Established 1953 April 2017 N E W S L E T T E R PO Box 46, New Castle, DE 19720 (302) 307-3060 Editor: Nancy Martin Commodore s Corner Launch Day The official start of our sailing season, Launch Day, is right around the corner. Combine the excitement of a childhood Christmas morning with the feel-good vibe of an Amish barn raising and you get a sense of the organized chaos that is Launch Day. We will need all hands on deck so plan to be at the clubhouse at 8 a.m. on Saturday, April 29. Safety-Related Changes Two new columns have been added to the logbook: "Wind Speed Range (MPH)" and Gusts (MPH). These are mandatory items to be filled out by the keyed member who signs out the boat. The New Castle Sailing Club website home page has this information in the WindAlert section. WindAlert also has a mobile app for your smartphone. We want to ensure that you know the forecasted wind speed during the anticipated duration of your sail and weigh that information against your own and your crew's experience and ability before you decide to sail...or not. By the way, the club's website home page also has the weather forecast and weather radar by Accuweather. Be sure to check them out before hitting the road to go for a sail. Masthead flotation devices have been added to all the Flying Scots this season to help prevent the Scots from turning turtle in a capsize. These triangular-shaped soft foam devices will be attached to the main halyard for the duration of the sailing season. We don't think they will noticeably affect sailing performance but they make putting the mainsail cover on a little harder because of their bulk. Please do not try to remove them. Because the main halyards will remain attached to the mainsail, noodles will no longer be used on the Scots at the mooring (see photos). See you on Launch Day! Regards, Michael Evans Commodore Page 1 of 8
Photos from last Saturday s Scot Rigging Demonstration Page 2 of 8
News from our Vice Commodore The NCSC Board would like to encourage all members to devote an hour or two to the scheduled cleanup. Plan to stop down at Battery Park before classroom instruction and boat preparation. We have a vested interest in contributing to the maintenance of our sailing grounds. Annual New Castle Beach Cleanup Everyone is Welcome! Saturday, April 22 nd, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. (Rain or Shine) Help clean up the winter debris from the Battery Park Beach area. Wear old sturdy shoes and bring gloves Gloves and trash bags will be provided Volunteer certificates will be available Sign in at the NCSC sail house Sponsored by: New Castle Community Partnership New Castle Sailing Club For additional information contact: Barbara Cooper: vicecommodorencsc@gmail.com 302-437-5640 Irene Biggs: ibiggs@verizon.net 302-328-1709 Page 3 of 8
April 29 th Saturday Launch Lunch The big day for our boat launch is just two weeks away! We plan to celebrate with a lunch after getting the boats in the water, so put it on your calendar to help out and stay for lunch. Lunch will start at approximately 12:30 p.m., once the Beach crews have returned from their tasks. As always, I am in need of any volunteers to contribute to the lunch menu. Send me an email letting me know what you can bring. Many thanks! Barbara Cooper Vice Commodore vicecommodorencsc@gmail.com or 302-437-5640 News from our Fleet Captain We re all looking forward to Launch Day, Saturday April 29th. We re asking that all members arrive at the barn between 8 and 8:15 a.m. on that Saturday so that we can be fully prepared for starting the launch at about 9 a.m. Thistle crew should report to their Boat Captain at the barn to assist him/her in the last final preparations. The rest of the membership will be asked to show up at the barn to get assignments to assist with the various activities occurring at the barn or riverside. Please listen and assist the following key Captains coordinating Launch activities: Steve Constable, Fleet Captain, will be coordinating all activities Cathy Thompson, Barn Captain, will coordinate the trailering of the Thistles for transport to beachside Laura Fontana, Beach Captain, assisted by Don Grant, will be coordinating activities at the beach. Other key Captains helping to coordinate activities include: Mary Davis (Sails), Rich Frymoyer (Trailers), Stephen Jackson and Kurt Sokol (Centerboards), Diane DiMattia (Tillers), and Chris Annand (Rigging). Please be sure to lend a helping hand. If you find yourself not doing anything, find a Beach, Barn, or Fleet Captain and ask what you can do to help. Login to the website and click on the Fleet tab for Launch Day details and responsibilities. See you all on the morning of the 29th! Steve Constable Fleet Captain Page 4 of 8
News from our Racing Director Introduction to the 2017 Racing Program This is a quick introduction to the 2017 racing program. Since it is fundamentally no different from last season you can stop reading right now if you went out for Saturday races last year. We re opening the season with two specialty races: the Captain s Race on Sunday April 30, and the make-up 2016 DELRIPETT on Saturday, May 6. Then on Saturday, May 13, the regular season begins with the first race of the Spring Series. Details are in the club calendar on the web site. You only need to remember that the skipper s meeting is always at 9:00 a.m. (except when it s not, like for the DELRIPETT). So you want to be at the sail house at the end of Battery Park (not the club house) by about 8:30 a.m. to sign in. If you are keyed, and want to skipper a boat, you sign in as a skipper. Otherwise, you sign in as crew. Rather than go into long winded explanations here, just show up and the race committee will show you the ropes. Our race committees are specially trained to be friendly and helpful. These races are open to everybody if you aren t keyed you can still crew, and new members are encouraged to attend. Some skippers line up their crews in advance, others show up and team up with whomever is there. Amazingly, it always works. Very seldom, and I mean very, very, very seldom, do we have to turn anybody away. And then there s always room on the committee