2013 Sailing Season: Edward Teach Memorial Regatta

The sailing team only had one home regatta this year, which was the Edward Teach Memorial that we have every year. This regatta is hosted by Hampton University at Strawberry Banks. The event doesn't get a lot of Hampton publicity, and since Strawberry Banks stopped being a boys dorm, most students don't even know where it is. During the school year, most students aren't allowed to go there, even though it has a very convenient beach. But once every school year, all of the college sailing programs in the Hampton area congregate there and take advantage of the great winds and sailing the location has to offer. This is also usually our first regatta of the season, so it is usually the first time that our new sailors get to participate in a real regatta. 

First person in the Marine Science Center is always a great achievement. Don't be fooled by the sunny looking weather outside, it was freezing cold in September. From what I can tell I have on 4 top layers in that photo, and I'm not even in the water yet. 

Mrs. Schuker providing us with our regatta breakfast. Always super healthy, and I get to choose which brand of orange juice I want before anyone else. 

Coach Ambrosi giving us a briefing before the regatta starts.  

Coach discussing race committee things with Dr. Schuker the head of the Marine Science department. 

Who knows what they're talking about....all these boys are from the islands, so when they get together, they turn off their American accents, so they could be talking about sailing or football. 

The lovely Veronica Maccari, our "A" Divvision skipper eating her strawberry yogurt. This is her first year at Hampton University as Coach also recruited her from Italy. 

Josh is also new to the team, and is one of our "A" division crew

This regatta was a great start for the Hampton University sailing program, and was the only regatta we won the whole fall season. We somehow didn't have enough cups for the prize giving ceremony, so we had to have a singing competition to see who would get the full set. 

My regatta trophy!

2013 Sailing Season: War Memorial Regatta

I don't post often enough. This semester has been a pretty hectic one for me, trying to balance out the academic, athletic, and social. The athletic side was sometimes the most frustrating, because those weekends become pretty crucial in the middle of an architecture project. Trying to stay in contact with my group when we have a presentation the next day was hectic too. But on the whole I think I was pretty successful.

During this sailing season I had some of the best regatta results of my sailing career. We made our main goal of the year, participating in the War Memorial Regatta at Old Dominion University. The regatta itself was intense, freezing cold water, crazy high winds, and fierce competition. I was sailing with my usual skipper Guidi, and the boat took on several gallons of water throughout the day. It was still pretty fun. You know you're working hard when you're taking off layers in 40 degree weather. 

Old Dominion University's Sailing Center. A new building, with a classroom, lockers, bathrooms, and offices. I nearly designed a similar building for the Hampton University Master Plan project we just did. 

Everybody paying attention during Saturday's skipper meeting except.... Guidi.....and I guess me too since I was taking the picture. 

The Italian Sailing Ladies!

Hampton University Sailing Girls, all rocking the blue and white in one form or another. This was our first day with our new Varsity Sailing jackets and boy did we use them. 

The "B" division! Notice that my jacket is the only one with the first name, since my last name is almost 15 letters and would have wrapped around my entire arm. Still love it though. 

Please pay attention to the girl on the far left wearing SHORTS! And she wasn't close to being the only one. Even if I kept sailing into my fifties, I don't think I will ever be about that particular lifestyle. 

Veronica and Albert in boat #6 getting ready to head out for the first race. 

Boats lined up on the ramp getting ready to take the plunge into the icy depths. Being in B Division has its perks, since we are usually not the ones who have to put the boats into the water, but we are usually the ones who have to bring them back in after almost 8 hours of sailing. 

Kimannee and Guidi discussing strategy and wind shifts and other things that are generally over my head. I just pull the ropes!

It's always crazy to me how the water on the shore looks really calm and flat, but when you're in the boat looks like the scene with the Kraken from Pirates of the Caribbean. 

Return of the shorts in November from Princeton, and we're waiting for the boats to come back in so we can head out. 

Team Italia again, all wearing our new jackets. So stylish. And so many pockets!

All together now! Please ignore my salt covered spray pants.... I think the boys were busy drying off and warming up in the van.

