chrisj wrote:
How did it go, allowing pedalling? Would you say it distorted the race, with everyone pedalling like crazy, or was the pedalling a balanced part of the boats' overall performance?
We weren't really sure how it would all play out, but it worked out pretty well. While any & all peddling was permitted, I'd say that most folks were focusing on the sailing, rather than the peddling. That is how we hoped it would go. There was some peddling, but mostly for jockeying for position, & making turns. Some did a little bit to try and point just that much higher on the wind. What we didn't see was the frantic "Tour de France" peddling that would make the event a peddle kayak race, rather than a sailing kayak race, as had been pondered in previous racing threads on this forum.
We've christened the event as the Flying Tri Regatta, and plan to make it an annual event. The three races were in the harbor area of St. Michael's, MD. Given our fleet's fledgling status and lack of equipment, we used existing harbor markers as our racing marks, forming a triangle course. The first leg was a beat to windward, followed by a beam reach to the second mark. The third leg was a broad reach to the start/finish line, but requiring passing outside the start/finsih line marks, and jibing to come back around and cross the line in the same direction as the start. It was kinda made up on the spot, but we were using what we had to work with. After a day of fun on the water we all adjourned to a local St. Michael's restaurant for some great Italian & Greek food. The good food & company just made for an awesome finish to a great day.
The overall winner for the day was Joseph Thompson. Joe drove all the way down from Massachusetts to participate. One of our local CHIG (Chesapeake Hobie Island Group) members ended up with second overall, and I took home third place for the day. Prizes awarded were mostly sponsor swag (T-shirts & the like), but everybody had a lot of fun. We will be getting a trophy platter made, and it will be engraved with the Fleet 940 logo & info, along with the winner's name & year. When completed, the platter will be displayed in the trophy case at the Boatyard Bar & Grill, in Annapolis, MD. The Boatyard is the favorite watering hole for the local sail racing crowd, and is the display location for a number or local racing trophies & cups. Our little fleet's addition will be in good company. I will be sure to post pictures of the trophy when we have it completed.
I will be sure to post info on our future events. You can keep an eye on it yourself, and even join in the rest of our fun by checking out our meetup.com page. The quickest way to get there is to use the
http://www.fleet940.com URL, which goes directly to the meetup page. Eventually the fleet will have our own site, but we're still working on getting everything together. Anyway, keep watching, and come on out an join in our fun.
Happy Sailing,
- Jim L