…a little dinghy

May 2015 Gold Country Yacht Club monthly Newsletter Call for more info: 916-774-6610

Volume 37, Issue 5 From the Commodore

We had a great time at the meeting last Mon- Regular Columns: day, although it was a bit cold and a poor turn- • From the out. The food was great Commodore 1 and we had a LOT of guests! Several had • Teresa’s Log 3 gone for rides on No Motor Day and were in- • Club Notices 3 spired to take up sailing with us. • Classifieds 7 The Regatta is only a few weeks away, people are working hard at get- ting it all together. If you have any extra time and would like to help with the dinner, give Susie Strunk a call (or email Seth, our cruise director, he knows where she is) or if you want to help Teresa Gaman set up the raffle, please contact her, she Individual would love the help. Highlights: If you're not sure, but want to help, contact our Vice Commodore Phil, he can point you • No Motor Day 2 in the right direction.

• Dudley’s Rules 4 Friendship Club See you at the meeting on May 27th! Special Announcement

Fair winds, Regretfully, due to anticipated low water levels at Scotts Flat Lake this year, GCYC Howard Hendrich will not be hosting our annual outing with the girls of the Friendship Club. Commodore, GCYC s/v’s Bella Donna & Alice The lake level is currently 27 feet below O’Day 23 & Catalina 30 the spillway, dropping at about 1 foot per week. For the regatta it may be necessary to have powerboats assist in launch and recovery operations of some keelboats. This is not practical for hosting the girls.

March 2013 General Club

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At Our Helm No Motor Day Report Melinda Day Commodore Howard Hendrich 530-272-6969 It was a cool day with partly [email protected] cloudy skies but this did not stop the awesome crowd that Vice Commodore came to enjoy the lake for No Phillip Easley Motors Day! Mountain Recrea- 530-477-6806 tion offered free kayak and pad- [email protected] dle board demos, Hills Flat Lumber gave rides on a very Secretary cool inflatable Hobie trimaran Debbie Mack and our GCYC was busy at the 925-899-0739 docks! [email protected] For the hungry, Troop 4 was Treasurer rocking the BBQ in the club Stephanie Perry house (GCYC was looking extra 530-887-9522 spiffy from the cleanup day). [email protected] Lots of folks stopped by to in- Cruise Chairman quire of the club and around 40 Seth Schmerzler jumped aboard for a ride. The 530-292-3274 high light of the day is always [email protected] seeing the smiling faces disem-

bark and share their stories! Publicity/Membership Teresa Gaman A BIG thank you to ALL the mem- 530-272-8042 bers that came out to participate! [email protected] ( you are amazing! )

Port Captain I so appreciate the help of Kelly and Bryant Cockcroft 530-265-5196 Dave Russo, Patty and Buzz, Marilyn [email protected] and Danny Webb, Seth, Jerry Lewis, Hugh and Nicky, Donna and Howard Race Chairman Hendrich, Joe Day, David Najencko, Jerry Lewis Dudley and Teresa, N.I.D. and many 530-272-9380 more! [email protected]

Newsletter Editor Rick Paulson 530-274-2549 [email protected]

Sailing Education It was a fantastic day and I look forward to Hugh Talman many more NMDs! Thanks to Buzz and Patty 530-272-2344 DeLuca for the photos! [email protected] Fair winds and following seas,

Melinda Day s/v’s Day Dreams & Mental Floss Pearson 385 / Catalina 22

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Teresa's Membership Log Club Notices Ahoy, it's me again! Suggestion Box

Please welcome aboard new members, Barry and Sabrina Giannoni from Grass Val- You can anonymously make rec- ley. We can thank Donna Hendrich for their arrival, as she and Sabrina work together. ommendations to our board of di- They do have a boat, and, they are interested in cruising. Hopefully, we'll see them rectors with a mind to make this out on the lake sometime soon. an even better yacht club!

