I wanted to share with you a terrific event we hosted at the Club on July 17th in conjunction with PYSF and the Peninsula Bridge organization.  The mission for Peninsula Bridge is to promote academic and personal success for motivated middle school students from under-resourced communities.

We hosted nearly 80 great kids from various schools from around the Peninsula for the Bridge Cup Finals, an event of rain-gutter sail racing.  The teams challenged each other by creating and sailing their small sailboats down rain gutters using breath-power only.  The two winning teams won a ride on a real sailboat, Dolci Sogni, and the rest of the teams won a ride on the Gryphon, thanks to Mike and Teri Marzano and the Sea Scouts.

When all 80 returned (yes, all made it back), Chloe Lepert, Larry and Robin Mayne, who did an awesome job of preparing the Club for the event and cooking all of the food, had food ready and waiting for one and all.  Lots of others chipped in to help, including Molly O’Bryan who taught the kids knots and Alex Huang who assisted me while sailing Dolci Sogni with 12 children (in PFDs) on board.

This may be the beginning of a long term relationship with this great organization, The Peninsula Bridge.  For more information on the Peninsula Bridge go to:

http://www.peninsulabridge.org/

Winston Bumpus
Vice Commodore

Photos by Tom Keagan

We had a very good Cruise out to South Beach Marina this weekend with 40 members and 12 boats.

It is tricky to organize these events with the Americas Cup action taking place but Shannon Amerman did a fantastic job of setting this up and it was a huge success. The Cruise Out program is not lacking in creativity and effort this year - thanks Shannon!

We enjoyed good conditions all weekend and could ride the tides both ways. We also had a fantastic time watching the Giants beat the Diamondbacks 4-2 on Saturday. A perfect evening! Thanks to our contacts we were offered tickets in Triple Alley where you can watch the pre-game action right by the field, have drinks and eat courtesy of the club (Yes it is included in the tickets) and then be seated in the Lower Box area to enjoy the game - just a lot of fun and good to be so close to the action!

We also celebrated Jeanne Jacobs birthday on Saturday - a good time was had by all!

On Sunday there was the opportunity to then go and see the AC72's in action and watch New Zealand taking on the Italians before sailing home. The Kiwi's are tough to beat. They won by about two minutes even after losing their jib - it blew away. These Boats are amazing and it was easy to get close to the action by the finish line which was just by the SF waterfront. Marvelous to see Sequoia Yacht Club burgee's on display by the race.

Pied Piper had the pleasure of two porpoises playing in our wake as we sailed back at about 7 knots. I had not seen them that far South (we were off the SF airport) and they stayed with us a good 20 minutes before finding something else to entertain themselves. Very special!

It is just a great year for Cruise Outs and to be a Sequoia member. Our club is going from strength to strength

Peter - Your Commodore

Island Time Party

One of the best parties on the Sequoia Social Calendar, following the Westpoint Marina Regatta.

Come enjoy island-style food, tropical drinks, great music, dancing and more. The Westpoint Marina Regatta Racers will be joining us after the race, sharing their stories of the days events, and eagerly anticipating the awards.

If for no other reason, come for the Huli Huli Chicken. It's not to be missed.

17:30 Cocktails
19:00 Dinner

Ahoy Sequoia

We had announced that Joseph Curtis had agreed to do this at the General Meeting. But, Joseph has had a new commitment at work come up in the last few days which involves a lot of travel and makes it hard for him to lead the Nominating Committee.
As a result he asked that we find an alternative.

Kate Humphreys has kindly agreed to be the Nominating Committee chair and will be selecting a team of senior members to support her in this years Committee to select candidates for the vacant positions on the Board and the Flag. Kate - we appreciate you doing this on behalf of the Club!

Peter - your Commodore

Are you a leader? We're still looking for someone to lead the Half Moon Bay cruise out, weekend of August 31. Please see Shannon Amerman if you're interested.

The Redwood City Fire Department asked our community's kids to offer their best names for the City's new fireboat - and more than 100 came through with a wonderful variety of entries!

The selection committee went through every name entered, and came up with the top 10, and from that top 10 the finalist will be chosen, to be painted on the stern of this new, important piece of firefighting equipment and unveiled at a special ceremony on August 10 at the Port of Redwood City.

The top 10 finalists are:
• Aquarius
• Bay Sentinel
• Gladiator
• Guardian
• Hephaestus
• Lifesaver
• Mighty Sequoian Fire Fighter
• Redwood City Fireboat
• Sequoia
• Shepherd
Along with the 10 finalists and their families, the community is invited to join in the special ceremony unveiling the fireboat's name Saturday, August 10, 2013, 1 pm, at the Port of Redwood City, 675 Seaport Boulevard.

This will be a chance for the community to get its first look at this new MetalCraft Marine FireStorm 36 fireboat - and to see its name unveiled.

The entire cost of Redwood City's new fireboat (nearly $1 million) was entirely funded with a federal Homeland Security/Port Security Grant. The grant also pays for training of existing Fire Department staff in the operation of all aspects of this great new firefighting tool.

With this new fireboat, the City will have the ability to better respond to water emergencies in all weather conditions, use the newest technology to locate vessels in distress, and enhance our firefighting capabilities both on the shoreline and on the water. That means better, faster, and more effective protection and ability to fight fires on or near the shore, whether housing, businesses, boats, or ships. This also gives us the ability to attack fires from both land and water, which is of great benefit to the community.

As recent events have shown (the recent 6-alarm fire in Redwood City and the jet crash at SFO), it's impossible to predict when a fire or other emergency will occur - but it's clear that having sufficient equipment and resources to respond to such emergencies and save lives is of the utmost importance. Redwood City's new fireboat will be available for mutual aid response to emergencies in other communities on the Bay, enhancing the overall safety and disaster preparedness for the region, especially in the event of a major disaster. As the only fireboat in the southern San Francisco Bay, this will be a key element in emergency preparedness for our community and for our neighboring communities as well.

The Redwood City Fire Department thanks all the kids who entered their favorite names for the new fireboat, and is looking forward to hosting the special naming ceremony on Saturday, August 10, in cooperation with the Port of Redwood City.

Please give our supporters your first consideration.  Note that most listings will have the ability to click through for further information.

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