Annapolis Race Week 2011

Velocity Crew - Photo by Sara Proctor

For the second year in a row, Annapolis was graced with strong breeze and sunny skies for the 45th annual Raceweek.  Some of the folks at APS raced this weekend and came back to work today with raccoon eyes and sore muscles, wishing the Labor Day weekend was 4 days instead of 3. Everyone survived the tiring races and made it back to the office with accounts from their side of the race course...

Matt Fafoutis, Customer Service

This year’s Annapolis Race was chock full of good take-aways for myself and crew aboard a Beneteau 40.7. I found myself in a position that I don’t often do and had to adapt quickly in a competitive, albeit smaller than usual A1 fleet. The breeze was typically around 10-12 knots which made for three days of exciting racing. Sunday’s racing was slightly breezier and also made for some alright surfing conditions as the wind had been consistently from the south all weekend.

We managed to get the boat in gear, motoring upwind and often found ourselves rounding the windward mark in the mix, but our few extra pounds made staying with the significantly lighter Thompson 30 and Farr 30 downwind a challenge. The weekend highlighted the importance of changing gears as we often found ourselves struggling to adapt quickly as conditions evolved. This was the result of our relative inexperience in the boat; our learning curve is still quite steep and I think we all learned a lot about the boat.

Off the water, things were fun as usual. It was my first major Annapolis regatta since moving to Annapolis proper.Being able to walk to the regatta party and still sleep in my own bed was great.


I want to shout out thanks to our skipper and the rest of the crew for some great work all weekend. Thanks to all the boats that came out in the A1 fleet, hopefully we’ll have better numbers next year (It was also pretty exciting watching the 20+ A2 fleet on our course). Hopefully we’ll see you all at IRC Mid Atlantics!

Warren Richter, Customer Service

For CBYRA Annapolis Race Week I was sailing on a J-109 in PHRF Class A2. The weather conditions were fantastic for all 3 days. Saturday brought 10-12kts, Sunday 12-14kts, and Monday 14-16kts. The AYC Committee work was fantastic and quickly banged off 8 total races with very little lag in between.  This is absolutely the most competitive PHRF fleet I have ever seen by the sheer volume of very competitive boats and 21 boats on the line.

Anyone on the racecourse was happy to finish in the top third in a race as it was definitely a keeper score. On Sunday for race 3 there were 3 general recalls and the race committee brought out the black flag to finally get a start off. When was the last time you saw a black flag in a PHRF fleet?!?  In any case, it was a great weekend of racing and although our results were not what I had hoped for, it was nice to sail in some consistent breeze, hopefully the start of some great fall sailing in Annapolis.  Thanks to the skipper and crew or a great time, thanks to the AYC Race Committee for great committee work as always, and Mother Nature for providing the breeze.

Team Ragin' - Photo courtesy of  SpinSheet

Mike Lindsley, Storefront

The wind was great, the sandwiches were wonderful, and our crew was spectacular! These ingredients all made for a great race week!

I really have nothing bad to say about the entire weekend, the weather was predicting to be light and variable with more than a healthy chance of rain……. But we were surprised with great breeze and no rain, Mother Nature was very gracious!

I got a good taste of teamwork this weekend and our first place finish on Velocity really reflected it! Well done to our competition on the J111 Ragin’! This was Ragin’s first regatta and the crew sailed and looked great with some help of Crügear.

A big shout out to Marty, Wayne, Kenny, all the Velocity crew, Kathy for the Snacktician Sandwiches, the great race committee, and folks at CBYRA for a great regatta!