice place. I'm in if it happens.
My current idea for the format to include the local pair of J/70s and the lone VX would be to have us all start together, but the Vipers scored separately for the regatta results. Then the local boats would have the regatta as two extra days of racing in our summer long sportboat series, excluding the results of the traveling boats.
If things worked out in year one, then we could see about inviting J/70s and VX Ones and doing different courses or starts.
Up here the Viper rates 102, the VX 108, and the J/70 117. The J/70 - Viper spread is reasonably fair. We've had corrected results where we were only one second apart. Upwind, it is a pretty even battle, but we are faster downwind as the wind speed builds. The J/70s had the best luck on some of our very short courses that we tried on our Monday Night Sportboat Series. We didn't always have time to get the finishing distance we needed to correct ahead.
I am much more happy racing against J/70s than J/29s, where we just get ever so slowly waterlined upwind. With the 70s, we have actual tacking duels and covering, and all that stuff. In fact, in the final Wed Night race, we had a ten or twelve tack positioning battle before the start. I bumped something on our clock and screwed up our timing, so we ended up early, and had to dive back to restart. We chased them down the whole upwind leg, got them to tack out of phase, and caught their tail at the top mark. We hoisted first on the way to the offset, got an overlap and rounded the offset first, and left them behind!
On Lake Champlain, the wind is mostly northerly or southerly and is on average strongest in the spring or fall, although this year didn't really fit that trend. The club opens in early May and closes in mid October. I am enquiring about the camping option now. Parking has been an issue, but if we picked a weekend with no other racing, it might work. If not, we can work to find another spot. There is a huge field a quarter of a mile away where they do a civil war reenactment every summer, so they might be up to host. I will check back about this!
Our regatta chair told me that our calendar for next year will be almost the same as our calendar this year, which is here:
http://lcyc.info/events (list)
http://lcyc.info/calendar (grid)
Many of the listed events are cruising events, or regattas at other clubs (which the sportboats don't usually travel to), so those days would be open for us.
The days we would want to avoid would be our regular weekend races:
Tea Kettle
Odziozo
Double-Handed
Regatta for Lake Champlain
Lady Skipper
Ladies Cup
Schuyler Island
Commodore Macdonough
Hot-Ruddered Bum
Schulyer Island
I think I'm going to need to lay out a calendar and suggest the weeks that are open...
Quote from: Joe Healey on October 16, 2013, 12:18:22 PM
I would love to sail in Champlain again. We had a major JY15 regatta there years ago. I forget the name of the club but it was on the south eastern part of the lake. Nice place. I'm in if it happens.
I think we hosted that one. I was in college at the time in Colorado. Was the club a single-story building with stairs down to the docks?
We are one of those clubs that is only boating. No tennis, no pool, no bar, no restaurant. We do have a nice kitchen, a big fireplace, some outdoor grills and a kegarator filled with Switchback! :)
Jason, if you can get 8-10 Vipers to commit, why wouldn't you just run it as a separate Viper start without any other sportboats and call it something like VT State Viper Champs?
Jason,
Yes that sounds like the club. Some people camped on the property.
I agree with Peter. It would be hard to drum up interest with for a handycap regatta with other sport boats. I am sure you can get at least 10 Vipers to show up which is plenty for our own start.
If you guys think that is better, that is probably what I will do! There are only two local J/70s and one VX One, so I wasn't sure if it would be a hassle to include them. I want to get in as many races as possible, so I was thinking of a way to have just one start, but separate Viper scoring. If we went with just Vipers, I would probably have the whole regatta be Viper-only rather than a second start for three boats. We could come back to the question of multiple courses or multiple starts if we invite other classes in future years.
Thanks,
jason
There is no reason not to have a multy class regatta with individual starts if the J70 and VX can get some other boats. It just makes the party better, we can play nice. The timing of the regatta has to be right to get the maximum number of boats.
And by "timing has to be right", I would avoid the following dates right off the bat:
- Late May/first week of June: very crowded with 3 double weekends in the northeast in a row in 2013.
