Friends, 

The DSC has emerged from one of the more interesting weekends of the summer. We had a massive storm prep for Hurricane Irene, which involved removing all of the one design rigs and rearranging the entire fleet and our equipment stores so that they could safely ride out the storm. Although Irene proved to be less than initially predicted, there was no way to be certain of that in the days before.
 
I would like to applaud all of the volunteers who helped in this effort. We could not have done it without your help. The time put into this prep is a prime example of the kind of volunteerism that we love to see at the center. I would also like to extend a very special and sincere thank you to our staff, Kristen, Grady, Sean and Lynn as well as our SIT's and part timers, for the countless hours they put in orchestrating the effort and providing their own sweat equity to make it happen.

It was a tough call to make, and took a great deal of their time to  implement and then undo, not to mention the sleepless hours as the storm blew through. It would have been easier to have done little, crossed our fingers and hoped for the best, which could have had disastrous results. For those of you who were unable to help, please take the time to thank those who did, especially the staff. Thank you ALL for your efforts.
 
The Downtown Sailing Center was also featured on page 11 of last Sunday's Baltimore Sun. A nice write-up, and not a bad picture of Kristen. There was great emphasis on the sailing center's effort to make sailing accessible to all. I was particularly happy to see Juan Peralta, juniors instructor and former SIT as well as Lakeshia Johnson, office and outreach assistant, get as much time in the article as they did.

So we didn't get blown away and we got some good ink.  All in all another great weekend for the DSC!
 
Steve Smith
President