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September 2017Volume 89, Number 9

Double Angle FinishCommodore’s Report

Santa Cruz Yacht Club membership means being associated with a club which is filled with people who have at least one thing in common: love of boat-ing. I and many other members have derived incred-ible benefit from being yacht club members. I would like to share some of the benefits I have experienced and witnessed. Shortly after I joined the club, Lisa and I went to a Friday night dinner. We did not know many people so we sat with some “older people” at a table

for dinner. As we all introduced ourselves, the gentle-man sitting across the table introduced himself as Ernie Rideout. I could not believe I was sitting across the table from a true sailing legend! Needless to say, I was awe struck and hung on his every word. Many other friends have had similar experiences through the years listening intently as more experienced members share their experiences about sailing. Whether cruising or racing, there is a huge resource of information from fellow SCYC members. As if these personal conversations were not enough, we have the WISS (Wednesday Informational

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September 2017 Santa Cruz YaCht Club Spinnaker

Sailing Seminars) on Wednesday evening in the winter when Wednesday night sailing is not happening. John Mizel does a fantastic job arranging guest speakers for these pre-sentations. These events are open to nonmembers, but as a member you get notified of the event. I have learned a lot from the WISS seminars. Membership at SCYC often reminds me of the old TV sit com “Cheers”. The theme song for this program had the lingo “everybody knows your name”. I get the same feeling every time I come to the club. It is a very friendly environment and always fun to be there. We have many so-cial events throughout the year to nourish these friendships. Santa Cruz is known in the sailing world as an outstanding sailing venue and the club is known for putting on incredible regattas. If you are into sailing, there is no better place to call your club. I am proud to be a small part of such a renowned club. You can sail with friends on your own boat your whole life and find yourself in a rut with little improvement in your abilities. To really increase your learning, sail on multiple boats with multiple people. Guaranteed, you will learn from every different person and boat you sail on. The easiest way to sail on multiple boats with a variety of sail-ors is be a club member. The question is sometimes considered: Sailing is my passion, but my spouse does not care for it at all. Why would I join the club? I had these same feelings before I joined. After I joined, I was surprised that there are many couples who do not share the same interest in sailing. De-spite this difference, the non-boating partner still develops friendships and enjoys coming to the club. Traveling and visiting other clubs is another ben-efit. I arrived early to the club one morning for a skippers’ meeting for a regatta. There was a stranger on the dock. I introduced myself to him and he said he was visiting from a club back East and had heard there was going to be a

regatta and wondered if anyone needed crew. I said I would see what I could do. At the end of the skip-pers’ meeting, I introduced the stranger and said he was looking to crew. None other than Bill Lee offered him a spot. I do not know if this visitor had any idea he was going to sail with Bill Lee on the legendary Merlin. This unlikely occurrence would not have happened if the visitor was not a club member at home. I was at a recent social event and a visitor entered the club and introduced himself to me. He was a member of a club in Austin, Texas and wanted to know if I knew anyone with a boat he could sail on. He joined us for a Tuesday night sail and also for the Big Brothers Big Sisters regatta. We both found new friends. Who knows? I may visit Austin sometime for him to introduce me to lake sailing. In my personal travels I have had incredible experiences only made possible because of my yacht club membership. A few years ago, I thought I had experienced the ultimate being able to tour the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. When I proudly presented their burgee to Greg, he said he already had one. There was another SCYC member there at the same time helping on the committee boat for the regatta I had watched from shore. Kudos to the other SCYC mem-ber that got even more from his club membership than I. NOTE: If travelling and planning to visit another yacht club, get a letter of introduction from Greg. It also helps to email them in advance, so they know you are coming.

I am an active proponent of club membership for those whoI believe can benefit from it. I real-ize this whole piece is preaching to the choir, but I know we all have friends who could benefit from being a member of SCYC. If you share the ideas in this piece with them, maybe they will see the ben-efits of joining also.

