|
Cat TalesFebruary 2003 |
Ray VanHorn, Commodore
As we approach another year on the
Chesapeake, we continue to improve on our popular schedule of activities. Each
year the job becomes more challenging. Your Board met this month and
incorporated many of your suggestions to make 2003 another great year on the
Bay. (Ed. - See enclosed schedule.)
This year's schedule features more
scheduled events, activities associated with events and focuses on improving
our skills. In addition, if those of you willing to serve as a Captain step
forward, we can expand some of the raft-ups to 3, 4 & + day events -
perhaps even a CCYC-hosted event during the Annapolis Boat Show.
We have
increased the number of events from 10 to 15. We have addressed the request you
made to have more events in the spring and fall. We understand that no matter
how well we plan, conflicts still arise which prevent us from attending every
CCYC gathering. We hope that by scheduling more events we are addressing this
issue, and that you will have more opportunities to sail with CCYC.
Many
of you have requested that where possible, we combine activities with the
raft-up, which adds another incentive to attend. You will see that efforts have
been made to schedule events in conjunction with the Baltimore Waterfront
Festival, Chestertown Tea Party, Tilghman Island Seafood Festival, Annapolis
Fireworks, Golf in Cambridge, Crab house at Kent Narrows, St. Michaels, Sail
Boat Show Annapolis and the Annapolis Parade of Lights.
In an effort to
further improve our sailing skills and boat preparedness knowledge, we will
continue this tradition for our member meetings and Icebreaker, and add
training where possible to raft-ups when no other activity is scheduled. Again,
Captains will drive these inter-club activities, i.e. boat safety, man
overboard drill, anchoring techniques, inter-club races and male and female
boat trips.
As you can see there is a lot on the docket for 2003. You
will also observe from the schedule that Captains are the key to the success of
our sailing season. Not only will they help us with the raft-up activities, but
they will be an important beacon for approaching sailors to reach the event. We
encourage interested Captains to contact CCYC officers or our Cruise Director,
Jennifer Davis.
We also encourage you to put the member meeting on
Sunday,March 23rd on your calendar. You will have an opportunity to approve the
2003 schedule as well as gain some helpful tips on commissioning.
Here's
to a great 2003 cruising the Chesapeake!
Rich Miller, Exploring the Blue
Please make it a date to
attend the March CCYC member meeting which will be held at the Cantina D'Italia
in Annapolis on Sunday, March 23rd, beginning at 3:00 PM. The focus for this
month's meeting will be the planning of the club's raft-up events and
activities for the coming year. Come and get reacquainted with your fellow CCYC
members and share your ideas about the proposed schedule of events for the
upcoming sailing season. Based on your comments to us, we have made it our goal
this year to plan for a mix of education and fun in some of the most
interesting sailing destinations up and down the bay. Your contributions are
vital to making this a great season for CCYC!
The speaker for this
month's meeting will be Garrett Pensell, formerly the service manager and
currently the president of Tidewater Marina in Havre de Grace, Maryland. If you
attended last year's Catalina Rendezvous in Solomons Island, you may remember
Garrett's excellent presentation on sailboat maintenance. He is an extremely
knowledgeable and entertaining speaker when it comes to the care, maintenance
and enhancement of Catalina sailboats. He will be talking to us about getting
our boats ready for the summer season, and he will share with us some ideas
about the practical additions we may want to consider installing before the
hull hits the water.
The meeting will begin at 3:00 PM with drinks and
discussion of the event schedule. Our speaker will begin his presentation at
4:00 PM, and we will conclude with dinner. If you plan on attending, please
make sure to give us a quick confirmation by contacting either Cruise Director
Jennifer Davis, any CCYC officer or by email at SailCCYC@aol.com. We are
looking forward to seeing you there!
