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By Deb Heisler

I’ve been briefed that on past Opening Days we’ve had dinner and a movie with popcorn, a chili competition, tacos and a Mariachi band, USCG boat inspections, and even a burn the summer flip-flops ceremony.

Well, this year, pull out and don your favorite, decorative, or plain old silly sailing socks and cover those summer, moisture-deprived dogs. Just for fun, fashion, or flamboyancy. And because I know you probably have a pair.

Opening Day cannon fire. Well, maybe not THIS cannon.

Arizona Yacht Club will hold our Opening Day Celebration on Saturday, September 21, at the Lake Pleasant Spinnaker Point Ramada. We’re dusting off the cannon and starting our opening day with a BANG!

When it was suggested we use the cannon, I had visions of large artillery mounted on wheels–so if for no other reason, I’m going in order to see and hear this mini military equivalent. (Note: Lake Pleasant security has been notified so no one panics when the blast goes off.)

The first race horn will sound at 12:30 p.m. and after racing we’ll have some food, drink (BYOB), fun, and live music. The music will be provided by The B-Sides, a two-man band of acoustic and electric guitars. Band leader and C22 sailor Steve Dolter says The B-Sides plays a selection of about 40-songs and specialize in the “B-side” of Beatles albums.

Here’s the day’s lineup:

9:30       Coffee, juice and a variety of homemade breakfast burritos from Big Joe and Bonnie
10:30     Fire the cannon – Start pistol? Nah, we have a cannon. Go big or go home!
12:30     First warning – Don’t be late.
12:35     First race starts with a cannon BOOM.
5:00     Dinner, BYOB drink, and live music. Enjoy a delicious meal and relive the day’s racing or talk about what you did over summer break. It’s all good when you’re with friends.
6:00       Prizes – You get a chance to go home with something unexpected and useful.

Come join us to kick off and celebrate another great season of AYC racing. This is for the entire club, whether you race at Lake Pleasant, Tempe Town Lake or not at all.

VOLUNTEER HELP NEEDED

Below are some areas where we need YOUR HELP. If you’re not racing in this event, please consider giving some time to make it a fun day for everyone. Call or text me at 602.214.2053 or email Rear.commodore@arizonayachtclub.org

• Dinner: Maryellen Ferring, our preeminent party planner, is leading dinner plans and needs a few helping hands.
• Show up/help with set up (9:00)
• Set up food table: Breakfast and Dinner
• Wo/Man the Grill (Martin Lorch- AKA Grill Master needs a helper)
• Monitor trash & recycling containers (Yes, we’ll recycle at this event)
• Clean up: including taking down tables/chairs and help reloading the trailer

The poster for the inspirational movie “Maiden”

Have you seen the movie Maiden? It’s currently showing at the Harken’s theater at Fashion Square and it’s a truly inspirational and entertaining documentary tracing the 1989-1990 all-women’s campaign in the Whitbread Around-the-World race.

A boatload of women challenged the men in this grueling event, not only finishing the race, but coming in second in their division.

How do we get more girls and women into sailing? Here are two efforts to do that.

The first is simple. Fill out a survey, whether you’re a man or woman. Here’s the link. The survey is being conducted by the World Sailing Trust and it aims to determine how both men and women are introduced to the sport.

As they put it, “Its aim is to allow us to understand more about the realities of women and girls in sailing: what attracts them, what puts them off, why they drop out, the perceived and real barriers to participation that they might face and how this varies across countries, ages, classes and competition and different elements of the sport – racing vs recreational vs officials and, how we can increase women and girls’ participation.”

The second is Debbie Huntsman’s National Women’s Sailing Association, which joining with Tumble Weed Sailing to put on a WOWZR regatta November 1-3 (the weekend after AYC’s Ruth Beals Cup Regatta). Their event includes seminars and coaching culminating in racing.

Lido 14s racing in 1962. Click to see a bigger view.

Arizona Highways magazine in the 1960s was at the height of its fame: a lavish, glossy publication that was the state’s answer to Life magazine, with splendid color photographs shot with large format film cameras. In September of 1962, Arizona Highways chose to feature the nascent Arizona Yacht Club and Arizona sailing on the cover and in an extensive inside article.

Lori Reger found a copy of the magazine among our dusty treasures and then tracked down a digital copy in the Arizona Highways archives. Here it is as a slimmed-down PDF with the sailing section extracted.

