Past Online Meetings: Video & Slides

Unlocking Light Air Sailing. (PDF)

How to avoid needing me. Open water prevention and safety. (PDF)

Over the past year, Lake Pleasant has experienced a striking number of on-the-water tragedies, including deaths from drowning, hypothermia, and propeller strikes. Like all water sports, sailing is tremendous fun; but, it’s not without serious risks.

We are fortunate to welcome Peoria Fire Department’s John Keegan as our August Guest Speaker. John is not only a local first responder, but specifically trained as a Rescue Swimmer, Response Boat Operator, and Paramedic.

Based on his extensive training and hands-on experience, John will speak about preparedness and the “dos and don’ts” of emergencies. Whether you are directly involved and need help yourself, or are a bystander to an emergency, he’ll discuss how best to help yourself and first responders in a water emergency. Quoting Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” While most boaters typically don’t have plans beyond having a great day on the water, John discusses what to do if that metaphorical punch happens.

Presentation Slide Deck (PDF): Arizona Wind and Weather

For this meeting our guide will be Chelsea Carlson, a degreed meteorologist and sailor who’s now teaching online weather courses for sailors. Sea-Tactics.com She’s also the meteorologist for the US Sailing Team, so maybe she can help us inland lake sailors.
Her mission: briefly and in simple, usable terms, explain the wind on our two lakes. To help, we’ve briefed her on local conditions, sent her pictures of the obstacles on our shores, and she’s poured over Google satellite shots.

Visit Chelsea’s website at www.sea-tactics.com and check out her YouTube channel too. Here are some useful links she’s given us for local weather data:
– Free Weather Resource Library from Sea-Tactics
– Maricopa County weather station map
– University of Utah MesoWest data for the Lake Pleasant North wind sensors

Pocket Cruising Presentation Slides & Reference Links (PDF)

Phoenix resident Doug Kelch presented this topic to almost 50 members and guests. For over half-a-century, he’s raced and cruised a wide variety of sailboats, and he’s logged more pocket cruising miles than just about anyone we know. Doug discussed pocket cruising and sail camping, including boats for pocket cruising, gear and equipment, seamanship skills needed, and pocket cruising destinations, including great cruising right here in Arizona.

Doug is a native of Illinois and has lived in Phoenix for the past 10 years. He started sailing at the age of 20. For five years, Doug was an instructor at the Sailing Club of Washington. He also worked two sessions as a seamanship facilitator for renowned small boat mariner Howard Rice. Doug’s sailing credentials include racing an Interlake for two years, and a Sunfish for three years, including competing in the Sunfish Nationals. He also crewed for a year aboard a Snipe. He has sailed a variety of pocket cruisers all over the east coast, the west coast, and throughout Arizona.

At the March monthly meeting, Keith Kocher showed us how to tune that critical bit of sailing gear, the human body. He offered a functional exercise routine that addresses balance, core, and lower extremity strength for injury prevention and performance enhancement.

Keith has been a  part of the medical staff for major league baseball organizations, has helped pro baseball players around the world, and was on the Phoenix Suns medical staff for 19 years. 
He received physical therapy training from Washington University in St. Louis and has over 25 years of experience in physical therapy and optimal performance training of pro athletes. He worked with Dr. Frank Jobe, the man who performed the first “Tommy John surgery” on then-Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Tommy John who was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame. Dr. Jobe and another baseball medical legend, Dr. Lewis Yokum, let Keith use his advanced manual therapy to rehabilitate and train pro athletes.
Keith is a member of the American Shoulder and Elbow Society and he practices in Tempe. 

Voyage of a Lifetime PowerPoint (PDF)

With thousands of islands and places ranging from marine parks through old English inspired cities, the British Columbia Region is a water playland that has it all. Eagles swoop down for dinner, whales surface with curiosity and sea lions bask on the rocks. Colin gave us a deep dive into a sample itinerary among the thousands possible in the British Columbia region.