To get to the restaurant: From
Route 50 in Annapolis, take the MD-450 exit - exit number 23 - toward MD-178/
Parole. Take the MD-450 W ramp toward Crownsville. Turn slight right onto West
St. Look for and turn left onto MD-450/Defense Hwy. Cantina D'Italia will be on
your right at 126 Defense Highway. If you need to call them, their phone number
is 410-224-1330.
Rich Miller, Exploring the Blue
If you are like me, you
take a lot of pictures over the course of the sailing season. You work hard to
capture that perfect sunrise or sunset, the natural beauty of some cruising
destination or anchorage, or the smiles on the faces of family and friends.
What happens to those pictures after sailing season ends? How would you like to
have your picture become part of CCYC history and folklore? Well, it can. This
year, we will be accepting submissions of your photographic masterpieces for
inclusion in a 2004 CCYC Sailing Calendar. At the end of the season, we will
publish the submissions on the CCYC web site, and you will have an opportunity
to vote for your favorites. The twelve photographs that receive the most votes
will be packaged into a calendar that you will be able to use for marking the
dates of all of your favorite 2004 CCYC events. The calendars will be available
for sale at the end of the year.
Here is your chance to show off your
pictures and share your sailing memories with friends and family. It will also
help us to create a product that we can use to promote our club and its
activities to sailors all over the Chesapeake Bay. Pictures may be of any
tasteful subject and can be digital photographs or prints, which we will scan
and return to you. So join in the fun and submit your pictures to any CCYC
officer!
(Ed - Besides the calendar pictures, please send any
CCYC-related picture to me so I can include it on the web site. This applies
all year. For hard copy pictures, I will scan and return all pictures.)
In the last newsletter, there was an article about children and PFDs
when boating in Maryland waters. Here is some additional information if you're
boating in Virginia waters (south of Smith Island).
Skippers in the
Virginia end of the Chesapeake Bay better beware; the Coast Guard has started
enforcing the new federal life jacket law for children, The law, which applies
to Virginia but not Maryland (which has its own law in effect), requires that
children under 13 wear Coast Guard approved life jackets when under way on
recreational boats unless they are in enclosed cabins or below decks.
Violations could cost boaters fines as high as $ 1,100, though Coast Guard
spokesperson Steven Phillips of Newport News said most fines would be in the
$50 to $250 range.
The regulation took effect January 1 in Virginia and
other states that have no child life jacket laws of their own (in Maryland,
only children under 7 on boats under 21 feet in length are required to wear
life jackets).
Because life jacket laws vary widely from state to state,
the Coast Guard wrestled for months with the federal morass its own under-13
rule presented. Initially, the Coasties proposed deferring to individual
states' age requirements, but not to other conditions, such as Maryland's
boat-length provision. But that got too confusing. Coast Guard crews would be
enforcing one set of requirements and state authorities another. As a result,
the Coast Guard decided to recognize any state child life jacket law,
regardless of how much it differs from federal rules.
But Virginia
boaters should stay tuned. The new federal rule could spur the state's General
Assembly to now enact a child life jacket law of its own. Last year, the
legislators deferred action on this issue until this year.
The Coast
Guard concedes that the number of children who have drowned in boating
accidents in recent years-14 each in 1998 and 1999 and 7 in 2000-is "relatively
small," but says those deaths were avoidable. The new rule should reduce the
number further.
Rich Miller, Exploring the Blue
In an effort to keep you
updated on upcoming learning opportunities that may be of interest to you, I am
passing along this information about an upcoming seminar at Tidewater Marina in
Havre de Grace, MD on Saturday, March 1, 2003.
Sailboat Electrical
Systems
Saturday, March 1, 2003
Two Sessions
10 am - 1 pm & 1 pm
to 4 pm
Make your reservations today!
800-960-TIDE ext.
3
$25 course fee
Includes a $20 Gift Certificate for Tidewater
Marine Supply
For contact information and directions, please see
http://www.tidewatermarina.com
Tidewater Marina
100 Bourbon
Street
Havre de Grace, MD 21078