Photo Bar Houston

Thank you very much for your support for our New Year's Eve Bash last night.

Sue and I had a great time listening to the band Rip Tide and we enjoyed ringing in the new year with our fellow members!

A lot of work went into the celebration and I wanted to thank the folks involved:

My first thanks goes to our Social Chair, Kathy Harris.  Not only did she have the confidence to call for a top notch band, she pressed ahead with creative planning and decorations that made the event successful and very memorable. 

As the numbers of reservations grew in the last days, I grew apprehensive of how we might manage the numbers and feed our guests.   But I had the opportunity to accompany Kathy food shopping:  It was a search-and-seize operation that had to be seen to be believed!  I thought the quality, quantity and easy prep-ability of the snacks was perfect!

So too was the work of our bar team.  Thank you to Nick Weber and Ron Howard for their efforts.

The decoraton of our clubhouse addded so much sparkle to the event.   My thanks to Wayne and Laurie Johnson for their work in assembling and installing the streamers.

A big thank you to Tom Keegan for the fabulaous deep fried turkey. It was delicious.

For their work yesterday and this morning, thank you to Jim and Leslie Fish, Dan Doud, Tim and Carol Petersen, Byron and Jeanie Jacobs, Winston and Carol Bumpus, Rick and Petra Gilmore, Dennis and Grace Lowe, Rick and Linda Dalton, Deidre Sparks and Tom Wickman.  I so much appreciate  your experience and ability to plug in and fill any gaps. 

My final thanks to Lina.  Our club looked great and I appreciated her efforts in the galley -- making serving suggestions and whipping up a batch of very flavorful deviled eggs.

Happy 2014

Dan Lockwood

Photo Jerry Jones

This past week had some of the highest tides of the year, which are now being called King Tides. The good news is that even though the water level did reach a high tide of around 10 feet, the club was not effected. In fact, the water stayed more than a foot below the top of the deck.

This could have been a different story if we had had a strong north wind and/or a big rain. But we lucked out with low southerly winds and fortunately no rain. (Although we do need the rain.)

The Port had provided us some sand bags and we had plastic on hand. But in the end it just wasn't needed this time.

I was there to measure the tide and its progress for the hour leading up to the high-tide on New Year's Eve and was greeted by a photographer from the San Jose Mercury News. Several photos were taken along with a short video of yours truly. The story also ran on the front page of the local section of the printed version for New Year's Day.

On New Year's Day, the Vice Commodore Dan Lockwood was able to dock his boat at our deck - (see this week's banner picture taken by Steve Holmstrom) . Dan was parked there for a very short time as the tide was beginning to move out again. Rear Commodore Rick Gilmore quipped, "You can stay there for 10 minutes or you can stay there for another year."  Dan moved his boat quickly back to his slip. 

Many experts claim that the waters will continue to rise, so we were lucky this time, but eventually this will be an issue we will need to deal with.

Winston Bumpus
Commodore

Stepping the Mast

You may have noticed the mast behind the house locker and may have even seen the amazing transformation from a rusty old mast to a shiny new standing rigging. James Brown, our new Port Captain, has been doing an amazing job rebuilding our small boats. He has rebuilt Muzzy's mast and standing rigging and many would say it is better than new. Many of these pieces James machined himself in addition to adding new parts, such as the new VHF antenna, mast light and windvane.

On New Year's Eve, with help from others, James restepped the mast back on Muzzy. More work needs to be done before it is ready to use, but it is on its way to being a safe and capable club boat again, due to James's many hours of work and his great abilities to design, manufacture and refurbish the mast and rigging.

Stay tuned for more updates on the work of our Port Captain, James Brown.

Winston Bumpus
Commodore

The Sequoia Yacht Club 2014 Winter Series continues this Saturday, January 4 with Race #3. So far in the Series we have had 21 boats for #1 and 18 boats for #2.  Come join the fun!

This is a five-race series with one throw-out race. The start line for the Winter Series is at Marks 3 - 4 and the start time is 1:30. All skippers should attend the skipper's meeting at 11:30 on the day of the race. For those boats coming down from CPYC, you can call me at 650-576-3990 after 11:45 for race instructions and then check-in at the start area. Plan on racing rain or shine.

If you haven't yet filled out a Skipper's Entry Form for 2014, please download it and fill it out before the race. Members of the crew are also required to fill out a 2014 Crew Registration Form. If you or your crew completed these forms already, new forms are not required. There are blank forms at the Club if you aren't able to download copies before Saturday.
Come on out for some of the best sailing of the year. I'll look for you at the start line.

Regards,
Richard Butts
Winter Series Fleet Captain
Sequoia Yacht Club
http://www.sequoiayc.org/racing

Photo Sue Lockwood

Turns out SYC can bowl,
tho’ not as well as stories told.

Broken nails, slips and falls,
Spares and strikes, and gutter balls.

All in all, a real good time,
with scores of 34 to 189.

Thanks to all who ventured down.
Stay tuned for the next SYC “About Town”.

Sue Lockwood

Please give our supporters your first consideration.  Note that most listings will have the ability to click through for further information. Also note the advertisers will change the sequence of listing so we will have a new advertiser at the top of the list each week.

If you have feedback on this advertising section or would like to have your business listing included in future editions of “The Weekly Blast”, please contact Larry Mayne at lrmayne@aol.com