HPDO / North Americans

Posted on October 21, 2011 by - Nationals

Every year over Columbus Day weekend in October, the American Yacht Club in Rye, NY, hosts the HPDO. HPDO is the acronym for High Performance Dinghy Open. It is a regatta that has become a big fixture in the Fall on the East Coast, with many dinghy classes in attendance. In fact several classes held their North American championships at the regatta this year. They throw a nice dinner and gathering afterward. We had the pleasure of seeing a few FD sailors from years past, it was good catching up with Guido Bertocci and others.

Totally Dinghy Roar

Posted on September 24, 2011 by - Totally Dinghy

The Totally Dinghy roared in, then left with a whimper.

The winds were consistently 15- 17 gusting over 20 on Saturday. We saw Buzz/Gary (2) and Philippe/Simon (1) taking turns wining with the rest in tow. Bruce Mahoney and Z/Mikey fought it out in the next group, followed by Doug/Michael, Mike/Dave and JJ/Pete. The Pegasus guys (Philippe and Bruce) showed up in the second race. Slept in late – they said. Then showed up what an extensive sailing program can do for you.

CORK

Posted on August 29, 2011 by - Cork

Hurricane Irene had several effects on the regatta held in Kingston, Ontario this past weekend.

After racing Friday night, NED 308, the team of Willem and Maarten, had to return to Connecticut to prepare for the storm. Their home is in Darien,CT, right in the expected track area .

We did have two good days of racing, with beautiful, but on the light side breeze conditions. Saturday morning all of the weather data was pointing to a rainy and very breezy day Sunday, so the decision was made to break down and not sail the last day of the weekend. All the data I saw the next day indicated that was a good call, winds with gusts in the thirties.

Cuspidor 2011

Posted on August 6, 2011 by - Cuspidor

After almost three weeks of very nice sailing wind in Cazenovia, the Saturday of the 2011 Cuspidor presented us with very little wind and no consistent direction.  The wind ranged from 0 to perhaps 5 mph and swung through about 220 degrees from southeast to northeast.  Sunday morning was somewhat better, but still a bit unpredictable.  The races really weren’t over until they were over as the finishes of many races were very close.  In the end, it was probably the experience of dealing with the lake type wind conditions that allowed Carl Boller and Jeff Barbero to pull out wins in six of the seven races to win the regatta. Chris Liberti with Katie Coupland sailed very well in the Lindsay previously owned by Peter and Barbara Wells and captured second place overall.  After exchanging third and fourth places with Tom Lewis and George Saggal, Zach White and Nick Iannacone finished third largely on the strength of winning the third race on Saturday.  Despite the difficult conditions the  participants seemed to have a good time as we were able to get some good trapezing on a few legs of Sunday’s races and a very nice dinner outside at the Brae Loch in on Saturday evening. 

Roll Tacks

Posted on August 1, 2011 by - Roll Tacking

The HUN 70 team of Szabolcs Majthenyi and Andreas Domokos are undoubtedly one of the most practiced teams in the International Flying Dutchman fleet.  Their coordination and seamless maneuvering impressive and so fluid as to make sailing the boat effortless.  But in the many years they have sailed together it is obvious they have worked through every maneuver in every condition. So studying their actions on the racecourse is a valuable activity for us all.

Whidbey Island: Blessing & Curse

Posted on July 23, 2011 by - DWI

The first edition of DWI- Dinghies Whidbey Island, was a blessing and a curse… the blessing of wind, the curse of it going away.

This is the second year of dinghy racing as part of Race Week, the premier week of keelboat racing in the Pacific Northwest, and the first year of having the FD as a class. With the expected boats not showing, we still reached the minimum of 4 for a class start: Duane Elhringer and Mike Mezaros in “Henry”, their green carbon fiber machine, les frers Jones, Andrew and Josh in the “Chelan Flyer”, an old school Plastrend, Derrick Hiltz and his son Jason on the “Mexican Boat”, an early 80’s Mader,

2011 Spin Pole Regatta NOR

Posted on July 18, 2011 by - Spin Pole

Here is the NOR for our regatta in Newport. It should be a great regatta and we hope you can all make it and help us to get another local event up and running. Should be great sailing and a variety of compeitition. 

Click through for the NOR 

2011 Annual Report

Posted on June 16, 2011 by - IFDCAUS

2011 Annual Meeting

Noroton Yacht Club, May 29th, 2011

  • Tim opened the meeting at 7pm.
  • Tim began with a big thank you to Job Sandberg and the Noroton Yacht Club for putting on a great event despite less than stellar weather
  • A well received thank you was issued for the many years and many projects that Jonathan Clapp took on as secretary- treasurer of the class. We all wish him luck with his new job and hope to see him again
  • Topics that were discussed:
  1. President’s report
  1. Treasurer’s report
  1. Measurer’s report
  1. Increasing Participation
  1. The Santa Cruz Worlds
  1. Elections

2011 Spin Pole Regatta and updates

Posted on June 13, 2011 by - Spin Pole

Hey everyone. We are still working on getting all of the baots up and running, We have two boats rigged, and the third is nearly ready. Rigging the fourth will take some time, and we will post plenty of information and questions here to make sure we rig her as best a classic boat can be rigged, but we hope to have her done for the Cazenovia regattas. We will add some pictures soon.

 

In more exciting news, I would like to remind everyone to save the date for our Spin Pole regatta in Newport, the 17 and 18th of september. Since the North Americans will be in Canada in August, and the HPDO on long island sound in October, we will work out storage for boats between events as needed. Please make the time to come down and help us get another local event on the calander. Official NOR is coming soon… Hope to see you there. 

Noroton FD Nationals

Posted on June 1, 2011 by - Nationals

Lin Robson along with GBR crew Richard Philips showed he would not be denied a return to leader of the pack at Flying Dutchman National Championships, hosted by Noroton Yacht Club.  Long Island Sound delivered a three day event that had pretty much every condition, although without the 20 plus conditions of the last Noroton event.  Strategy, cool heads and perseverence paid off as generally lighter conditions with local breezes but also persistent shifts combined with a variety of current conditions to challenge the competitors the entire regatta.