- The entire month of July -- very crowded northeast Viper calendar already
- Late August through mid September -- there will be a few northeast boats at minimum who are going to Long Beach in 2014 (NAs are first week of September 2014)
Best support for a new regatta to be added would be second or third weekend in August or third or fourth weekend in June.
The club is still working on the preliminary calendar for next year, but the Regatta Chair was able to give me to potential weekends to suggest to you guys:
June 14-15
August 9-10
I might favor August over June because our lawn is often quite saturated in June.
Jason...count #28 in. I am PRO for J/22 open and J/24 Changing of Colors last wknd of September and 1st wknd of October. Other than that, I can do it to it.
Dave D
The August date looks good for me personally... I definitely second the suggestion that we have our own start, but open up the line to other sports boats. I'd be less enthusiastic about a handicap regatta--
Overall pretty excited to see this happen..would be a lot of fun!
Quote from: Cole Constantineau on October 17, 2013, 08:21:37 AM
The August date looks good for me personally... I definitely second the suggestion that we have our own start, but open up the line to other sports boats. I'd be less enthusiastic about a handicap regatta--
Overall pretty excited to see this happen..would be a lot of fun!
Cool. At the moment I am thinking Vipers only. I just want to be clear about what my previous plan was tho, so it is not misunderstood:
Have all Vipers and TWO local J/70s and ONE local VX One all race together. Score the Vipers for the Viper event, excluding the J/70 and VX One finishes. Let the local boats include these races as part of our summer sportboat series, with the guest finishes omitted. This would be a way for us to get max starts, no waiting for a second finish after every race, and let my local buddies get some turns around the marks. The VX and J/70 finishes would not affect the Viper regatta scoring. Just an idea was tossing about. I won't do this if it dissuades any Vipers from attending.
If I were to invite outside J/70s and VX Ones, of course we would have separate starts and/or courses.
I am confused about how the scoring works for those boats AND not have waiting around. If every Viper finishes and the J/70 is still on the course, wouldn't we be waiting around for the 70? Not trying to be funny -- this can easily happen.
Good point. That settles it.
We did such short courses for our Monday sportboat series that the finishes were pretty close.
This will be a Viper 640 regatta for 2014! Simple.
If you can get Shed brewery to sponsor us with a keg I will come.
I second that !!
I remember a couple of rather drunken J/24 regattas in Burlington back in the day. Very fond memories, I'm going to want to be there!
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk
Jason,
Keep in mind the time of year with the best wind. My recollection of the JY15 regatta is that there was no wind. I think it was mid summer when we were there. It was a great club with great people and the sailing area looked good so I am excited to come back. I went to school in VT and have spent allot of time there.
In regards to wind, July is the lightest. August was pretty good this year, but September is usually the windiest. Two other potential dates have opened up:
September 20-21
September 27-28
Any thoughts on those dates? Would people be less likely to attend that close to NAs?
Also, questions from the PRO:
Preferred course length and laps?
Thanks,
jason
September dates sound better - there's always a lot going on with other events in the summer. Maybe we'll even have a nice colorful foliage backdrop for our races.
+1 for the previously mentioned beer sponsorship
September sounds good. Stamford also has their regatta in September this will need to be coordinated with them.
.8 of a mi to 1 mi seems to work well usually 4 legs or 2 laps.
Between the Stamford event and HPDO, you're shoehorning a lot of regattas into a narrow band, which historically doesn't bode well for travelers from longer distances (esp. if you the multi-day regattas that are already scheduled are near the same venue).
That said, if you're thinking the regatta will only be Marblehead, local VT boats and other northern boats (Dumas, Dougall, a couple Canadians), then it's not a big deal - those boats are unlikely to come to Stamford anyhow. Stamford will be Sept. 20-21-ish, so if Joe wanted to be a road warrior and do both (and he's been known to be a road warrior in the past), great. You can never count on people to drive more than a few hours though - it is 5+ hours from WLIS to Lake Champlain, so I doubt you'd get more than 1-2 teams to make the trip from our area when there are otherwise 2 other two-day events close in between.