Rod Favela races and presents North U educational programs all over the country, so he has a chance to sample how other clubs are confronting the national issue of diminishing participation. We’ll tap into Rod’s enthusiasm for the sport and hear his ideas for spreading that excitement.
Rod’s won championships on everything from Sunfish to VX-1 to the Champion of Champions regatta.

Meet your AYC 2020-2021 officers. Six of the officers give a brief introduction of themselves and some share a “What you might not know about me” tidbit.

Interested in taking your racing to a new level this season? If so, get pro tips from championship racer Eduardo Cordero. Eduardo has global experience racing Sunfish and Lasers and has also raced Flying Scots and Thistles. He will share his journey and discuss tips and suggestions on improving your racing performance.

Born in Bilbao, Spain, Eduardo moved to Venezuela at a young age.  There he took up sailing aiming to be the best in the Sunfish class.  Through a focused training plan and practice regimen, he went on to dominate the Sunfish class eventually winning eight (8) Sunfish Worlds, six (6) North American Championships, two (2) South American Championships, and has twice won the Pan American Games gold medal.

At the August 11, 2020 meeting, Jim and Teresa provided us with loads of information to use in the planning of a trip to the Sea of Cortez. It is evident they spent a good deal of time in preparation for the meeting and making these resources available for our use afterward. We are extremely grateful to have the depth of their knowledge for future use in planning our own journey to this area.
Due to a bandwidth issue, the live Zoom recording is not available. However, the Pinters took the time to create a video of their slides with voiceovers. They also shared their PowerPoint notes pages with us and an extensive Resource document they created.
Video Part 1 – Cruising a Desert Sea (30 min-Slides with voice)
Video Part 2 – Cruising a Desert Sea: Extras (21 min-Slides with voice)
Transcript Part 1 – PowerPoint slides & note pages. (PDF)
Transctipt Part 2 – PowerPoint slides & note pages. (PDF)
Resource document for Cruising the Sea of Cortez. (PDF)

The Pinters have been exploring the Sea of Cortez aboard their various sailboats since joining the AYC in the late 1980’s.  Teresa, an archeologist, and Jim, a research biologist, are now both retired.  They spend part of each year living and cruising aboard their cutter rigged, Caliber 35LR. Each December usually finds them launching and provisioning their boat Pochteca in Marina San Carlos, near Guaymas, Sonora for a long season of gunkholing up and down the nearby coast and crossing to the Baja Peninsula.

Presentation Slides/Notes (PDF)

Have you ever wanted to cast off and leave it all behind?  See the world – the whole world – on a sailboat?  Lois and Gunter Hofmann did just that. They gave the heave-ho to their successful but demanding technology careers, bought a 43-foot catamaran, SV Pacific Bliss, and took off on an eight-year, swashbuckler of an adventure, traveling 34,000 nm and circumnavigating the world.  Lois went on to write three award-winning books about their journeys, one for each third of the world.

So reef that main, tighten that safety harness and ride along as Lois shares their adventure at our next monthly meeting. Lois and Gunter have presented to many yacht clubs with critical acclaim. We’re sure you’ll enjoy their story too!

For our October monthly meeting, we’ll be shifting our date and time to accommodate the busy sailing schedule of guest speaker Mark Towill, CEO and co-skipper of the 11th Hour Racing Team. Of more than a dozen teams competing in The Ocean Race 2022-23, the US has but one – the 11th Hour Team out of Newport, RI. They’re busy sailing – training hard and testing their bodies, minds, and equipment for the challenges ahead.

There will be talk about spirits, the Babylonians, Vikings, and the English. We find out what that funny wavy line is around the equator, why high noon isn’t 12 o’clock, and why the day is not 24 hours. How did those Vikings navigate the rough northern seas during long journeys across unfamiliar waters? A little background into Latitude and Longitude charts, how to use a sextant, and finding the sun using a Viking Sun Stone.

Ash has been a USCG 100 Ton Master Captain and a sailing, navigation, and navigation instructor for over 25 years. After retiring from Silicon Valley as a computer scientist, he joined the ASA education staff and is the Director of Field Operations for the relations with ASA schools and instructors worldwide.