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PostPosted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:00 pm 
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Location: Charlottesville, VA
I'm in Charlottesville and looking for good day sails. Lake Anna is just over an hour away and I can get to the Potomac (Dahlgren) or Rappahannock (Tappahannock) in two hours. Any consistently positive experiences with these places, and tips for where to launch on the two rivers? Neighbor's family lives on lake Anna so launching there would be simple if it's worth sailing there.

BTW, is there any Hobie fleet or division activity in VA?

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:46 am 
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Location: Dahlgren, VA
There are two good places to sail on the Potomac. In Dahlgren, there is s public beach just north of the Rt#301 bridge on the Virginia side just past the visitor's center. The site does not have a concrete ramp so you may need a 4WD to securely get over the 100" of sandy beach. It is a good place for a day sail. Early morning and late evening there is a lot of wildlife in the area. It has restroom facilities and is frequently patrolled by King George county and Maryland DNR. (Maryland owns the river and if you are below mean low tide you are in Maryland.) There are no user fees. During warm weather it is best to get there early as the beach front parking spaces can fill up by 9:00am. The Potomac is 1.5 miles wide at this point.

Another location is Westmorland State Park which sits directly off Rt.#3 a few miles east of King George. It's hilly, densely wooded and very scenic. There is a parking fee of $3/car/day and a $4 boat fee to use the ramp. The park has great facilities and some nice cabins with great views if you want to stay overnight or longer or camp. They may even have a swimming pool. The river is about 5 miles wide at this point. Generally, the closer you get to the bay, the better the wind. The ramp is wide with a dock on each side and lots of parking for trailers. Across the river on the Maryland side is Breton Bay, St. Clement's Bay and the Wicomico River. The last time there I sailed my Adventure Island south along the Virginia shore past the cliffs, through Currioman and Nomini Bays, across to St. Clement's Island (historical site, has a large dock), around the various islands, the lower Wicomico, Cobb Island and back to Westmoreland State Park. This was about 8 hours in 5 to 15 knot winds. Lots of scenery. Plenty of quiet places to stop for lunch. Good for photos.

Baysailor

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:10 pm 
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Location: Detroit, MI
There used to be a fair amount of Hobie activity on Smith Mountain Reservoir near Roanoke, but it's been a while. Also ~ 2 hours from you.

THe Hobie fleet in Richmond (now dormant) used to sail at Brandermill Reservoir southwest of the city or on the James River, east of Hopewell.


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2010 8:29 am 
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Location: Charlottesville, VA
The Potomac is less than two hours away and only about 75 miles from where I keep the boat. I might look for a launch spot around Fredericksburg, north of the 301 bridge. Any ideas?

A friend lives and sails on Smith Mountain Lake so I can find out about that pretty easily. Brandermill looks pretty small but still larger than stuff I sailed on in PA. But the Potomac looks the best so far.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 5:30 am 
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Location: Point Lookout, Maryland
I used to windsurf on Brandermill many years ago - it was too small even then.

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 4:10 pm 
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Location: Charlottesville, VA
Today I launched from the end of route 626, just east of the south end of the Rappahannock River bridge. This is a public boat launch maintained by VDOT. I don't think I will go there again. It suffers from the same problem as York River State Park (described in another thread) which is that it's on the same side of the river as the prevailing wind. The cove adjacent to the ramp was glassy calm while the Chesapeake Bay was way into whitecaps. We launched anyway, found some wind and got into the river. Sailed in a strong SSE wind to the mouth, then turned around for the sleigh ride back to the ramp. Not so fast! About a mile from the ramp the wind shifted about 90 degrees meaning we were tacking into a nonexistent wind to get back.

I don't know of anywhere on the north bank of the river, but I will look for a spot.

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 6:45 am 
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I just sailed at the Rappahannock River Reggata. We put in at a private house about 10 miles down river from the Tappahannock bridge. There were 19 cats racing for 2 days and it was a lot of fun. Many of the boats were from Hobie Fleet 32. You might want to try one of their events. Good people with lots of local knowledge.
:D

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 10:00 am 
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Location: Charlottesville, VA
Would loved to have been there, but had a different event going on down in Asheville. I was bummed to discover that they were on the same weekend.

I have been checking Fleet 32's events but there isn't a whole lot listed.

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 9:34 pm 
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Location: Knoxville, TN
Hey Anton,

If you're looking for a good race not too far from you, the resurrected Division 9 is having our first points regatta (points for the H16 class, all other Hobies are welcome) in several years at Lake Norman, NC, just north of Charlotte, on Sept 7-8. We are crashing the Lake Norman Yacht Club's Cat Fest Regatta. The organizers have promised the H-16s will get their own start if at least five show up. We are dubbing our portion of Cat Fest as the Division 9 Hobie 16 Championships. You can read a bit more about it in my previous post in the Hobie Racing section: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=47300. I hope that you'll join us and bring some other sailors down with you from Virginia.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:14 am 
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Naylor's Beach on the Rappahannock river (Northern Neck Side) near Warsaw VA is great Hobie sailing area that is close to Richmond and C-Ville. No stinging nettles to deal with and lots of open space up and down the river. At Naylor's Beach there is a public camp ground if you want to add in some camping and make it a weekend event. A couple of H-21's, H-16's, and other beach Cats in the area as well.

Try it out!

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 29, 2015 6:08 pm 
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Location: Charlottesville, VA
I finally sailed at Lake Anna, putting in in a cove a bit east of the power plant, off Johnson Road (north side of the lake). Although it was a windy day, the cove was very still due to the trees growing right up to the water's edge. In fact the ramp had overhanging branches that meant I could not tow the boat with the mast up. Once out in the water I was near the largest open water on the lake, and parts of that had pretty good wind, although the wind shadows from the small islets were prominent. Basically it's a typical man-made lake with woods, gusty winds and powerboats. The only other sailboat we saw was another Hobie 16 with some kids on it having a great time. If we'd only been two of us we would have gone over and joined them, but we were three plus my three year old so we were being a bit cautious.

I may go back, but I'd like to find a better ramp since rigging and getting out probably cost me an extra 20 minutes on each end. Not sure if one exists on that part of the lake. There's a marina on the west side that's closer to my house but there isn't as much water there.

For me it's a solid 65 minute drive, and I can't leave the boat with the mast up so the attraction is limited. The aforementioned marina is 50 minutes, which is probably more attractive. If I want to drive more, I'd be leaning toward driving 120 minutes to get to really great water and really great facilities.

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