Summary, as provided by Chris McMuldroch --
We had 18 connections to our Second Thursday Cruiser Social on ZOOM and 24+ people present on camera.
The meeting got off to a slow start. Technical support was provided via cell from the office staff who was on kayak near Meadow Point buoy! She talked me through how to find the meeting schedule, and open the correct meeting! Live and learn…
We did introductions around the room to find out what everyone has been doing recently. Cary and Tom called in from California. David Williams called in from Oregon. Scott and Karen called in from their boat in Garrison Bay San Juan Island. Paul and Erica were on their boat in Vaughn Bay, South Sound.
Several cruisers had been out day sailing and doing overnights during our isolation phase. We heard of 40 boats at Blake Island and Blakely Harbor. Four or five boats in Manzanita. A full bay of boats at Poulsbo. Over a hundred boats at Sucia in the three different bays. 4 or 5 boats in Garrison Bay. Today, Tuuli and Altair are both in the San Juans. Atalaya is in South Sound.
Our topic tonight was “Hidden Gems of Puget Sound”. There was lots of talk about places to hike to from Blakely Harbor. Also hiking from two water access points in Port Madison. I learned that there is ice cream in Brownsville. A couple of people talked about the really good Navy museum at Keyport where there is a dock which is a bit shallow for sailboats, so it is better to dinghy in. In Poulsbo, Peggy talked about the board walk and trail North along the shore from the marina. There are a couple interesting destinations along that direction. I also spoke about the shore access and road to Manzanita Park, and someone else mentioned there is a cool creek to paddle in just to the East of that access in Manzanita Bay on Bainbridge Island. We heard about South Sound locations, with comments that it is less crowded than places North of the Tacoma Narrows. Lots of people were aware of the really nice trails on Blake Island, including the perimeter trail.
Jack says there is a park on Vashon opposite Dockton next to the Girl Scout camp. I think this is the link https://vashonparks.org/jensen-point-1 I see the behind this down the road is a bigger park: Burton Acres Park.
Scott said there is are downloadable maps of the Bainbridge Island hiking trails at BIParks website. https://biparks.org/printable-maps/
Scott also talked about hiking from English Camp in Garrison Bay. He said there is a trail up Young Hill with great views over the water. https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/young-hill
There were too many other mentions for me to keep up with tonight! We have a group of people with a lot of information on places to go, and places to discover!
Towards the end of our social we reviewed our upcoming cruises.
Because state parks are open for day use, and mooring balls are open for overnight stays, I think we won’t cancel upcoming cruises. But we need to modify our expectations. In place of our normal anchor rafting we will anchor individually. Right now marinas are either closed or limited with no reservations, so those cruises are pending further developments.
Memorial Day at Mystery Bay. Three boats tonight said they are interested in going if the weather is pleasant: Maggie May, Gratitude, and Tuuli. Those Guys will not be going. The tractor parade is cancelled, so we can meet up for a hike. Also the group could decide to anchor at Fort Flagler where there is a park dock and trails across the bluffs to Admiralty Inlet. The views from the trail are beautiful and the military fortifications are interesting.
June 6-7 Blakely Rock Low Tide cruise will be with individually anchored boats, but the group can go explore the rock at low tide. Sharing food may not be advisable.
June 16-17 Blake Island Marina led by Al Johnson is still on, pending the status of the marina for overnight stays. If the marina is not open, Al will not attend, he prefers not to anchor. However, if the marina is closed, the group could anchor on the West side, and dinghy ashore for a hike. Stay tuned to the club web page for updates.
June 27-28 The Bremerton Bridge Blast fire works have been cancelled already. At this time the Port Orchard Marina guest moorage appears to be closed. So this one is pending, and could be relocated or cancelled.
July 3rd Poulsbo Fireworks. The web page says to watch for a schedule of events. So I don’t know if the fireworks are going ahead or not. It always draws huge crowds in town, at waterfront homes, and on boats at anchor. If you see some information, please let me know, so we can announce it. Again this would be a cruise with individually anchored boats.
We had a fun hour, seeing each other on camera, and talking with each other.
Talk to you all again - same time same place in June!
Best regards,
Chris
Fleet Captain Cruise
CYC Virtual Regatta Inshore racing, Not the same as being on the water, but at least it is dry and mistakes cheapBy Jared Hickman
CYC Virtual Racing page
I have been logging in and playing with my fellow Yacht Club members on the Virtual Regatta In shore app. It is so nice to get back ‘on the water’ even if it is just virtually. There is a bit of a learning curve involved, and the program has its quirks which just adds to the fun. If you imagine the various controls as commands to the crew, it really adds to the realism.
