Warm-up Series Starts on Sunday

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Bill Blevins

On Sunday, March 20th at 1 p.m. we’ll begin our five-week warm-up series. These races won’t be scored for low point awards but they will contribute to the overall “batting average” score for the year and the 60% participation requirement for that calculation.

As you can see from the picture taken last night and posted above, there is still an inch or so of ice on the water in Holiday Harbor but we think with the warm weather in the forecast for the next few days that it will be gone by Sunday.

The water in front of the yacht club is free of ice so we have a back-up location if necessary.

Remember to wear your smelly old winter socks on Sunday so that you can throw them in the fire for the traditional “Burning of the Socks” ceremony! We’ll aim to have the fire going by 12:30 so we can get the racing started promptly at 1 p.m.

The following week, March 27th, we’ll resume our normal 2 p.m. start time until “big boat” racing begins and we move to the docks at CYC.

Posted in Party, RC Laser Fleet 14 | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Warm-up Series Starts on Sunday

Burning of the Socks

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Bill Blevins

Socks & Boat Shoes

Photo by sarowen (CC By-NC-ND 2.0)

Around the world, people celebrate the beginning of Spring in a wide variety of ways. Here at the Canandaigua RC Laser Fleet we couldn’t think of a better way than to uphold the old tradition of the burning of the socks that we’ve worn inside of our boat shoes over the Winter months.

vernal equinox
–noun
1. the time at which racing sailors gather together to burn the socks they have worn on their feet since Winter began, signaling the beginning of Spring.
2. the time at which the sun crosses the plane of the equator towards the relevant hemisphere making day and night of equal length.

Join us prior to the start of the RC Sailing season (by the way, we are starting at 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 20) at Holiday Harbor to tilt a glass and throw your old smelly socks in the fire.

Posted in Party, RC Laser Fleet 14 | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Burning of the Socks

Keep in touch

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Bill Blevins

Follow us when we aren’t near a computer on our Tumblr site at http://rcsailors.tumblr.com/ or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rcsailors. Oh! We also have a Facebook Groups site.

Come on! Keep up!

Posted in RC Laser Fleet 14 | Comments Off on Keep in touch

New Site News Updates Tool

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Bill Blevins

If you would like an email when the RCSailors.com site is updated, look over on the right side of this page and fill out the form to subscribe to our new newsletter!

When you submit, you should then get a confirmation link sent to your email and after you click that, you are all set. If you ever wanted to unsubscribe, each message will have a link for you at the bottom or you can come back to this page and click the link on the right to unsubscribe.

Using this new tool will be a better way than manually emailing the whole group letting each of you know that there is a new blog post on the site.

Stay up to date! Sign up for our latest news today!

Posted in RC Laser Fleet 14 | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on New Site News Updates Tool

12 RC Lasers in Canandaigua, NY and Still Counting

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Bill Blevins

Bill Schmidt, RC Laser #88 (please, refrain from the Dale Jr. comments, no matter how fast or slow…), George Braddon, David Kelsey, RC Laser #652 and Dave Turnbull have each ordered and received their RC Laser sailboats since we stopped racing last year and I’m sure they, like the rest of us, are thinking about sailing as soon as the ice breaks. Someone from the Lake should email us a report!

I see lots of various sizes of sails being ordered now that everything is back in stock at the distributor. If you want the correct font and sized sail numbers, give Scott Rowland a call at (937) 862-7781 and ask for the RC Laser numbers and country letters, or more the more preferred method would be to place your order directly online at his site, Windjammin Sails. Scott carries Spektrum radios and the radio case as well if you are interested.

The North American RC Laser Class Association site has posted the instructions for putting numbers and country designation on your sails. Visit their site and click the link that says “Sail Number Specifications and Sources.” You do not have to buy stickers. Many of us used the proper size and font on a stencil and colored in the numbers with a black Sharpie marker.

Posted in RC Laser Fleet 14 | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on 12 RC Lasers in Canandaigua, NY and Still Counting

RC Laser Mid-Winters in Marco Island, FL

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Bill Blevins

Jack Bennett, Tracy and Bill Blevins will be heading down to sunny Marco Island, FL for the 2011 RC Laser Mid-Winter Championship in early March.