Besides the high-production photographs, there are a few hundred words of description by writer Bill Dawn, most of them steam heated. If the copy had been acting, we’d say it was chewing the scenery. Here’s a short excerpt:

“Regattas are held every other week from September to May and the rock bound Arizonan dumps the desert sand from his boots and trades them for the crepe soled shoes of the sailor. The heat of the desert is exchanged for the heat of competition, the quiet air of the city for the cooling breeze that drifts above the water. The week’s tensions of profession or trade are quickly absorbed, becoming lost in the relaxed atmosphere and easy laughter of the week-end sailors.”

There’s also some actual description of Arizona sailing, when AYC racing was being done mostly in Lido 14s at Canyon Lake and sometimes at Saguaro and Roosevelt. Lake Pleasant then was much smaller and hard to reach.

They wrote, “Much is being done to improve Lake Pleasant, on the Agua Fria River. Heretofore the trip was a rugged one, the road very bad, the ‘natural launching ramp’ bumpy and steep, and the level of the lake uncertain. The brave one who made the trip, towing his sailboat through the heat and dust over the rough road could be certain of a wonderful sail on a beautiful, uncrowded waterway, surrounded here, not by steep walls, but by gentle, rolling hills and the same strange spectacle of desert landscape surrounding a body of water.”

There’s also a description of a Phoenix sailor who did very well in what they called the “Trans-Pac.”

“Owned and skippered by A. B. “Bob” Robbs, Jr., Phoenix, Arizona businessman, ‘Nam Sang’ completed the grueling 2,225 mile run from Los Angeles to Honolulu in 10 days, 16 hours, 26 minutes and 25 seconds. She finished at night amid the glare of searchlights playing back and forth across the Basin. The victory, bringing Robbs and his exhausted but exhilarated crew the Class A and overall fleet handicap championships, came over a fleet of 41 entrants.”

Arizona sailing making history 57 years ago.

“Nam Sang” in the Transpac from Arizona Highways magazine.

By Debbie Heisler

Note: New location for the monthly meeting. Information below.

Debbie and Emory Heisler in full-foul on one of their deliveries.

Have you ever dreamed of sailing across big blue oceans? What about being in total command of your own vessel for a vacation to the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the South Pacific, or other areas of the world? Or getting paid to drive a charter boat for someone as a captain or just being crew? It’s all possible with a little planning and a sense of adventure.

Emory and I will share photos and stories of all the “fun” we had during our Fall 2017 and Spring 2018 Atlantic Coast to Caribbean (and back and back and back again) sailboat delivery and sailing adventures. Newport, RI. City Island, NY. Chesapeake Bay. The Bahamas. Florida. Puerto Rico. BVIs. Bermuda… and back. Together we sailed over 5000 nm in six months on other people’s boats. Emory will also share his experience and guidance about the USCG Captain’s licensing process. It’s sure to be both fun and informative.

The meeting is Tuesday, July 9, beginning at 7pm (but arrive early for dinner). Monthly meetings are now held at R.T. O’Sullivans at the corner of Hayden and Thomas. Both members and non-members are welcome to attend.

Debbie’s favorite boat during their trips along the East Coast, a Vagabond 47 ketch.

Viper 640 on Lake Pleasant

I know you are hiding from the heat of the Summers in Arizona, but just as we have some of our hottest days, we want to get you thinking about this year’s sailing season!

First off…if you don’t own a boat, the AYC offers the Adopt-A-Boat Program at Tempe Town Lake so members can use an Arizona Sailing Foundation Capri 14.2 or Laser to race. Up at Lake Pleasant, Tiller and Kites now has an ocean of RACING boats to charter for the racing series! Whether you and your friends want to get on one of their many J24s and race in Spin or Non-Spin fleet, or you want to each charter a Coronado 15 and make up your own fleet, the choice is yours! Of course you will have to prove your skill during a check out sail…wait, what? You don’t know how to sail?

NO PROBLEM! The Arizona Sailing Foundation has announced it’s fall Learn to Sail Schedule. Adults learn in the Capri 14.2 and Kids start out in the Optimist on Tempe Town Lake. More advanced Juniors can continue to build their skills in the Opti, O’Pen Bic, or even Laser in our “MORE Junior Sailing” program.