Long story short: schedule when you think you'll have the best conditions and when the people who are most likely to attend can make it and you'll increase the odds for a solid turnout.
Its only 4 hours from my place here in NY. If at all possible I would schedule the regatta for early September. Cork is in late August and Peter is the defending champ so you can count him out if it were on the same weekend also the Canadians.
Peter when is the biggest whole in the schedule?
Early September is North Americans in Long Beach, so it is unlikely that we'll be able to defend the CORK title anyhow.
Biggest holes in the schedule are mid to late June, mid August, late September, and anything post HPDO. That said, "hole" is relative - some of these holes are considered by some to be "welcome respites." That said, the 2014 northeast schedule is not yet finalized, and probably won't be for a couple of weeks.
I would strongly consider scheduling around what the most likely attendees can make (VT, M'head, Eastern Canada), along with best conditions and convenience for venue. The goal for Year 1 should be 7-10 Vipers - anything more than that is gravy. If Year 1 goes well and everyone comes back raving about the venue, we can talk about having a larger event on the lake and doing even more to encourage travelers.
I really appreciate the advice I am getting from Viper veterans and our class president.
Right now, the top two dates for me would be:
August 16-17
September 27-28
August has the advantage of warmer weather, better for camping and swimming, while the end of September would probably be the best wind of the year and less going on at the club. I am leaning towards September if people can make it. We typically have 18-30 knot wind at that time, and if the waves are too big on the open Lake, our local bay would provide plenty of room to run excellent courses just five minutes from the shore.
I am happy to reach out to various vendors to stock our rolling two-keg kegorator. We only stock it with the best local brews, of which there are many! The recent go-to beer for our club has been Switchback: http://switchbackvt.com
Cheers,
jason
Sounds Good Jason !!
Don't forget that Cork is sometime in August. We had a good turnout last year and would like to keep the momentum going!
We have picked the date as September 27-28. I still need to put together a full plan to get board approval.
The club has hosted several one-design regattas over the years, but I only had involvement in one, an Etchells Northeastern Champs in 2007 or something, where everyone was based out of the Community Sailing Center in Burlington (with a hoist), rather than at our club. I know we also hosted a big Finn event a few years back, and we host junior stuff every couple of years.
My current question is for those of you who have hosted Viper regattas, and only have one ramp and no hoist, how do you decide about leaving boats in the water vs hauling each day? Is there a certain number of boats where you say that everyone needs to stay in? We are very quick at launching, and could even have one person do all the trailer driving who is fast and accurate.
Also, if anyone has any regatta planning documents that were specifically used for a Viper event, would you mind sharing?
Thanks!
jason
Sounds awesome Jason--This date should be pretty good for the Marblehead Fleet, as our local racing ends the week before this. I know this season we were looking to find some racing to tide us over until HPDO, a Vermont Viper regatta could fill this hole quite well.
The only two regattas I did this year without a hoist were Charleston and Wickford--both events we stayed in the water overnight. Wickford we only had like 6 boats, and still didn't bother with pulling the boats out.. I would probably vote to do the same in Vermont--it's less of a hassle for me personally.
Our Regatta Committee chair polled the members of the Regatta Committee about their support and/or concerns about hosting a Viper 640 regatta last week. I was very happy to see overwhelming support for the event. They thought it would be good exposure for our club, and they support sportboat racing as a great way to help bring in younger members and get them excited about racing. The Board of Governors met on Wednesday, and approved the event for our 2014 calendar!
I'll be working thru the off-season to get things organized and recruit volunteers. I'll be back to this thread with updates and questions for the fleet.
Lake Champlain Yacht Club looks forward to hosting traveling Viper 640 racers next September! We'll try to make it as low-cost as possible and get as much racing in as possible over that weekend. We've got our best RC on-board to run the races (the old and new lead PROs together), and we will be the only fleet racing that weekend.
Thanks!
jason