Well, November is here…

What a terrific Halloween Party we enjoyed last Friday night.  The crew of Kathy Harris, James Bartone and Christine Kupczak, Wayne and Laurie Johnson, Rick and Petra Gilmore, Tim Petersen, Mark Nardini, Tod Klingler and Lina and Janet really outdid themselves.  The decorations and table settings were definitely a highlight.  The costumes were imaginative, the band Time Warp was great and the food spectacular.  It was a very lively and entertaining evening.

Okay, next weekend, drum-roll please… is the Installation Dinner!  (Saturday November 15th)   I hope you will all put this evening on your calendars.  It is our annual Change of Watch celebration where we honor our outgoing Commodore Winston Bumpus, recognize members who have made special contributions to the Club this year, and welcome our slate of new Officers.  This year Steve Higgs and Jeff Tachibana and company are offering a delicious menu of choices of Roast Sirloin of Beef,  Salmon.or a vegetarian entree which will no doubt be delicious. You can sign up either at the Club or click here to get more information or sign up online.

We now have placed a sign-up sheet in the Club for the Build-A- Bike event and I hope you will consider signing up for this very fun and family-friendly activity.  I have a cost of $55.00 per bike and $10.00 per helmet.   Those amounts represent average costs for various models of bikes and helmets  --  and I will try to maximize the quantity of bikes and helmets for a given number of sign-ups.  We will then all get together after the race on December 13th to put these sleek machines together.   Beer, soda and pizza will be served to stave off starvation.   We will collect sign-ups until around Thanksgiving – ordering bikes every few days.   Please call or email me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

Thanksgiving is also just around the corner.   Enjoy your time with family and friends!  And, if the opportunity arises, come on out to Angel Island, take a walk around the island and work off a bit of the Holiday.  Not that you need to, of course, but it’s an idea…

Looking farther ahead to December,  we have the Encinal Yacht Club Lighted Boat Parade on the weekend of 12/6, the General Meeting DID on 12/12, Bike Assembly on 12/13, the Children’s Holiday Party on 12/14 and the Member Holiday Party on 12/19.  Wow, that is a lot of Holiday Cheer.  I suggest you enjoy responsibly! 

See you around the club!

The Sequoia Yacht Club 2015 racing season kicked off on Saturday November 1 with Winter Series Race #1. There were 10 boats racing, 8 in the spinnaker division and 2 in the non-spinnaker division. The first race lived up to it's name and there was no doubt that winter racing is upon us.

Initially there was concern about having to sail around tugs and barges in the vicinity of the start area, but luckily the vessels being staged on each end of the start line headed off to the dredge site in the channel before the race. This may, however, be a forewarning of things to come this winter.

Tim Anto, the Winter Fleet Captain called an 8.98 mile course out to the San Mateo Bridge followed by legs that took the fleet back to the finish line by rounding marks X, 12 and Y.

The race started on-time at 13:30 with winds around 10-12 knots. Most racers chose to stay in the channel on the way to the windward mark to take advantage of the ebb current and their boats were pointed as high as possible in an attempt to avoid additional tacks. As is typical of winter races, however, the winds were fickle, at times relatively calm, and often shifting in direction. But when the sun went away the wind got quite gusty, at times reaching 20+ knots.

Once around the windward mark spinnakers popped in a reach to mark X. As Charlie Watt's Open 6.50 soon discovered it was also low tide and the water does indeed get shallow close to the bridge. Fast work by the crew, however, soon found them free and back in the race, rounding X and heading to 12.

The run to 12 was exciting and provided the most blustery conditions of the day. Due to atypical wind conditions rounding 12 did not require an immediate jibe to steer a course to Y, and once around Y the fleet tacked its way back to the finish.

Congratulations to Iowa (Rick Dalton) for coming in first in the non-spinnaker division, and to L2O (Alex Huang) for taking first in the spinnaker division. Congratulations also goes to Head Rush (Anja Bog) and Ohana (Dan Lockwood) for taking second and third place respectively in the spinnaker division.

Back at the club the racers ate pizza, discussed the race and made plans to improve their standings in Winter #2 on Saturday 12/13.

Since I was treasurer, nearly 5 years ago, I had hoped and researched, along with many others, for a way to automate our low-tech paper chit system with a more high-tech point-of-sale system.  Thanks to the work and perseverance of Olivia Sadlowski, and with the aid of Joanne Wright, we now have completed the first phase of our pilot program.

The first phase was to test with Board members only. For the next phase we are looking for 20 additional members to come forward and volunteer to use the system instead of the paper chits. This phase will run through to the end of the year and if all is successful, it will be available to all members to use. Once you get used to the speed and accuracy of the new system I am sure you will prefer it to filling out chits. Plus, there are so many advantages which will be of great help to saving Joanne time  (see photo above) to giving an updated readout of inventory needs for our bar manager.  All in all, this system will give us much more information while allowing us to more effectively manage the Club. In addition you will see greater detail on your monthly statement..

If you are interested in being in the pilot program for using the new system, please email me at commodore@sequoiayc.org. The first 20 members to let me know will be part of the next phase of testing.

Winston Bumpus - Commodore

On Monday night, Peter Nardini (Delegate-at-Large) and I (PICYA Director) attended the annual Pacific Inter-Club Yacht Association (PICYA) Awards Dinner at the Encinal Yacht Club. The dinner was attended by well over 100 delegates representing most of the 105 PICYA member yacht clubs from Northern California.  The Sequoia Yacht Club was honored with two awards.

We were awarded the Bay and Delta Yachtsman Award for community service. Our club has excelled this year in our outreach to the community by our participation in many worthy community events, including the Maritime Days at the San Mateo History Museum, the fabulous 4th of July float where we won first prize, the Annual Hannig Cup and our leadership in supporting Coastal Cleanup Day for yacht clubs. I was very pleased to accept this trophy and honor on behalf of the Club.

We also received recognition as a 4-Star Club based on the number of Club of the Year (COTY) points we accumulated this year. Points are earned for our generous donations to RBOC and the PICYA Foundation, along with hosting our own regional opening day and other leading activities. This recognition put us in the top 10 percent of all clubs in Northern California.

It has been a terrific year and I am very proud of our Club and its much deserved recognition.

 Winston Bumpus - Commodore

I have just learned from Joanne that there will be a memorial for Past Commodore George Wasilewski, Jr. this Sunday, November 9th, 1:00 PM at the Sequoia Yacht Club.  There will be refreshments provided.

We may need help with bartending and other assistance for this memorial. Please let me know if you would like to help. 

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