Barry KeelerCommodore

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From the Vice Commodore

Is it September already? Where does the time go? Out on the water there have been some excellent wind conditions and Monterey Bay is alive with sea life. Have you seen the whales and shearwater sea birds? Remember, there’s only 9 Wednesday night sailing and BBQ’s to go before the time changes so don’t delay. Let’s go sailing. The Yacht Club hosted another successful Day on the Bay Regatta (this year was the 25th annual) with perfect sailing conditions and a fun party afterwards. Once again the racing was close with Elixyr taking first place in the big boat division, Rio first place in the spinnaker division, Sailing Pair a Dice first in the jib and main division and Gandalf in the Sponsors division. Congratulations to all the skippers and crew who par-ticipated. And special congratulations to Staff Commo-dore Bob DeWitt who was awarded the Volunteer of the Year award by Big Brothers Big Sisters. Bob not only started this club sponsored community event 25 years ago, but has been the club’s organizer every year since. Well done, Bob. Now that Merlin and Buena Sera are back in their slips from Hawaii, congratulations to owners Bill Lee and Ed Marez and their crews for a successful Transpac. While still in Hawaii, Bill organized a day sail on Merlin for Junior Sailors from the Waikiki, Ha-waii and Kaneohe YC’s with each Junior taking a turn at the helm. Who knows, maybe one of those Juniors will be onboard a Transpac winner someday. I hope you didn’t miss the free wine tasting and potluck on Saturday, August 19th after the One Design races. These excellent wines were from the Santa Cruz County Fair including the gold and silver winners. Thank you, Charlie Rice, for organizing this tasting again this year and to Ashley Basanese and De Schuy-ler for organizing the appetizers.

With the heavy rains this winter, the trees at the Club got a bit overgrown. We hired a local tree service to come in for some pruning and the results are excellent. We now have a panoramic view of the Bay and harbor. On a recent Wednesday evening, while out on the deck, I could even see some whales breaching Next time you’re at the Club, be sure to check out the view.

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Special thanks Matt Lezin for donating some leather to reupholster our cocktail chairs and to John Ryan & Jennifer for completing the job. Also a thank you to Chris Berge for helping with electrical work at the Club. Your donation of time and expertise is greatly appreciated. Are you receiving the weekly email blasts from the Yacht Club? These go out every Tuesday and contain valuable information of what’s happening at the Club that week and month. Some items are a reminder of scheduled events but many times there’s something new happening. So don’t miss out, send your email address to Greg. See you at the Club or on the water.

Joe AltmannVice Commodore

Flag officers Joe Altmann, Ashley Basanese & Barry Keeler

Rear Commodore

Summer has been an exciting time at the club. We celebrated the annual Luau this past month, which is always a big hit with a live band, and food catered by Fresh Prep. Big thanks to Tim Gilmore and Barbara Booth for helping setup, and Jen for making special mixed drinks. We followed that with another big event for the club. The 25th annual Big Brothers and Big Sisters Regatta. With 36 boats entered into the Regatta and over 300 people in attendance for the post race dinner, this event shows the positive impact our club can have

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A special thank you and a big congratulations to Bob DeWitt for heading up this event for 25 years, and earning himself the first annual “BBBS Robert DeWitt Volunteer of the Year Award” in honor of his efforts! With summer break coming to an end, we will have a brief break in the social calendar. We encourage everyone to come and support the Corinthians at the an-nual Prime Rib Dinner Fundraiser, September 30th. This is a great event that supports the Corinthians Program. It is not too late to get involved in social events for the year. Please feel free to email me anytime if you would like to volunteer or simply give feedback on events.

Ashley BasaneseRear [email protected]

Upcoming SCYC Events Calendar

WindjammersSeptember 1, 2

Santana 22 Team RacingSeptember 9

West Marine Fun RegattaSeptember 9

Fall One Design #2September 16

Melges 24 PCC’sSeptember 16, 17

Jack & JillSeptember 23

Fall SCORE #2September 24

Catalina Regatta / BBQSeptember 26

Prime Rib DinnerSeptember 30

Boat Safety ClassSeptember 31, October 1

in the community. Thank you to all who attended to support such a wonderful cause. Big Brothers was my debut skipper race. Below is a photo that was taken of us racing downwind.