We are flying out of Buffalo on Thursday and returning Monday. We have rooms booked at the Olde Marco Island Inn.

If you are thinking of joining us, let us know soon. We are planning on packing up our boats early and shipping them down ahead of time.

Here are links to the official race notification and registration:

I also noticed today that there is a mention of our fleet and a picture of us out in the snow racing on the homepage of the RC Laser North American Class Association site this month.

    Posted in North American Class News, RC Laser Fleet 14 | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on RC Laser Mid-Winters in Marco Island, FL

    Season Ends Just In Time!

    Posted on December 9, 2010 by Bill Blevins
    Photo of ice in Holiday Harbor

    Nelson emailed a photo of ice on the water in Holiday Harbor today. Our season ended last Sunday - just in time I'd say!

    Posted in RC Laser Fleet 14 | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Season Ends Just In Time!

    Jonathan Gorbold Wins The 2010 RC Laser Frostbite Series

    Posted on December 5, 2010 by Bill Blevins
    Packing up the boats

    Jonathan Gorbold (right) and Gary Schmidt (center) pack up after racing seven races on Sunday afternoon that wrapped up the seven-week 2010 RC Laser Frostbite Series for Canandaigua Fleet 14. Jonathan won the low point competition, Bill Blevins (not pictured) placed second and Gary ended up in in third place. The "Results" tab has been updated on this site. All of the photos will be posted this week.

    Posted in RC Laser Fleet 14, Results | Comments Off on Jonathan Gorbold Wins The 2010 RC Laser Frostbite Series

    Results Tight Going In To Final Week

    Posted on November 30, 2010 by Bill Blevins

    Seven RC Lasers should be on the starting line on December 5 for the final week of racing in the 2010 RC Laser Frostbite Series for Fleet 14 before we take a long break and wait out the ice that will surely form on Canandaigua Lake.

    The results after six weeks are tight.

    Jonathan Gorbold is firmly holding on to first place with Gary Schmidt and Bill Blevins currently vying for who will end up in second place for the series.

    If we can get a half-dozen races in the books this weekend, almost anything could happen!

    Racing begins this week promptly at 2 p.m. at Holiday Harbor on Canandaigua Lake. We’ll wrap up at 4 p.m..

    After racing we’ll go inside for dinner and will calculate the scores for the series and announce the Low Points series winners and places for each sailor. The awards will be held until Sailor’s Night in Oct. 2011 at the Canandaigua Yacht Club.

    About the dinner… Please contact Anne if you haven’t done so on details about the food and to see if you need to bring anything – and if so, what is needed. I wasn’t paying as much attention to that detail as I probably should have been in the past couple of weeks when it was discussed.

    The calendar on this site has been updated to remove the tentative dates for an “Indoor” Series of sailing during January and February. The Winter Low Points Series of 7 weeks of racing picks up again in March.

    See you on the water on Sunday!!

    Posted in RC Laser Fleet 14 | Tagged , | Comments Off on Results Tight Going In To Final Week

    Change Blows In From The South In Week 5

    Posted on November 21, 2010 by Bill Blevins

    Jonathan Gorbold (20 points) continued to hold first place honors in the 2010 RC Laser Frostbite Series on Canandaigua Lake as Bill Blevins (28 points) and Gary Schmidt (31 points) swapped places in the low point scoring after adding in the finish positions from the eight races held on Sunday.

    Discussions among the skippers after the races revolved around the need for fresher batteries (or at least, stronger than the batteries the sailors had in their boats) as the winds were relatively steady above 12 miles per hour – with a few gusts to 17 mph – necessitating that boats sheet the main sail more quickly.

    Kirk, our RC Soling sailor friend from Rochester, placed close to the top of the RC Laser fleet this week but his jib helped less than it did last week when we had lighter winds.

    The sailors in our fleet are quickly becoming very competitive with close starts, mark roundings and finishes. We are seeing that some skippers are reading the racing rules very carefully, trying to figure out what edge they can get on the competition.

    The results don’t actually reflect how close the races have become!

    Two weeks of racing remain in the 2010 Frostbite Series and both weeks will be at the Holiday Harbor location. Stay tunes for results from the next two Sunday afternoons. The final week in the series is on December 5.

    Posted in RC Laser Fleet 14 | Comments Off on Change Blows In From The South In Week 5