Wise words for the sailor

"Always approach a dock at the speed at which you would like to hit it."

Buoys at Lake Calhoun......Update from Brad Bourn 6th District Commissioner

Sailors and buoy holders:

Thank you for bringing your buoy installation concerns to my attention.
I too was disheartened to learn that the buoys on Calhoun and Harriet may not be available in a timely fashion, especially after such an early Spring. I have brought this issue to the attention of the Superintendent, the Lakes District Manager, and President Erwin.

Resources are being temporarily shifted to help install the buoys as quickly as possible. I have received a commitment from staff (weather permitting) that buoys will be ready on Harriet by Friday (April 30) and on Calhoun sometime on Wednesday (May 5th).

Moving forward, I will work on setting policy ensuring buoys are in the water no later than May 1st as long as ice is off the water in time.

My thanks to all of you, President Erwin, Superintendent Gurban, and staff for quickly addressing this issue.

Please forward this email to other buoy holders you may know.

Thanks for your patience and for choosing Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun to moor your boats this summer. In addition to providing a mooring space for your boat, your buoy fee helps maintain our park system and programs. Thank you for your business.

Enjoy the sailing season!

Brad Bourn
6th District Commissioner
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
612-230-6443 Ext 6
2117 West River Road
Minneapolis MN 55411

Thank you Brad Bourn - 6th District Commissioner.
Lake Calhoun Keel Boat Sailors


From Paul Hokeness - Lakes District Manager


We are realigning our crew strength and will start our buoy installation in the next couple days. If the weather cooperates and everything goes smoothly it takes us about 7 full days to install the 180 buoys at Harriet and the 139 buoys at Calhoun. Four days on Harriet and three on Calhoun.

We have all of the buoys freshly painted, the chains and parts are all on hand and the crew is geared up and ready to go. We have already installed all of the fishing and sailing docks and today we’re helping the carpenters with the wooden boat ramps (the tender ramps).

Thanks,
Paul

To all,
We are doing the best that we can with the staff that we have. Five years ago the Lakes District had 35 full-time staff, we now have 29. Because of budget cuts we haven’t hired our seasonal staff as yet. We will be bringing some of them on next week and we will probably be pulling maintenance staff out of their buildings to work on the buoys this week.

We are currently installing ramps and docks and will begin with the buoys as soon as possible.

The $400 buoy fee does not correlate with the number of staff that I have to get the job done. Early spring is enjoyable for all but it is very difficult for us keep up with all of our lake, park and athletic field demands. What I can commit to is that we will work as hard and as fast as we can to get the buoys installed.

Thanks,
Paul Hokeness
Lakes District Manager

Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board
3800 Bryant Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55409
(612) 313-7717

This is your Mother speaking.

This is your Mother speaking.

On Saturday, May 1, at 9:00am at Lake Calhoun you can give me an early Mother's Day present by assembling and launching the 420 boats and platforms. In addition to making your Mom very happy, you'll come away with a warm, fuzzy feeling after giving your time and muscle to a worthy cause (me).

And, once again, your name will be added to the LCSS honor roll of really swell people.

When you add bagels, cream cheese and coffee, how can you resist? I may even throw in the Ginzu knives. What a deal!. Wrenches, sockets (1/2", 9/16", 3/4"), and power drills are helpful additions to the tool supply.
I have two pair of chest waders for the brave snorkelers. Hope you can make it.

Thanks,
Mom Larry

Ocean-Crossing by Solo Sailor Gerry Spiess in a 10 foot Sailboat

Ocean-Crossing Solo Sailor Gerry Spiess from White Bear Lake, MN Lives by the Credo 'Oh, Yes, I Can!'

By Rosemary Rawson

To cross the ocean alone is challenge enough for the boldest of sailors. To make that crossing in a 10-foot sailboat built at home is to call into question the mariner's sanity. An American named Gerry Spiess, with all faculties apparently intact, did it anyway, and he spanned not one ocean but two. In 1979 he piloted his fiberglass-plywood sloop, Yankee Girl, 3,800 miles from Virginia Beach, Va. to Falmouth, England in 54 days. Last year he topped himself with a five-month transpacific solo voyage that took him 7,800 miles from Long Beach, Calif. to Sydney, Australia.