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SCYC El Toro sailors compete in ETIYRA NA’s held at Richmond Yacht Club

Sailing at the birthplace of a one-design fleet is always a little better. The El Toro was invented at the RYC in 1945 and the club did not disappoint the forty-two participants in the 2017 NA’s held there on August 3-5. PRO Paul Disairo carefully chose between three very different venues to give the fleet their money’s worth and more. Day one was held in the lee (barely) of Brooks Island. The ET fleets were challenged by 16 to 18 knot breeze and choppy swells. Day two and three were held in Keller’s Cove. Friday was a lot like Thursday with medium to heavy breeze while Saturday was three to five knot picnic for the lighter members of the fleet. Attest-ing to the joy of ET sailing, nine boats were shipped to the event from Oahu, HI and sailed by members of the Kaneohe, Waikiki and Pearl Harbor Yacht Club. SCYC junior Kyle Schaefer finished in a three-way tie with two Hawaiian skippers by bulleting the sixth and final race of the series (all that Pinto Lake training sure did pay off in lighter air.) The junior division was won by Waikiki YC junior, Max Roth. Finishing fifth, fourteenth and eighteenth from SCYC were Kyra Phelan, JT Long and Michael Yang-Murray. No small feat as these juniors

sailed in winds that caused some senior sailors to head for the barn on days one and two. Of the SCYC se-niors, Tufts collegiate sailor, Charlotte Lenz, wrangled with the ET elite and finished third for the regatta behind Jesse Andrews (University of Hawaii sailing coach and winner of the 2015 ET NA’s held at SCYC) and Sandy Park from the Waikiki YC. Finishing seventh and eighteenth respectively from SC were John Pacholski and Tom Burden. A hearty thanks to regatta coordina-tor, Buzz Blackett of RYC, who did a yeoman job of coordinating shipment of the Hawaiian boats and the housing for the Hawaiian sailors (Buzz turned his home into a defacto junior sailor dormitory for the event.) Full results for regatta may be viewed on Regatta Network.

John Pacholski

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Fall racing has started to swing into action

On August 19 One Design racers opened up fall racing with some good conditions and tight racing. Mis-tress Quickly leads the SC27 fleet after the first weekend and Mark Langer leads the Santana 22’s Twenty One 5O5’s kicked off a 3 day Pacific Coast Championships on Aug 25. Boats came from as far away as Washington, Oregon, and Southern Cal, and were treated to our signature Santa Cruz Westerly Conditions for most of the weekend. Four World Champions com-peted for top finishes in the 5O5’s, and it was a strong fleet showing from top to bottom. Mike Martin from St. Fran-cis edged out SCYC’s Mike Holt after 10 intense races. On Saturday, 10 Lasers joined the 5O5’s for a two day Laser NORCAL championships. The Laser NOR-CAL’s is the longest running West Coast Laser Event and the fleet is always interested in returning to this SCYC hosted event. After six races Tracy Usher from St. Francis beat out SCYC’s Peter Phelan in the last race tie-breaker. There was thick fog across the course near Pt. Santa Cruz on Saturday afternoon and the 5O5’s and

Lasers had a careful eye out for breaching whales that dotted the course.

The keel boats were also busy on the Aug 26-27 weekend Moore 24 held their National Championships in Richmond, and SCYC was well represented with Mooregasm, Fire and Fury Like the World Has Never Seen, Nobody’s Girl and Rocket Science competing in the windy conditions. The Double Angle race also started off wharf mark on Saturday just after noon. I’d like to apologize to all the competitors for my errors in getting this start off. After a couple of miscues the fleet got off to the course around Natural Bridges down to MBARI, and then the finish off Moss Landing. Even in the relatively light conditions Merlin was able to add another elapsed time record to its long and illustrious history. On Sunday we opened of the first weekend of SCORE with a return race from Moss Landing. The starts went better for the fleet and it was a good sail for

