Dave Perry Rules Webinar Series and 2021 Season
Greetings to all Shields sailors of Fleet 9:
We had a solid season in 2020, recapped it at our annual meeting in December and now most of us have been more or less locked down. Wherever you have fetched up this winter season, we hope you’re all staying healthy as we set our sails into the new year.
In three months, we all hope to all be breathing fresh air outdoors and have our boats uncovered and in various states of prep for the 2021 sailing season. Your fleet officers have all been at work preparing for the upcoming season, and we have big plans to get you up and running long before the boats get splashed.
We are excited to have Dave Perry leading us in a Shields-specific series of Racing Rules Webinars this winter, and that’s just the first of several initiatives detailed below. Buckle your seatbelts, and join us as we line up together again in one of the finest one-design keelboat fleets in the country.
John Burnham
Shields Fleet 9 Captain
Shields Exclusive:
Dave Perry Rules Webinar Series
In cahoots with the Shields National Class Association, we have scheduled a series of three Zoom webinars with Dave Perry to improve our knowledge of rules and tactics, starting Tuesday, February 16th at 7pm and followed by events on March 2nd and April 6th.
There is no charge to you—this is compliments of Shields Fleet 9 and the National Shields Class.
While there is no cost, space is limited, and you MUST sign up in advance.
Register now at this link and include your questions or topic for Dave to address.
Youth Boat Loan Program
Thanks to a generous benefactor, we have the opportunity to develop a boat-loan program for young adults willing to commit to putting a race team together for the season. We are looking for some dedicated fleet members willing to help spearhead this initiative. This may include helping to design the parameters of the program, promote and evaluate applications, and mentor the team.
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Boat Measurement
Looking for a way to maximize performance? Having a visit from our class measurers who will evaluate your set-up is a great way to learn what you can do to set up your boat for success and confirm that your boat meet class rules at the same time.
The class rules were recently revised from require annual measurements to “every other year.” Unfortunately, Fleet 9 hasn’t been keeping up to date, and given that we are hosting the 2022 Shields Nationals, we need to get our act together starting now.
Each boat must be measured over the next two seasons. The process is simple, and it’s a great opportunity to ensure your boat is up to speed. You’ll hear more on this in the coming weeks, but if you’d like to talk with one of our measurers or book a visit, send us an email.
New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta
After such a good 14-boat turnout last fall, New York Yacht Club has invited Shields to sail in its event again this year, at its traditional time, June 11-13, 2021. However, we need confirm interest among at least 8 boats to ensure we get our own class / start.
Whether you plan to race or not, we really need to get a rough boat-count.
Please RSVP HERE.
2021 Race Schedule
While the schedule isn’t final yet, we hope to officially begin Wednesday night racing on May 19 with a tune-up race/clinic on Weds., May 12.
Our Aloha weekend racing (non-spinnaker) will start on June 26th.
Stay tuned for details and the full schedule as soon as we firm it up.
Fleet Captain’s Update: 2020, End of Season
Shields Fleet 9 sailors and supporters:
In case you missed it, I am reproducing the gist of my report delivered last week at our recent Annual Meeting. We’ve also published the 2020 Annual Meeting Minutes – 12-2-20 here, which include election of officers. Most of our 2020 group is staying on, joined by one new recruit, Heather Shaver (181) who will serve as our At-Large Director. A big welcome to Heather, and a big thank you you to David Bush-Brown (121) for his excellent service in that role this year.
I’d like to start by thanking each of the members of our fleet board for their hard work this year. Specifically:
– Mike Toppa, executive officer, for taking on and completing the lifting frame project from beginning to end, a monumental task we are all very grateful for. Mike also recruited temporary race committee, arranged drone video, and helped bring new members into the fleet.
– Bill Doyle, secretary, for completing the survey, coming up with new ideas, writing the weekly newsletters and pulling together the year-end awards event…among many duties he managed.
– Ron Oard, as treasurer, managed the finances, arranged dues payments, kept us on track generally and served as a VP of the Shields Class Association.
– Ted Slee, past fleet captain, has been an all-around fleet promoter, is also a Fleet rep as a Shields Class VP and Tech. Committee member, and is committee chair to host the 2022 Nationals and 2021 New Englands.
– David Bush-Brown, at-large board member, was a keen sounding board and catalyst of what turned out to be a signature event of the season, the NYYC Annual Regatta.