Aside from some refreshers on how not to win a race, here is what I learned about the program the last 3 race nights:
Lesson 1. The race timer is on the top of the screen, not the one in the middle.
In my very first race I thought I had the start nailed. On my approach to the start a big red count down timer started right in the middle of the screen with a target showing where I was going to be on the line. I thought what a great feature, wish I had this on the real boat. The timer read “0” right when I got to the line, nailed it! A few seconds later a large, annoying pop up appeared declaring Miss Start! That is when I realized my error, the red timer that appears in the middle of the screen during your run up to the start is your time to the line, not the official start time.
Lesson 2. You can look around
In race two, leg one I tacked to port only to be immediately T-boned by a starboard boat that was in my ‘blind spot’. Not exactly the actions you would expect out of a 30-year veteran. I did find out how the penalties work. I was immediately made into a ghost ship and my sails flogged as the system made me sit there and think about what I had done for 10 seconds. It took me till race 5 to learn lesson 2, you can zoom in and out and change the camera to look at what’s around. It is a lot easier to see if it is safe to tack when you can move your head around.
Lesson 3. The steering controls can be a bit unpredictable.
It can fail to turn the boat entirely, or more annoyingly turn it in unexpected ways. In race 3 I discovered the ‘tack’ button. Which I highly recommend using unless you like going into irons on a lot.
Once I found myself coming into the first mark in second place! Unfortunately, I was on the dreaded port lay line. I did manage to see a 1.1 boat length ‘hole’ between the 2nd and 3rd boats coming in on starboard.
“I can make that hole, and coming out in 4th is not so bad” would be my famous last words.
In my arrogance, I turned down intending to aim for the spot. Well the loose gudgeons on my rudder caused me to turn down too far and I promptly slammed into the 3rd place boat. (2 turns). After sitting in time out for 10 seconds just above the starboard lay line on port, I used the nifty tack button.
In doing so I learned the nifty tack button takes you from the angle you were on one tack to the same angle on the other. As I was sailing about 90 degrees off the wind on port, I tacked and the boat immediate headed down to 90 AWA on starboard. Unfortunately, there was a boat occupying that spot. (4 turns). After I sat in my well-earned third time out, I sheeted in and promptly slammed into the boat ahead of me when a jammed main sheet failed to allow the boat to turn down as I hoped. (6 turns). This time I had a great view of the fleet rounding the mark as I sat in time out. It was nice to see the entire fleet ahead of me on the downwind, makes it easy to see what’s going on around the course. I spent the rest of that race wondering if I needed to shred my Judge certificate.
Lesson 4. connectivity and computer speed can be a real game changer
One night I was playing the game, my wife was streaming an action movie, and someone in the household thought it would be a great idea to have hundreds of opened web pages on their PC, all buffering and downloading content and ads. Wisely, the router knew to give priority to my wife, Unfortunately, maybe because it is holding a grudge against me, it put my data at the bottom of the pile.
This spotty connection can cause a delay in when commands are executed, to compound the issue, commands cannot be undone.
On more than one occasion I would give the command to turn and nothing would happen. I would do it again, nothing. So, the frustrated three-year-old child inside me would take over and slam the rudder hard over by wailing on the turn button. A few agonizing seconds later the connection would reestablish. But those hundreds of key stocks would still be logged, so my boat would start turning in a tight spiral of death. Taking out the mark and most of the fleet while I was at it.
This would infuriate the three-year-old child still at the helm, the tiller would be slammed the other way in order to try and stop. This would mean that once all the commands for turning to port were met (usually after a 1080), all the new commands to starboard would start and I would start spinning uncontrollably the other way.
All these needless maneuvers would put me pretty deep in the fleet, combined with the minute or so of penalties tacked on top would usually place me solidly in the back. Good news is I had enough time to go to the fridge and get a treat to calm the three-year-old back into a 43-year-old.
I highly recommend taking the following steps. Do not run the skype meeting and the Virtual regatta program on the same machine and make sure your connectivity is not being over taxed in the household. I did this last night and things went a lot better.
Lesson 5. the crew (computer) responds to your requests no matter how stupid they are.
On a far too regular basis while going upwind I would accidentally push the set/douse spinnaker button instead of the tack button. By keying in the wrong command, instead of yelling “Tacking” my virtual skipper would yell “Hoist” which would result in the crew (computer) executing the order, no matter how much I would yell STOP, BELAY THAT ORDER, YOU BLOODY MORONS.
As I watched the kite, and my dreams of victory, go to the top of the mast while beating upwind, I had no choice but to take it. It was fun explaining on the chat why the first-place boat was suddenly putting the kite up and down and spinning circles of frustration. All I could do is explain that my bowman needed a talking to. A fellow competitor said “You must be playing Virtual Regatta”, a phrase that would explain so much…
Lesson 6. the umpires on the water need some more practice.
