Action at ABYC's Regatta!!

   

  15  Cruise to Royal Canadian Yacht Club
  22  Cruise to Lakeshore Yacht Club 

 

Sailpast is upon us this Saturday and I wish to invite all of you to take part.  You will see that the theme of Sailpast this year is "At Home on the Water" and in that vein, we are praying for good weather so that all may go sailing this year.  The day begins though, in the Clubhouse with a Breakfast Buffet from 8:30 to 10:30 am and I know that Chef Paul has a great selection of food for us.  I am thrilled to present the Jazz Ensemble from Dr. Norman Bethune C. I., a group that I have directed for 12 years.  They received a Gold Standard in MusicFest Canada Nationals held last week and I think that you will find them to extremely proficient as teens in music.

 

At 12 noon, the official Opening Ceremonies will take place with some presentations, the flag-raising ceremony, and instructions from our Rear Commodore for the carrying out the Fleet Review itself.  A really fun part of the day is the Flag Officers' harbour tour and we ask that all vessels return to the dock by 15:00 to dress ship.  A tradition that has developed over the past number of years has been the collecting of funds for the Sailing School during that harbour tour.  We will continue with that tradition and I'm hoping that we can break the fund-raising record of last year where we almost raised $1,000.  Your contributions are appreciated.

 

From 4:00 to 7:00, the fun continues with a Steel Band Island Dance Party and BBQ, including face-painting, games at the Flagpole, and a balloon artist.  At 4:30 pm, back on the patio, we ask that all skippers and crews gather for the Sailpast category prizes that will include:

 

                        Most co-ordinated crew (clothing or actions)

                        Most dapper skipper

                        Best dressed vessel and the loudest salute to the Flag Officers in the Harbour

                        Cutest, youngest, most mature, etc.

 

Also at 4:30, we will conduct a draw for a BBQ that is advertised in this edition of S2S.  Tickets are available from 10:30 to the start of the Review of the Fleet, and proceeds will go toward the Corinthian Fund. Remember, you have to be on the patio at 4:30 to win.

 

Make note that there is a BBQ from 4:00 to 7:00 presented by Chef Paul. Tickets are available through the day.

 

Sailpast will be a great event with good food, excellent entertainment, and continued support for our Club's events, and I extend my thanks to the Entertainment Committee that has worked so hard to make it a success.

 

The rest is up to you as members. Come...Celebrate! I will see you there.

   

Respectfully submitted,  

 

Rick Humphrey, Commodore  

commodore@abyc.on.ca

Sailing Instructions

1.     Objective: To have the ABYC fleet pass astern of the Sarah Ashbridge in a neat line to salute the Commodore, with friends and family and congeniality, and without collision, injury, mishap, profanity, or protest.

2.     Schedule:  Sailpast will commence on the water at 1300h, or as soon as practical thereafter.  To facilitate a prompt start, we suggest sail boats rig prior to the Opening Ceremonies (noon) and be prepared to depart the harbour immediately following the ceremonies.

3.     Assembly:  Keelboats and powerboats will assemble to the right of the inflatable mark when facing directly upwind.  Dinghies will assemble to windward of Sarah Ashbridge.  The location of the inflatable mark, will be announced at the Opening Ceremonies. 

4.     Course:  (keelboats & powerboats)  From the inflatable, reach away on port tack ¼ mile to establish separation, then back on starboard tack to the inflatable mark leaving it on port, proceeding to the salute and finish at Sarah Ashbridge, leaving it on starboard;  

5.     Course:  (dinghies):  Dinghies will proceed from Sarah's starboard side, on port tack, astern of Sarah for the salute.

6.     The Start:  At approximately 1300h, Starwatch will lead Gentle Dreamsand the balance of the large boats away from the inflatable mark on port tack (away from the Sarah Ashbridge).  They will tack in succession and sail back toward the inflatable mark.

7.     Sequence: 

a.     Starwatch (Senior Vice-Commodore, # KC1)

b.    Gentle Dreams (Rear Commodore, #1134), flying a LIMA (follow me) flag: 

c.   dinghies (dinghies will insert themselves into the in the vicinity of Sarah)

d.    keelboats (largest to smallest)

e.     powerboats (largest to smallest).