We had many challenges last spring, but this fleet responded. I’d like to thank our supporters throughout the community who also helped pull our season together when things looked bleak:
- Brad Read at Sail Newport, providing leadership in working with the DEM;
- Tim Healy for running three nights of informal June racing;
- Simon Davidson for getting Ida Lewis commissioned as quickly as possible
- And Bill O’Hanley for rolling with the punches and providing great RC work
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It was my blue-sky goal last winter to grow Fleet 9 back to 30 registered boats with 20 on the start line in two years’ time. After I said it out loud, I started to realize it was a pretty ambitious goal. But this year we experienced some surprising success—we had 20 boats on the line 3 or 4 times this summer and built the Aloha weekend fleet to a healthy 8-10 boats. We had an uptick in registrations with 24 boats and that was with two other boats staying on the hard. We gained four new owners/boats in 2020 (17, 151, 204 & 258), and we have three new boats joining the fleet next year – 66, 101, and 200 – and other prospects out there.
We have an exciting development challenge to report. An anonymous donor has offered substantial funding for one or two boats to be purchased and donated to Sail Newport, for use by youth and young adult sailors. The idea is to create a gateway to Shields sailing for younger generations. While there was no official vote, comments at our annual meeting were all in favor of this initiative, and we agreed the most difficult aspect of this will likely be finding moorings as even Sail Newport has limited moorage. Anyone interested in working on this , please contact me directly.
In closing, I congratulate all who made this season a success. Let’s build on our momentum for 2021!
– John Burnham, Fleet Captain
Believe in the Sou’wester
Happy to get the win this week, but in Shields racing in the Bay it’s never over till it’s over and we never felt comfortable until the S flag went up at Y. Conditions during the day had a moderate NW gradient dominating until the SW sea breeze took over in the harbor.
On the first beat, here’s the view from 156, eventual winner of Sept. 23 race
We dropped the mooring at 4:15 and sailed down to Rose Island in a SW wind to start our pre-race routine of getting our sail setup right, compass headings and guessing if the weather mark would be Hammersmith, Fort Weatherall or Dumplings. We took Dumplings off the list right away since the mark was out of the water and getting a bottom job on the deck of the Coast Guard buoy tender.
Pre race, the wind started to fade and shift right – the sea breeze was dying and the NW gradient was coming back in play. It looked light up the bay and any hope of sailing in the solid 10 – 12 we had when we left the mooring was gone so we eased the headstay ¾” and started to work on getting our line sights.
The RC did a nice job quickly resetting for the new NW direction. The playbook for a start just south of Rose Island in an outgoing current is to play the cone so getting off the line clean and tacking to port was our early strategy.
At 4 min to go the line was square but with 2:30 the breeze went left favoring the pin. It was getting light again and there were signs the sea breeze wasn’t giving up. The recalled first start was good practice for us trying to win the pin. The second I flag start was a clean one and we were able to get on the favored port tack immediately. With the left shift, boats starting at the pin had the benefit of a little more breeze but the length of the line put us outside any cone relief, unlike the boats that started on the right side.
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The long port tack was a boat speed test with the boats to the right in less current and the boats to the left getting short duration left puffs but in more current. There were two boats to the left of us who were always a little more bow up and benefitting from left puffs. About 40% up the beat we tacked back onto starboard crossed behind them and set up to be the left most boat, banking on what we hoped was a persistent left shift. Soon we were ahead of the two boats we crossed behind but as we got to the lay line 39 and I think 224 came out of the right ahead of us and we rounded 3rd.
With the kite up we were just about laying and we could see the boats moored in the harbor were pointing SW and there were a few cruising boats off Fort Adams in a solid sea breeze so knew the leeward mark was in the new SW breeze and stayed high in an attempt to meet it as it came down the channel. This all seemed like a good plan until we looked over and saw the boats to the deep left of us charging in the old NW breeze. But our strategy played out and we were continuously headed down towards Y in the building breeze. Happy to see the S flag up and happy to finish near the mooring.
With daughter Holley sailing IC 37’s and daughter Alie being in Maine, we had to reshuffle our friends and family crew. On board last night were Libby Toppa, Liza Toppa, Jeremy Wilmot and Suzy “you mean there are still boats that use spinnaker poles?” Leech. Another great Shields night on the bay.
—Mike Toppa, 156
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