Done that already or (heaven forbid) dinghies just not your thing? The Sailboat Shop at Lake Pleasant’s Scorpion Bay Marina and Go Sail Arizona at Pleasant Harbor Marina both offer ASA approved courses in keelboats. Tillers and Kites is an International Yacht Training School offering certification from dinghies all the way up through running spinnaker on a keelboat. And for combination of online-learning with on-the-water practical skill building check out Southwest Sailing and their NauticEd sailing education program.

We know everyone has a busy schedule, but plan now to make sailing one of the “big rocks” in your calendar that you plan everything else around!

John Mayall & Crew Joyce on Tempe Town Lake

Here’s a problem we don’t often have on full-size boats. Photo: Mike Ferring

Is a Mallard on starboard an obstruction? Good thing the ducks on Estrella South Lake know how to paddle out of the way of fast-closing serious racers, close-hauled and chasing toward the windward mark.

The wind was light on this Saturday morning when a dozen SeaWind radio-controlled boats lined up for the start at a regatta presented by the West Valley R/C Mariners. In spite of the light stuff, the boats moved quite well on a w/l course roughly 40 yards long.

Multi-time AYC Club Champion Al Lehman Jr. is a recent convert to RC racing. Surprise: he’s good at it. Photo: Mike Ferring

On the shore, the dozen sailors and a couple race officers shuffled to keep pace with the boats and expertly trim sails and steer from a distance—a job made especially difficult with shifting wisps of breeze. No one spoke (or shouted at his crew). It felt like a tense championship tennis match.

Four of those sailors were AYC members: Al Lehman and Al Junior, Dave Nowak, and Dean Johnson (who recently joined AYC and races an Andrews Governor’s Cup 21 in PHRF Spin).

Dean says he’s been RC racing a decade or more and he’s an RC winner. Al Jr told us he picked up the hobby about 1½ years ago and loves it. As you probably know, Al is a champion sailor in full-size boats and has adapted quickly to RC. He said he finished third in the national championships in Sacramento last year.

Al and Al Jr are attracted to how easy it is to go sailing with RC: it’s cheap, takes no time to rig, and you can sail in the nearest pond. “Under $100 for sails,” Al Jr smiles. Try that with your big boat.

They explain that the one-meter SeaWind is just one of a number of RC boats being raced and point to the DragonFlite 95 as an easy-entry, up-and-coming class. Here’s more.

At the end of the day, Al Jr had won the regatta with Dean Johnson in second.

Jed Korthals reported to the racers that, “In race ten the windward mark mysteriously moved closer to the offset mark. It turns out that a fairly large turtle, with its foot caught on a fish hook and line, had entangled the windward mark. We were able to reel it in, free the turtle from its trapped leg, and reset the mark. Everyone, especially the turtle, seemed happy.”

Photos by Mike Ferring:

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Junior’s Starting and 14.2s dialing up! (Photo Credit: Paul Wojtczak)

The final race day at TTL saw a mix of knock down wind to “drifting with purpose” wind. Juniors got in 6 races while the C14.2’s got 4 and the Portsmouth fleet complete 3 rounds of the marks.

Congratulations to our TTL season winners:

Portsmouth: Clay Poulson
C14.2: Dave Haggart
Laser: Joel Hurley
Junior Fleet: Colin Gibbs

See all the race results and the final combined scores on the Results Page.

By Debbie Huntsman

A whole lotta luffin’ at the LAST meeting. Graphic: Debbie Huntsman

National Women’s Sailing Association presents: L.A.S.T. (Learn About Sailing Things)

Join the new monthly program at Lake Pleasant. Designed to serve as sailing education for women in a social setting, we will address a wide variety of subjects tailored to the group. (We want you to tell us what you want to learn about sailing!) You must sign up at the National Women’s Sailing Association site monthly to assure your spot.

April 28, 3-5 pm 
Step Aboard
Learn about the boat, how things work, basic crew duties and steps to take before leaving the dock. Attendees should bring a life jacket (we have a few loaners) and dress for sailing with non-skid, non-marking, closed toed shoes.

May TBD
Rules of the Road for Sailors
Understanding navigation rules is essential knowledge for all sailors. We will learn the basics then open the book to see the more complex.

June TBD
What’s in Your Sailing Purse? 
Things to bring, their purpose and use and things to leave home or in your vehicle.

We will learn about sailing things, socialize and enjoy refreshments courtesy of Tumbleweed Sailing.