 

8.     Speed Control:  Sailboats are encouraged to reef and/or use a smaller headsail if the wind is more than 12 knots.  The objective is maneuverability, not speed.  In light wind, sailboats should use their motors if necessary to maintain position.

a.     If your sailboat is fast for its length, join the line together with boats a few feet longer.

b.    If your boat is slower than average for its length, join the line together with boats a few feet shorter.

 

9.     Rules of the Road:  All boats are reminded of their obligation to keep a good lookout.  There will be a lot of traffic including dinghies, and the mast of an Optimist dinghy may not be visible from your cockpit.

 

10.  This is not a race.

a.     Do NOT try to squeeze in between other boats and Sarah.

b.     You may not request mark room, declare an overlap, or force a boat on the wrong side of the Sarah.

 

11.  360 Rule:  If you do not find a space to join the line in an orderly way, circle around and try again.  There is no limit on the number of 360s permitted before finding space in the line.

 

12.  Saluting:  Boats will pass in line off the stern of Sarah and salute the Commodore.

a.     Sailboats will salute by luffing the jib. Sailboats without a jib will luff the main.

b.    Power boats will dip the Canadian flag.

c.     Only the Commodore makes a hand salute.

d.    Salutes of other forms (e.g. those practiced in New Orleans' French quarter, or on the 400 on a holiday weekend, etc.) are not permitted.  Skippers are reminded that the Sarah Ashbridge is armed with a cannon.

e.     The salute should start when your boat is about one boat length from Sarah.  If possible the crew should stand and face the Commodore.

 

13.  Finish: Once boats pass the Commodore they should clear the area promptly and shall avoid passing back through the procession.

 

14.  Radio Communications:  All boats which are equipped with VHF radios should monitor channel 71 for on-the-water updates.

 

15.  Regrets:  Tradition dictates that all club members participate in the Sailpast, on their own or on another member's yacht.  Good manners require that a member unable to participate will send his/her regrets to the Commodore.

 

Paul Brennan

Rear Commodore

 

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We have some small projects to be done at the club, please contact

Thanks to all in attendance for their good humour, good stories and good appetites.

Thanks especially to Mary and Chris for spending their Friday cooking chicken!

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The first out-of-the-club cruise to Cathedral Bluffs kicked off the 2013 cruising season this year.  As usual, there was a pre-dinner gathering to talk about the sail over and enjoy the pot luck appetizers. Our hosts Peter Woodall and Diane Schulman of Saratoga fed our cruisers with a BBQ dinner finished off with Diane's delicious home made cheesecake.

Although the weather was unseasonably chilly everyone enjoyed the good food and great conversations. 

Thanks Peter and Diane!

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As the cruising season is now underway we are still looking for a few volunteers to host a cruise.  The cruises currently un-hosted are:

If you are interested in hosting please let us know.  If you would like to host but don't want to do it alone, please let us know and we will make arrangements.

Thanks

- from Rear Commodore Paul Brennan

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Those of you who were on the water on the weekend realize just how lucky we were with the weather for our ABYC Open Regatta.  Two great days of racing, dry but with enough wind and oscillations to make things interesting for competitors and Race Committee alike, and not so cold that floater coats were required.

 

I'd like to thank Roger Van Vlack for taking on the responsibility of leading the team that organized the event; while he can't take credit for the weather.  I'll thank him, and his core team, Colin Andrews, Wendy Loat, Ian Gow, Dave Steenbergen, and Bob Wilson for a successful event again.  So many things can go wrong, and Roger's organization, aided by Rennie, Albert, the yard and food and beverage staff do a good job of preventing problems rather than reacting to them.

 

I will thank our fellow clubs (PCYC, RCYC, THSC, and EYC) for helping us run the four courses and supporting our own judges, and of course our sponsors (Skipper's Plan, Bristol Marine, and Mount Gay Rum) who keep the event fun and affordable for the competitors.  And of course there were dozens of ABYC volunteers helping with judging, race committee, planning, awards, and activities I probably didn't even know we had to do.  Good work by all!