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Jack OtisLicensed Yacht & Ship Broker

[email protected]

J/Boats DealerSanta Cruz/Monterey Bay

1070 Marina Village Pkwy. #108Alameda, CA 94501

all boats in the building westerly. In A Fleet Buona Sera blasted out of the fog fi rst to take line and corrected time honors. In B Fleet Rio sailed a great race and took line and corrected time honors as well. Spectators on the wharf were treated to an impressive sight as the SCORE boats charged in and took their fi nish horns between Gov. Buoy and the end of the Municipal Wharf

Chris HofmannRegatta Chairperson

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Recreational Boaters of California RBOC is continuing its service to California recreational boaters by vigilantly monitoring state and national legislation affecting your boating interests. Below is a small sampling of most important accom-plishments on the behalf of California boaters. To see a summary of current important issues, read the RBOC Boater Briefs at http://www.rboc.org/boater-brief/. Contact your club’s RBOC representative, Lorenzo Rota, if you have any questions.

Call to Action for Limits on Ethanol in Gasoline to Prevent Marine Engine Damage The battle to protect your boat’s engine is not over. Right now, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is asking for comments on the amount of ethanol that must be blended into the nation’s fuel supply for 2018. While the proposed national ethanol levels are slightly lower than the 2017 mandate, boaters can expect to face higher-level ethanol fuel blends, such as E15 (15% ethanol), at more gas stations next year under the current proposal. Because of its ability to damage boat engines, federal law prohibits the use of gas blends greater than E10 (10 percent ethanol) in recreational boats. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is the 2005 law that requires the blending of biofuels such as corn-ethanol into our gasoline. To meet this govern-ment mandate, in 2010 the EPA permitted E15 (fuel

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containing up to 15% ethanol) into the marketplace, but only for model year 2001 or new automobiles. It is pro-hibited to use E15 in marine engines as well as snow-mobiles, motorcycles, small engines like lawnmowers and leaf blowers. In addition, it has been proven that E15 will damage boats engine, making it vital that E10 and ethanol free gasoline is readily available. E15 and higher ethanol blends fuel can now be found in at least 23 states, often at the very same pumps as E10 gasoline. A single sticker on the pump mixed in with all the other labels may be the only warning for E15 gasoline. This creates a dangerous potential for mis-fueling and puts boaters at risk of using fuel that will damage their engines. Please take a few moments to send a message NOW urging the EPA to lower the ethanol mandates to ensure an adequate supply of fuel that will work in your boat. You can quickly sign a BoatUS petition to Congress and the President at this link: http://cqrcengage.com/boatus/app/sign-petition?5&engagementId=265713

Lorenzo RotaRBOC Chairperson

Membership Report

Do you know someone who would like to join the club? Please print a membership application on-line, sign it as a sponsor, and give it to that friend who is considering membership. Bring them to an event. Your interest in the club is our best promotion.

Regular 430 Non-Resident 670Junior 96 Corinthian 612Life 5 Honorary 22 Total 683

Charlie Rice , De Schuyler & Michaela BaseneseMembership Committee

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New members Arlen & Mary Bergen introduced at the August Board meeting. Burgee presented by

Commodore Barry Keeler

23rd Annual Golf Tournament

Fun was had by all on Thursday, August 24 at Spring Hills Country Club. The competition was fierce and in the end Team Tunstall was victorious. With an outstanding score of 66 Team Tunstall outlasted Team Keeler 70 and Team Haase 72. The sun was blazing as Vic Martin blasted a shot onto the green within 7”10” to win the closest to the hole. Stacey Brown, Steve Smardan’s sister, crushed a ball to win the longest drive (women). Steve Hanneuse, not to be outdone, walloped a shot to win longest drive (men). Thanks to everyone who participated and I hope to see everyone next year. Mr. Tunstall will be the tournament director next year so stay tuned.

Greg HawsClub Manager

3/4 of Team Tunstall presented with the 23rd Annual SCYC Golf Tournament Trophy

Team Haase selfie

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