boat. The regular season, by which I mean those races that count toward the club championship, consists of two series, spring and fall, and two fleets, silver and gold. Each series consists of six races, assuming we don t have to cancel any races for weather or attendance reasons. The gold and silver fleets sail together and are scored together. The only outward differentiator is that the gold fleet contends for the club championship, and the silver fleet contends for the novice trophy. Membership in the gold fleet is based on a) results in prior years and b) my arbitrary determination. It means that the gold fleet contenders are those that take their racing way too seriously and can get a little bit over-competitive. The silver fleet contenders are more relaxed and just show up to have a good time. We actually created the silver fleet so we would have a safe space for members that are not looking for competitive pressure on a Saturday morning, but still want to learn to race a sailboat. Or to put it another way: it s OK if you screw up once in a while. Your skipper isn t contending for the club championship anyway, so you can t hurt his or her chances no matter how hard you try. Which brings me to my next point: you can only learn to crew if you show up on Saturday mornings, so you are most emphatically encouraged to do so. We all began as novices, well most Page 5 of 8
of us anyway, and both as individual sailors and as a club, we depend on people coming out to learn, so we can nurture the next generation of racers and keep the program vibrant (note that I m trying to hit all of the clichés here). The alternative, God forbid, is that we all end up sailing Flying Scots. A final point I want to make, for the umpteenth time, is that RACING MAKES YOU A BETTER AND SAFER SAILOR. So do yourself and your fellow club members a favor and show up on Saturday mornings for the club racing. The first couple of times it will feel intimidating, but pretty soon you ll commit the basic moves to muscle memory and you ll start to focus on refining your skills. And then you ll be a racer. Tilo Stahl Racing Director Page 6 of 8
Call for Race Committee Volunteers (This is a slightly sanitized version of an email that went out to the Racing mailing list.) In a couple of weeks the NCSC racing season begins, and I am trying to get a jump on race committee sign-ups. As we all know, we are a volunteer organization, and volunteering for race committee is a duty (and a privilege) that we all need to participate in. The racing program quite simply cannot exist without committee volunteers. You can sign up by going to the club website, click on Racing, then click on Race Committee Signup Sheet under the Racing Links in the left column. Pick a date, type in your name and return to the racing page and you're done. Or you can send me your name and preferred date(s), and I'll put you down for that date. Technically, service on the race committee is required for everyone who is competing for the Club Championship, but actually we need to require it of everyone who participates halfway regularly in the racing program, and even then we would only fill a fraction of the slots. So we need everyone to chip in. If I don't get enough volunteers this season I'll do what I've been threatening to do for years: implement the nuclear option and just write names into the spreadsheet and bully people into turning up. For new members (if you're still reading this you're almost certainly a new member, nobody else cares about my rants)... so anyway, if you're a new member, participating on race committee is an interesting and rewarding experience. You learn how the racing program works (setting a starting line, setting the course, starting procedures, etc.) you see the racing program from close up without getting your backside wet, and you can observe different tactics, strategies, and boat handling methods much better than when you're in a race boat, and you get to use the VHF radio. Experience is not required, because we will always pair you with an experienced member who will show you the ropes. It ain't rocket science, but the racers are always very appreciative when it's done right. In fact they're always very appreciative, even when things go a bit awry, because they ve all been there, and they know they depend on people doing it. If you want to know more about the procedures, you can find the link to Race Committee Instructions on the Racing page of the web site. So sign up early and often. You'll be a hero. Tilo Stahl Racing Director Page 7 of 8
Members Corner Please welcome the club s newest members: Tim and Linda Brasel Thanks to Dave Koppeser for referring the Brasels to our club. They have been active sailors in the past and are looking forward to re-engaging. They completed ASA 101-104 and have bareboat chartered twice. They ve also crewed for large boats on the Great Lakes for several summers. We look forward to having them share their experiences with our members. Peter Glocker and Melanie Trexler Peter and Melanie learned about the club through the Internet. They have limited sailing experience, but look forward to learning from the many experienced sailors in our club. Gina Stevens Gina would drive by the club on her way to work and wonder about us, so she Googled us and then decided to contact us. She is a novice, but looking forward to learning. She has many talents; even minor electrical skills that will be useful to the club. Welcome aboard and we look forward to sailing with you soon! Website Registration All members should register on the website (newcastlesailingclub.org). Once you are approved, you will have access to more information such as Fleet Assignments, Classroom Materials, and other related information. If you have any errors or trouble, please contact admncsc@gmail.com New Castle Sailing Club Open House Sunday, May 21, 2017 from Noon - 2:00 p.m. Please spread the news that we will be holding our Spring Open House for people interested in joining our club. We will be offering to take people out for a short sail (weather dependent) and give them the opportunity to speak to members and ask questions. Page 8 of 8