Spiess, 42, is currently a star attraction on the winter boat show circuit, and his book Alone Against the Atlantic (Control Data Publishing, $12.95) is selling briskly, with a 55,000-copy first printing. Yet in spite of his daring, and the fame it has brought him, Spiess is not obsessed with heroics. "I'm very cautious, very careful," he insists. "I don't take any chances." If there is a philosophical underpinning to his adventure, it lies in his conviction that ordinary mortals, when properly motivated, can achieve almost anything. "Human capabilities," he exclaims, "are just amazing!"

So in her own way is Yankee Girl, the tiny vessel that Spiess admits looks like "a sawed-off pumpkin seed." When he built her in his garage in 1977, he wanted a boat that could not be capsized, that would bob on the waves rather than plow through them, and that would set the Guinness record for the smallest sailing craft ever to cross the North Atlantic. Yankee Girl is only five and a half feet abeam, but for his Pacific journey Spiess managed to fill her with 500 cans of food, 24 gallons of drinking water, 54 gallons of gas for an outboard motor (to be used when becalmed), plus radio and navigational gear, clothing and spare parts. The room left over for the skipper, says the 5'10" Spiess, was "comparable to the space you'd have under a card table. It's like packing a suitcase and then getting into the suitcase itself."

Conditions aboard Yankee Girl on the high seas were often "utterly miserable," he says. Because of the constant motion everything had to be strapped down, and in foul weather the closed cabin became suffocatingly stuffy and humid. Spiess had a small butane-fueled stove for cooking (his favorite meal: Dinty Moore beef stew, for which he later filmed a TV commercial), but only salt water for washing.

The discomfort was less of a problem than the need to be constantly vigilant. "There was always a certain amount of fear," Spiess says. "You can't afford mistakes and, above all, you can't afford to hurt yourself. I'd sleep only an hour at a time. You get to the point sometimes," he admits, "where you scream and cry for release from the frustration." On his Atlantic voyage, Spiess braved terrifying storms that churned up 17-foot waves. In the Pacific, he reports, "The dangers are the reefs and shoals. You can get caught up in those breakers and nothing can save you." Loneliness heightened all other difficulties; when he made radio contact with a ham radio operator in Honolulu after 18 days of solitude, he broke into tears. "It was such a relief to be able to talk to someone," he explains.

A native Minnesotan and the son of a plant manager for the 3M company, Spiess is a PhBeta Kappa graduate of the University of Minnesota with degrees in psychology and education. After serving as an Air Force missile launch officer, he never found a civilian job that fully satisfied him. Prone to stomach ailments("I get ulcers and things"), he sought relief in sailing and home boat building. But a 1974 attempt to circle the world in a self-designed trimaran aborted after only 53 hours at sea, leaving him "exhausted, hallucinating and close to complete collapse."

Still he pursued his quest. Spiess gives generous credit to the understanding of his parents and of Sally, his wife of 20 years. The couple have no children, and waiting and worrying at home in White Bear Lake, Minn. hasn't been easy on Sally Spiess, a data programming consultant. "But," she says, "I decided I'd rather have a husband who's happy, healthy and following his dreams."

At this point Spiess is under little pressure to do anything else. Royalties from his book and lecture fees "allow me to do virtually anything I want," he says. Is he thinking of another voyage in Yankee Girl? "No, it's too hard to live on the edge 24 hours a day," he says. Then, after a pause, he adds, "I've taken up flying."

http://www.marlinbree.com/alone_against_the_atlantic_33621.htm

Summary of the Rules That Apply When Boats Meet

Summary of the Rules That Apply When Boats Meet

Simplified, Condensed, Unofficial

Below is a summary of the sailing rules that apply most often on the race course. This summary is intended as an aid to sailors and not as a substitute for the Racing Rules of Sailing, a copy of which all racing sailors should own. See reverse side for more information about the Racing Rules of Sailing.

---------RIGHT-OF-WAY RULES-------

PORT-STARBOARD. Port-tack boats must keep clear of starboard-tack boats. (Rule 10) Note: You are "keeping clear" of another boat when she doesn't have to avoid you.