I once I found myself in second place going around the mark onto the final downwind leg within striking distance of first place! “I know how to handle this” could be heard in my internal soundtrack.
Third place was over 100 yards back, I had some time to engage. I started sitting on the first-place boats air, keeping a third eye out for the third-place boat to make sure I was not going to give up my hard fought second. The covering was working great, the two of us played the familiar dance and I soon found myself overlapped to windward and passing. Like a good little champion, the other boat luffed and I reacted. When we both came down again, I got greedy and narrowed the gap. I could hear the match umpires saying, “All on me” and pointing out I put my-self there.
With 3rd place still 100 yards back, the first-place boat came at me again. This time I was too slow to react and we hit.
I could sense the umpires grabbing the penalty flag. While waiting for my time out to start and securing the dunce cap, I noticed the other boat went ghost and stopped. The umpires penalized the wrong boat!
Knowing that was not right, I did the seaman like thing and started doing turns until the other boat was out of jail and free to run. Then I followed them to the finish. Luckily third place was back enough I still earned 2nd, but it was close.
In that incident I also learned a virtual Star boat can make 2 turns REALLY fast. If I had done it that quick in the real world, I might be ordering a new mast today.
I am hooked, and plan on being there every night the club hosts. Kudos to those who continually give me a spanking, Flying Lili, Hair of the Dog, Hit ‘em Hardier, I’m talking to you. Fellow sailing enthusiasts, come join us for the fun, the more the merrier. Look for me on the ‘virtual’ water under the Pseudo, Cupcake77.
Racing Update: It appears we are getting closer to resuming racing albeit we are not quite there yet. We are staying on top of the news and guidance from the Governor's Office as well as local health officials and are looking forward to resuming racing operations in the near future. Given the crisis has taken many turns we've decided to provide everyone with a two week "heads up" notice when we'll be restarting. This should give you and our volunteer and professional staff time to prepare to get back out on the water. And so we don't keep folks guessing over the coming few days we are formally cancelling PSSR for the weekend of May 16/17. For Matthew Wood and his team the rolling start provides the necessary time to draft and work out new procedures, which we've started to develop. We ask for your ongoing patience and understanding while together we navigate returning to our sport and with the health and safety of the broader community on the top of our minds.
I look forward to getting back out racing on the Lake and Sound and competing with many of you just as soon as practical.
Take Care,
David Barnes
By Mark Philiposian
CYC Seattle’s “Virtual Lake Fleet” held a two-day regatta April 21st to 22nd, bringing together some of the best keyboard talent CYC has to offer. Organized by Virtual PRO and Staff Commodore Jakob Lichtenberg, this event brought together some of CYC’s finest virtual sailors. Jakob ably coordinated the event via Skype call, which made the event as much of a social gathering as a competitive event, and very fun!
The sailors worked through some of the, let’s say, peculiarities of the Virtual Regatta (VR) platform, which is visually stunning. VR offers world venues such as Kiel, Portsmouth, Mallorca, and Sydney! Keyboard controls were a bit twitchy, either vastly understeering or oversteering. There were a lot of “S” curved wakes in the water! It wouldn’t be a regatta without a bunch of whining about rules, and VR’s rules engine provided ample opportunity for whining! Once the fleet got used to the rules engine and controls, the focus was on fellowship and fun.
Overall, put simply-everyone had a GREAT time thanks to the gracious and well thought out organization by Jakob. The fleet grew from 7 sailors on Tuesday to 10 on Wednesday!
Results (Top 3):
Day 1/Race 1: 1. notDjinn 2. Crunchy 3. Underdog
Day 1/Race 2: 1. HOTD 2. Underdog 3. Crunchy
Day 1/Race 3: 1. HOTD 2. Capn Bly 3. Rabbidous
Day 2/Race 1: 1. Bill Tailor 2. Rabbidous 3. Underdog
Day 2/Race 2: 1. HOTD 2. Capn Bly 3. Rabbidous
Day 2/Race 3: 1. HOTD 2. Underdog 3. Mata Hari
Day 2/Race 4: 1. Rabbidous 2. HOTD 3. Flying Lili Monster
Day 2/Race 5: 1. Mata Hari 2. Rabbidous 3. HOTD
(Race 5 was a real barn-burner with everyone getting great starts and a tight pack at the top mark!)
