Halifax River Invitational

The Halifax River Invitational was held at the Halifax Sailing Association's facilities, where ERAU sails out of. Saturday began overcast and a little chilly (65F) for the Daytona Beach area. The boats got on the water shortly after 9:30, and racing began at 10:15 with shifty winds out of the northeast at 4-6 knots. For the first race of the day, the sailors had a pretty strong outbound tide to contend with, as well as oscillations in wind direction of 10-30 degrees. By the third race of A Division's first set, the tide had reversed, and the wind had shifted to the right. That combination allowed us to get one last race in before we had to rotate the course clockwise. This set the precedence for the rest of the day, as we continued to rotate the course clockwise, adjusting it roughly every two races. By the end of the day, the windward leg was roughly 90 degrees to the right of our first race's course configuration. The strong tide played a role all day long, allowing boats to reach to the leeward gate while crabbing back to the center of the course.

The racing was very good all day long, with boats regularly overlapped on the course and at the finish. Most teams had at least one bullet for each of the divisions. In the end, Florida Tech had a solid performance in both A and B divisions, winning the regatta without much of a challenge. The real fight was for third place, with Rollins and ERAU tied at 59 (Rollins winning the tie-breaker) and ERAU's second boat with 60 points coming in 5th.

Thanks to our helpers on the water! Mike Stambersky, Rob Mundell and Ted Yeager made the racing possible with their constant work setting the marks. Dave Anderson was on the water with photographers from the ERAU student Photography Club, also pulling marks to help rotate the course between races. On the R/C, thanks to Naomi, Brian and Paco for your help with flags and recording the starts/finishes! It really does take a team of people to make these events go well!

Thanks to all the sailors who came to race from FIT, Rollins, PBAU, and ERAU. You were all great competitors and made it fun to run the races.

Some photos from the day can be found at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/E9PeR57CpKe673Wu6

Chris Herbster ERAU Sailing Club Faculty Advisor

The following chart shows the relative rank of the teams as of the race indicated. Note that the races are ordered by number, then division, which may not represent the order in which the races were actually sailed.

The first place team as of a given race will always be at the top of the chart. The spacing from one team to the next shows relative gains/losses made from one race to the next. You may hover over the data points to display the total score as of that race.