WINDWARD-LEEWARD. When boats are overlapped on the same tack, the windward boat must keep clear. (Rule 11)

ON SAME TACK, ASTERN-AHEAD. When boats are on the same tack and not overlapped, the boat clear astern must keep clear. (Rule 12) Note: One boat is "clear astern" if she's entirely behind a line through the other boat's aft-most point, perpendicular to the other boat. The other boat is "clear ahead." Two boats are "overlapped" if neither is clear ahead of the other.

TACKING TOO CLOSE. Before you tack, make sure your tack will keep you clear of all other boats. (Rule 13

LIMITATIONS ON RIGHT OF WAY
If the other boat must keep clear, you have "right of way". Even if you have right of way, there are limitations on what you can do:

AVOID CONTACT. You must avoid contact with other boats, but a right-of-way boat will not be penalized under this rule unless the contact causes damage. (Rule 14)

ACQUIRING RIGHT OF WAY. When you do something to become the right-of-way boat, you must give the other boat a chance to get away from you. (Rule 15)

CHANGING COURSE. When you change course, you must give the other boat a chance to keep clear. (Rule 16)

ON THE SAME TACK; PROPER COURSE. If you are overlapped to leeward of a boat on the same tack, and if just before the overlap began you were clear astern of her, you cannot sail above your proper course (i.e., the course that will take you to the next mark the fastest) while you remain overlapped. (Rule 17.1)

PASSING MARKS AND OBSTRUCTIONS

There is a set of special rules for boats that are about to pass a mark or obstruction. However, these special rules don't apply between boats on opposite tacks on a beat to windward. (Rule 18.1)

Except at a starting mark, you must give boats overlapped inside you room to pass a mark or obstruction, and boats clear astern must keep clear of you.

There's a two-length zone around marks and obstructions, and a boat's rights and obligations with respect to another boat are "frozen" when the first of them enters that zone. If you are clear astern of another boat when she enters the zone, you must keep clear of her until both boats are past the mark or obstruction, even if you later become overlapped inside her. (Rule 18.2)

TACKING NEAR A MARK. Don't tack within the two-length zone at a windward mark if you will cause a boat that is fetching the mark to sail above close-hauled to avoid you, or if you will prevent her from passing the mark. (Rule 18.3)

ROOM TO TACK AT AN OBSTRUCTION. When boats are on the same tack on a beat and come to an obstruction, the leeward boat gets to decide which way they are going to pass it. If the leeward boat hails for room to tack, the other boat must give it to her; but the leeward boat must give the other boat time to respond before she tacks. (Rule 19)

OTHER RULES

Before your Preparatory Signal, and after you finish, don't interfere with boats that are about to start or are racing. (Rule 22.1)

If you break a rule while racing, get away from other boats and do two 360-degree turns; if you hit a mark, do one turn. (Rules 20 and 44) Note: Sometimes the Sailing Instructions require you to fly a flag acknowledging that you broke a rule, instead of doing turns. (Rule 44)

If you start too soon, keep clear of others until you get behind the line again. (Rules 20 and 29)

For more information;  http://www.ussailing.org/rules/RulesInBrief.htm

Pictures: www.solent-events.co.uk/page/9/1/Sailing_Racing

Reminder CYC Annual Spring Brunch April 25

Calhoun Yacht Club

Annual Spring Brunch

April 25, 2010

CELEBRATE THE NEW SAILING SEASON

SPRING HANDOUT AND RACING SCHEDULE!

Place: Loop Bar and Restaurant Downtown

606 Washington Ave North

Minneapolis, MN 55401

Date: Sunday April 25, 2010

Time: Breakfast Buffet 10:30am

Cost: $12.95 per person plus beverages and tip

Please RSVP by April 20, 2010 to Kathy Drozd 612-825-0312

k-droz@umn.edu

Adventure Vacations Vancouver BC

                            Adventure Vacations

Embark on a voyage of personal discovery. Whether busy adult, or energetic youth, acquire new recreational and lifestyle skills. Indulge your curiosity, learn something new, and enjoy a challenging nautical adventure. BC sailing is among the best in the world, and offers unlimited scope for sail training and adventure cruising.

http://www.seabc.com/