Join the Social and Education Committee
The Social and Education Committee is looking for new members. The social engagement between us members is one of the most critical aspects of what makes CYC what it is. Last year the committee hosted 100+ fun events, including special events like the Maiden talk, weekly events like our wonderful Monday Lunch, and our Women's Sailing Spring Series. If you are interested in joining please reach out to Teri Evernden (nuitconsulting@gmail.com) or to Staff Commodore Jakob Lichtenberg (jakob.lichtenberg@outlook.com).
Join the Nominating and Elections Committee
The Nominating and Elections committee is one of the permanent committees introduced in our bylaws. The committee is responsible for carrying out the nomination and election procedures and we are looking for members in preparation of our search for a great 2021 board. We would love to get fresh energy and diverse people into the committee. If you are interested in joining us please reach out to Staff Commodore Jakob Lichtenberg (jakob.lichtenberg@outlook.com).
The paving project associated with the restroom project is about to get under way. The first section to be repaved is the north parking lot (adjacent to the North Dry Moorage Yard) and that work will start Monday 4/7 and conclude 4/17. Impacts for this phase are limited and customers with boats in the dry storage yard will continue to have access to their boats and jib cranes for launching. They just will not be able to park in the north lot. North Dry Moorage Customers might opt to park in lot in front CYC, but launching activities are fairly slow right now.
Starting on April 20th and continuing through May 1st, the parking lot in front of CYC will be receiving an asphalt overlay as part of a marina-wide repaving project. Specifically, the area being repaved is roughly described as area between Shilshole’s north entrance (by CYC) and its second entrance (from the north) near the M-6 restroom building.
The area being repaved will be cordoned off during the two week work period, so customers accustomed to parking there will need to use SBM’s north parking lot (by the Dry Moorage Yard) or the parking lots south of the M-6 Restroom Building.
Please contact Shilshole Bay Marina staff for questions or concerns.
206-787-3006
206-601-4089
Collision of J-Boats (00:51)
American Magic (America’s Cup) in Pensacola (01:27)
CYC Racing Community –
Not a real surprise at this point we’re going ahead with cancelling the Three Tree Point Race scheduled for the following Saturday, March 28th. Forgive us for being eternal optimists last weekend when we were holding out hope of resuming racing anytime soon.
At the request of government and health officials we are postponing racing through the end of April. Subject to further guidance and the evolving situation we are planning to resume racing on Tuesday, May 5th. The word “postpone” should offer some encouragement to everyone as we intend to do our level best to both resume getting back out on the water as well as rescheduling as many races as practical. We acknowledge that the corona-virus is affecting the entire racing community and we are actively communicating and cooperating with other clubs in the region.
As Commodore, I want to personally thank Matthew Wood, the CYC Executive Team, along with Cindy and Aryn for their support in navigating through our current challenges. I also want to thank many of you who have reached out in support of our decisions.
We hope that you are all taking care!
CYC Commodore
Matthew Wood
CYC Chairman Fleet Race
Cindy Barrett
CYC Business Manager
CYC Members
Following the evolving news over the weekend and guidance from public health officials we have made the difficult decisions to:
Many of us are processing this news in real time and with mixed emotions, getting out on the water and participating in the sport we love with friends and family is something we would all rather be doing. We will continue to adhere to guidance from our public health officials and look forward to resuming operations at the right time.
As a non-profit that is mission based we also plan our budget and operations out well in advance and have limited flexibility to respond to and absorb events of this magnitude. If you are willing and able to consider your registration for races or social events as a donation to help support the club's operations during this difficult time that would be greatly appreciated and that is what I am going to do. This is inline with requests coming from other non-profits to their members. If you would like a refund we respect that as well and will process it for you, please contact the office.
Our goal is to resume racing, events, and operations as soon as safe and practical. We will provide an update on the status of the upcoming Three Tree Point Race by Monday, March 23rd. We appreciate your understanding during these difficult times. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to any of us directly.
Take care everyone we look forward to seeing you all as soon as feasible.
Best -
David Barnes CYC Commodore (206) 290-3345
Matthew Wood CYC Chairman Fleet Race (206) 501-8971
Cindy Barrett CYC Business Manager (206) 789-1919
CYC Members,
As a non-profit that is mission based we also plan our budget and operations out well in advance and have limited flexibility to respond to and absorb events of this magnitude. If you are willing and able to consider your registration for races or social events as a donation to help support the club's operations during this difficult time that would be greatly appreciated and that is what I am going to do. This is a inline with requests coming from other non-profits to their members. If you would like a refund we respect that as well and will process it for you, please contact the office.
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Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle7755 Seaview Ave NW Seattle WA 98117(206) 789-1919 (Main line)
(206) 402-6870 (Juniors)
office@cycseattle.org
juniorsprogram@cycseattle.org
47° 41.14' N 122° 24.22' W