Re-Updated Cafeteria Hours

A year ago I posted the cafeteria hours for the Big and Small Cafe at Hampton University, formerly located in Virginia Cleveland Hall. This now makes the third time I have posted Hampton University's cafeteria hours. Now that the New Cafeteria has been built, the hours have again changed to accommodate the change from two cafeterias to one. The New Cafeteria even has its own photo album that can be found here.

Monday-Friday

Breakfast: 7:00 AM - 9:30 AM

Continental Breakfast: 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM

Lunch: 11:00 AM - 2:30 PM

Dinner: 5:00 PM - 8:30 PM

Saturday & Sunday

Brunch: 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Dinner: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Not Braggin', Just Sayin' with Bonus Pictures

So yeah, in honor of me making the  2011 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Commissioner’s All-Academic Team, I decided to do a bonus photography post. You can check out Hampton's honorees here. I never thought that I would publish these pictures, because I was like come on,what are the odds of sailing randomly jumping back into my life? Welp, in a very suspicious twist of fate it has, so here are some photos honoring my sailing experience. There aren't a lot of photos, but in my defense, electronics are the last thing you want to take with you out on the water. 

Josh and another teammate in the motor boat.

Yeah......

The view of the dock and Marine Science building from the water. At this particular point in time, we're going to meet the other boats that are already out on the water so we can switch crews.

A boat from our sailing fleet 

A view of Hampton that people outside the sailing team rarely get to see.

Anya looking pensively out into the distance

Lake Anna -shudders- never again. I think every boat out there capsized that day. I know we did.  Which is probably the worst time to find out that someone's waterproof bodysuit is taking in water.  

Boat 12 again and a side shot of some sailors head. 

That's all I have for now, stay tuned for more photography series' in the future. I've got bunches of photos from this and previous school years that I haven't bothered putting anywhere, let's see if I change my mind.

The Aquatotter is Coming........

So this will be the beginning of my first Project Series. The name of this project is the Aquatotter, and I will put the project guidelines in my next post. It is generally a floating boat/raft/thingy that is supposed to be able to float on the water, exchange crews, and go back to the dock. We are supposed to use mainly Reclaimed materials, like plastic bottles, cardboard, found wood, or anything generally that we didn't pay for. I think this is going to be a fun project, and I'm bursting at the seams with ideas already. Here's a link to previous year's Aquatotter adventures. 

The first portion of the project, the anchor has been completed, and I shall have pictures up of the final thing in a couple of days. It went pretty well, and I believe our anchor fulfills all of the criteria established by the professor. Here are pictures of the original design which contained the initials of all the people who were in our group at the time. For the record, my group currently consists of RM (me), TC, RB, and EC. Since TC was a later addition to our group his initials didn't get on the anchor, but he helped with the lab report, so it's all good.

I did the anchor design in Google Sketchup. The anchor came out a bit rounded on the sides because of expansion, but otherwise came out as designed. We added fabric in between the layers of concrete for reinforcement, and a chain was added to pull it up by. There is also a hole in the center in case the chain breaks. Yellow and Red paint were used as colorant as well as red yarn. We emptied the whole bottle of yellow paint and the cement was eating it like m&ms but it showed up in the end, ditto with the red. 

The R, with the chain coming out for securing and hoisting the anchor. There's also the hole in the center in case the chain breaks.

One of my group members giving an idea of scale. 

The black stuff is the fabric reinforcement that we used. We were happy that we saw some color differentiation at the end of the day, because the cement was straight gray last time we saw it. You can see bits of the red and yellow paints we put in there.

The E/M & C, which came out pretty well considering that part of the E/M support collapsed while we were putting the cement in. More color visibility from this side.

Finally the B shape, where you can see the red yarn we put in. It turned out looking like red veins, which was an unexpected bonus. 

So all in all, our anchor was a success. Its definitely heavy enough for the project requirements, the color is visible and we have 2 things to secure it with (the chain and the hole) when we get out on the water. And its light enough for one person to carry. Here's one of my group members describing our anchor.

I went to Ben Franklin's Art Supply mentioned in my earlier blog to grab some supplies for the coming project. It was a short trip, I only bought wax candles for sealing the plastic bottles we are collecting and some sketch paper for a different project. I went to 7 eleven afterward to get a pack of matches. You can get a whole lot for $1.19. My next post will be about the plastic bottles and the sealing process. Stay tuned.