Tall Cactus Awards & Guest Speaker: Sailing West on TTL … to Jakarta
Meeting – when & where:
7 PM, Tuesday, April 12
The Grill at Rolling Hills Golf Course
1415 N Mill Ave, Tempe, AZ
Guests are always welcome!
Arrive early for dinner and beverages – we’ll mix and mingle, then at 7 PM, Commodore Deb Heisler kicks it off with club updates and new member introductions. We’ll also be announcing and awarding our Tall Cactus Regatta champions!
After that, settle-in as guest speaker Bradley Cladianos shares his fascinating journey – sailing two-thirds the way around the world, from Tempe Town Lake to the Pacific and through the Indian Ocean. Turns-out that clearing the Mill Avenue bridges was not the hardest part – not even close.
Join your AYC shipmates, friends, and our guests for a fun evening and a great presentation. See you there!
Bradley Cladianos: From Tempe Town Lake to the Indian Ocean and beyond -a sailing adventure
After arriving in Arizona for college, Bradley joined the Na Leo O’ke Kai Outrigger Canoe Club at Tempe Town Lake – a great fit for his love of the water and his Polynesian heritage. Sunday afternoons paddling at TTL also exposed Bradley to sailboats … and the Arizona Yacht Club.
After graduating ASU in 2017, and with his AYC Junior Membership card in hand, Bradley’s adventures began. Fueling his sailing dreams were AYC friends Bruce Andress and Victor Felice, who provided him with a swingkeel Cal-21, which he aptly named Cladi Kai .. Hawaiian for “Journey to the Sea”. After a little road-tripping, Cladi Kai set sail from the balmy shores of … Paducah, KY.
After many weeks adventuring south along the mid-western waterways, Cladi Kai arrived in New Orleans, greeted at the dock by AYC’s Ed and Deb Huntsman, who were then living there for Ed’s work. Now well versed in groundings and alligators, Bradley had even bigger plans. With blue water ahead, CladiKai was left for more seaworthy boats, and Bradley set sail for the Pacific and Indian Oceans. In his two years since leaving Phoenix behind, Bradley sailed from Kentucky’s waterways to Madagascar and Jakarata and beyond, with more than his share of close calls, hair-raising storms, and life-lessons along the way.
But of course, easy trips don’t make for great stories! Join us Tuesday evening!
The Grill at Rolling Hills Golf Course
The City of Tempe is permitting AYC to use The Grill for our monthly meetings. Our usage is after their normal operating hours, which means that we’ll have the facility to ourselves and that Tempe will incur added labor costs for providing after-hours kitchen and wait staff. As part of our arrangement, they ask that we generously support their staff with food and beverage orders to defray labor costs.