 

Everything I saw and participated in went well.  I even know of one racer who wanted to protest a fellow competitor but who was having such a good time that they doddled on the dock and missed the protest time limit!   Four race courses, 77 competitors, plentiful food and drink, and two bands. 

 

I also want to thank all of those who took time to teach someone else at the regatta.  Skippers who took on new crew, veteran crew who helped newbies, and skippers who took the time to explain to new skippers rather than just protesting them.  In particular, I'd like to thank Don MacIntyre for mentoring me in my role as race chair on Alpha Course.  Don has been doing RC for the ABYC Open since 1985 and it's an honour and a privilege to learn from him.  This season find a gift of knowledge or experience that you have and share it!

 

I hope to see all of you at Sailpast this weekend as we formally open the 2013 season!  Fair winds.

 

 

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What a great weekend!  The winds were, well, typical northerlies - probably averaging about 15 knots with lulls to 5 knots and gusts to 25, not to mention the 30 degree windshifts.  Sadly, no amount of working out in the gym could prepare the crews for the first regatta of the season.  Apparently there is no equipment at the gym that has you pull as hard as you can on a rope while being bent over at the waist.  Really good for your lower back - not!

Several ABYC boats fared very well.  Stephen Trevitt's Crime Scene once again claimed victory in the IRC 2 fleet with four first place finishes in the six races.  Second was Jim McGuinness's Five-Fifteen, a temporary paying guest at ABYC, while Lively was fifth and Merlin 8th.

In IRC 3, the Flynn family finished in third place aboard Starwatch.

Winston Churchill (John Gibson and crew) was fifth in the C&C 99 fleet and in the T-Bird fleet, the Looney Tunes crew prevailed, with Full On (Drew Robertson and crew) second and Rattle Ya Dags  (David Holmes and crew) placed third.

Full results of the Regatta can be seen at the following link:   ABYC Open Regatta Results
Select a course (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie or Martin 16) to see the full results.

Kudos to all of the many volunteers.  The race committee work on all courses was spectacular under the watchful eye of the PRO, Dave Steenbergen.  Thank you to all, and also to Roger Van Vlack, who seems to have become chair for life.

Last week I failed to mention the Icebreaker Regatta.  ABYC had a strong presence of volunteers on the race committee and as judges, but the best were our junior sailors.  Matt Sherar placed 6th in a very competitive Laser fleet while Linor Berezin and Katherine McEwen were fifth in the 29er class. Congratulations to all.

Next up is the Susan Hood, a PCYC Overnight race starting on Friday night.

Don't forget that you can send your racing rules questions to me at wendy.loat@bell.net.  And don't worry, I can keep the author of the questions anonymous.

- from Dave Steenbergen

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ABYC will be running a one-day mark laying course on Saturday June 15.  It will be focused on the practical skills which are needed to staff a mark boat on windward-leeward courses with inflatable marks.  We plan to spend the morning on discussion and practice on shore, and the afternoon on the water putting the morning stuff into practice.  We will also be checking out drivers on the ABYC mark boats.

 

Good mark layers are essential to the success of the ABYC race committee team when we run courses at our own regattas and at regattas hosted by other clubs.  Mark laying is also the hardest race committee job to fill.  The job requires a certain degree of agility and strength as well as willingness to spend the day in a mark boat in a wide range of weather conditions.  Some racing experience is highly desirable.

 

The number of participants in the course is limited and signing up in advance is required.  We are looking for people who are interested in volunteering at least occasionally as part of the ABYC race committee at LORC events or other regattas.  To sign up for the course, please e-mail Dave Steenbergen (dave.steenbergen@rogers.com).

 

- from Mike Goldfarb, Coach

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The ABYC Junior Race Team attended Lilac regatta at RHYC this past weekend.  Our Championship Fleet team and half of our Green Fleet team attended the regatta. The Championship Fleet team had an excellent weekend being coached by assistant team coach, Linor Berezin on Saturday and special guest coach, Eric Goldfarb on Sunday.  Quinten Beelik, Martin Staadecker, Paul Staadecker and Livia Collinson took part in the racing.  Quinten had some excellent races and showed some great sailing skills over the weekend. Quinten had some personal bests, finishing 2^nd and 3^rd in two of the ten races.  He had some starts in which he was the first boat off the line.  Martin also had a strong sailing weekend.  He was able to read the very strange wind shifts and stayed in the thick of things all weekend.  Paul had his first regatta with Championship Fleet and spent some time adjusting to the new fleet and spending the entire day out on the water.  He did have some moments when he started pulling it all together and was sailing up at the front of the fleet.  Livia was only able to race on Saturday but showed some great determination.  Despite getting hit by the boom, having her boat swamped and being extremely cold, she ensured she stayed out for all five races.

