Gaff Rigged Sailboat

Lyons Imaging Blog

Thursday, June 26, 2008

US Sailing Youth Champs

Today the US Sailing Youth Championship contenders are arriving in the Bay Area, and will be showing up at the San Francisco Yacht Club for a BBQ and to meet their hosts. I'll be covering the whole event for the club and for US Sailing, and will be posting new photos nightly. Today I'll cruise by the club just to take in the scene as everyone is settling in and meeting the other competitors from all around the United States.

Friday and Saturday are clinic days, and Sunday through Tuesday are race days. The action should be great... over 100 youth sailors are competing! You can keep up with via the US Sailing website at www.ussailing.org, the SFYC site at sfyc.org, and also right here at Lyons Imaging. I'm setting up a special page just for this event, so you can check out all the photos in one place, right here:

http://lyonsimaging.smugmug.com/Regattas%20&%20Events/544771


Sunday, May 25, 2008

Master Mariner's Regatta


The annual Master Mariner's Regatta on San Francisco Bay is one of the spectacles that reminds me how totally thrilled I am to live here and make my living photographing boats on the water. This year over 60 classic yachts turned out for the races. The beautiful privateer Lynx (privateerlynx.com), Humphrey Bogart's old schooner "Santana" (thesantana.com), the John Alden schooner "Dauntless", the 1891 scow schooner "Alma", and dozens of others beautiful classics of all sizes and types. After a brisk race around the bay, with longer courses for bigger boats and shorter ones for smaller boats, most of the fleet sails down the Oakland/Alameda Estuary to the host club, Encinal Yacht Club (encinal.org), for a great party and the opportunity to jump from boat to boat, taking in all these rare beauties.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Corinthian Yacht Club Midwinter

Last weekend's Corinthian YC Midwinter was fortunate to have two days of beautiful clear weather with reasonable wind, at least on Sunday. Saturday required quite a bit of patience from crews who didn't have enough wind to round Point Blunt against 2.5 knots of ebb current. And the leeward mark rounding... well, I missed it. But apparently everyone got there at once and there was carnage.


Here, the Express 37 fleet makes way along the South shore of Angel Island.

Time to play catch-up.



Well, it's a beautiful morning to start getting caught up on blogging. Yes, I've been negligent here. But I'll do better! I swear!

It's overcast this morning and there are gale warnings for this afternoon. Another big storm is blowing in. Before heading to the RIB today I believe I'll stop by West Marine and buy new dock line; some of the old is pretty badly chafed, and I don't want my trusty little photo boat blowing away.

Then it's off to the races. I'll be shooting on the Estuary today. The Island Yacht Club has a Small Boat Winter Series race, and Island Yacht Club is hosting their Sadie Hawkins race. Hopefully conditions will stay reasonable until late afternoon so no cancellations will be necessary.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Acura Key West 2008

Well... apologies for the lack of a photo with this post. There hasn't yet been much to shoot, and my shots from Tuesday (the only day with racing so far) are on another drive back at the hotel. We're in day four of the event, and the harbor start has been postponed until at least noon, pending the Race Committee's next assessment of the weather. Hopefully this afternoon we'll get in one race.

Tomorrow looks like we'll have decent wind, and rain to go with it. I'll be wrapping the cameras in trash bags and duct tape in preparation for a wet ride.  So we can get in as much racing as possible, the RC is calling for an early start--the first sequences will start at 9:30 am.


Wednesday, January 9, 2008

In less than two weeks now I'll be flying to Key West to cover Acura Key West 2008, presented by Nautica.  It's one of the premiere events in sailing, and it's sure to be a spectacle.  Please feel free to contact me to request coverage if you'll be there and are interested.


You'll find photo updates each day right here, and galleries of each day's action will be uploaded as soon as I can process them.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Last weekend's racing on the bay came at the end of a series of storms that had been pounding the region for several days already. Saturday's Seaweed Soup at the Golden Gate Yacht Club featured strong breeze, sometimes stinging rain, and swells rolling in under the Gate. Nonetheless, a great day to be out sailing!

Here's a shot of Quiver making way to the second mark.



Sunday was a little bit brighter, a little less breezy, and definitely less rainy. All of this gave the dinghy sailors good conditions for racing during Richmond Yacht Club's midwinter. Some classes stayed behind the breakwall, while others, including these Lasers, were racing longer courses out on the Bay.


 
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