 

Sasha Wilson, Hunter Dejean, Rowland Goddard, Kai Malcolm and Oliver Van Rossem attended from the Green Fleet team with coach Mike Goldfarb.  Even though the regatta did not have a Green Fleet course or even score them as Greens, they decided to come out and compete anyway.  Oliver had an amazing regatta and spent many of his races at the top of the fleet.  With each race his sailing improved.  Rowland also showed huge improvement.  Although he struggled in the first race, by Sunday he had a 12th place in one of the races.  Kai and Sasha were out sailing with just a few spring sessions, getting used to their Optis.  They both capsized and experienced the cold May water.  However, they got out of the water and continued racing, showing some great determination.  Hunter, at her second regatta and experiencing her first full day on the water, showed awesome determination.  She did not care what place she was in and was determined to cross the finish line, in all ten races. In three races Hunter turned down the race committee offer to have an on-course-finish, requesting to cross the finish line instead.  In Hunter's last race of the day she capsized.  She stayed out there, bailed all the water out of her Opti (three times) and crossed the finish line with a big smile.  The Green Fleet team showed some amazing charisma, improved with every race and despite hard conditions, they stuck it out. Clearly a long and successful racing career is coming for these sailors.  

 

The official Lilac results have not been posted yet.  We will get them to you next week.  With our first regatta done the Junior Race Team is looking in excellent shape and we clearly have an exciting season ahead of us.

 

For more information on our team please like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ABYCJuniorRaceTeam

 

 

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                                                                                                                                  Photos - Alison Wardman 

 

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ABYC skipper Frank Hudson of Plum Danish III was honoured on Saturday by the C&C 99 fleet.  Frank received an award for sailing in the highest number of one-design races within the C&C 99 fleet (146, now 149) and for not missing a C&C 99 regatta since buying Plum Danish III.
 
Congratulations to Frank and crew for such great participation!
 
Thank you to Captain Bear, Dexter Halsall of Bear Necessity for creating the lovely plaque.

Pictured above from left to right:  Neville Wadia, Frank Hudson, Penelope Hughes, Alison Liddell, Andrew Wyatt and Bill Crystal

- from Jim Allen, OGOC Fundraising Chair 

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Last Wednesday Diane Reid announced in Ship2Shore that after completing the Mini Fastnet she is now fully qualified for the Mini TransAt from France to Guadeloupe beginning in October 2013.  For the full story on her conquest of the Mini Fastnet in less than ideal conditions go to the One Girl's Ocean Challenge website (Mini Fastnet).  Diane is only the 3rd Canadian and the first Canadian woman to qualify for this 40 year old race.  In October she will be 1 of 84 competitors on the start line for this 4300 mile race across the Atlantic.

 

After 4 years of fundraising and campaigning, Diane is in the home stretch, but still needs additional funding to get her to the start line flying the ABYC Burgee.

 

ABYC members and the club have been very supportive of Diane's campaign as have members of many other local yacht clubs, but now we need everyone's help just one more time for this historic Canadian Campaign.

 

To give Diane the extra push she needs to get to the start line we are running a travel package raffle in conjunction with Goway Travel.  We will have only 200 tickets available at $100 each which will give the one lucky winner a $5,000 travel certificate with Goway Travel.  This will then give Diane an additional $15,000 for provisioning and last minute boat additions .

 

We will be kicking off the raffle on SailPast Weekend and  the Susan Hood Race the same weekend.  The ticket draw will take place Labour Day weekend, just before Diane returns to France in preparation for the start of the race.

 

Together we can help make sure that Diane has all that she needs to race competitively flying the ABYC Burgee in the Mini TransAt.