The April 25th Work Day was a huge success. We had the Clubhouse shipshape in It can be found at www.gcyc.net no time, and ready for No Motor Day. or with this link:

And, speaking of No Motor Day, it turned out to be a wonderful time, despite the low water level. Melinda did a splendid job organizing this special event. If you missed the boat on this one, try to make it next year. You'll love it. Most visitors, who join us for these free sailboat rides, end up being interested in our Club, and some join up! I'm hoping to welcome aboard more new members in the coming months. Free Sailing Magazines Latitude 38 and 48 North maga-

Howard Hendrich (Commodore) and Philip Easley (Vice Commodore) will be inter- zines can be picked up anytime viewed on KNCO on June 1st, from 8:40-8:50 A.M. They'll be talking about the Re- at 148 Richardson Street in Grass Valley. They are in the gatta. Please listen in! If you miss it, I believe parts of the interview will play through- out the rest of the week. driveway in the BLUE MAIL-

BOX. Usually we get them be-

I was unable to attend the last general meeting on May 13th, but, I understand that tween the 2nd and 4th of the we had potential new members in attendance. I hope to get the chance to meet them month. They are also available at the general meeting. at our next all important general meeting on May 27th. PLEASE MARK YOUR CAL- ENDARS as this is the last general meeting before the 34th Annual Go for the Gold

Regatta, which is on June 6 & 7! Please, if you haven't signed up to help, it isn't too Club Meetings late. We need all hands on deck for this one! See you at Scotts Flat Lake! The April meeting was held

Wednesday the 13th. The next

I will be stepping down from my Membership & Publicity Board seat at the end of the General meeting will be held Wednesday, May 27th at Scotts year. I've enjoyed being on the Board for 3 years. It was a fun ride! But, it's time for someone else to step up to the helm. I will make it an easy transition. Please see me Flat Lake; dine from 6pm, Com- for more information. modore’s bell at 7pm to start

the meeting.

Thank you!

(The club meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month but Teresa Gaman December, and two Wednes-

Membership/Publicity days before the Gold Country

Kia Orana, Catalina 36 Regatta.)

Blown Away, Capri 18

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Rules by Dudley

rules |roōls| noun plural A set of explicit regulations governing conduct within a particular activity.

Sailing is an activity based on common sense. There is no reason to write a rule that forbids falling overboard be- cause most people can figure that out on their own. It is also fairly obvious that you don't want to run into another boat. Which is where a few rules can be helpful to augmenting your common sense. That's where COLREGS comes into play.

COLREGS are the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea. At first glance, they appear to be quite complex, but they are far simpler and more logical than the Racing Rules of Sailing. If you've ever wondered why your boat on Scotts Flat Lake has a light on either side of the bow, it's because COLREGS defines the required light pattern for the various classes of boats. They also define navigation, steering, sailing and sound signals rules. If you don't get bogged down in the details, they are really quite simple for a sailboat.

It was a spectacular Wednesday sailing across The Slot on San Francisco Bay last month. De- pressed by the lack of water in Scotts Flat Lake we had driven down to South Beach for a few days on Kia Orana. There were- n't more than a handful of sailboats on the Bay and about the same number of ships. We had successfully dodged the traffic at the Ferry Building, passed Alcatraz and were heading northward under a port tack at about 6kts for Point Blunt on Angel Is- land when we noticed a car carrier ship coming down from San Pablo Bay on the opposite parallel course.

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I suspected it would be making a turn into the outbound shipping lane and heading out the Golden Gate. Ships travel at a deceptively fast speed on the Bay, much faster than that of a sailboat, and we were now in the middle of the out- bound lane, but I figured at our speed we could safely make it to the northern edge of the shipping lane in time to let the ship pass behind us. Sure enough, it began to turn toward us. At first, there was little concern as we could still see its starboard side, but it kept turning. We maintained our course. It kept turning.

Common sense told us that we needed to get out of the way, but what do the rules say? They are quite clear that we were not to impede a vessel constrained by a shipping channel, but we had been maintaining a course perpendicular to the channel and the ship had made a turn to put us in its path. We could try raising them on the VHF channel 16, but I have never had success contact- ing a ship's bridge in the past. We could signal our intentions with an air horn, but I doubted they would hear it over the racket on the bridge. The green channel marker was within a couple of hundred feet, our speed was over 6kts, and the ship was now heading directly for us. I didn't want to tack back into his intended course and so maintained our course as a signal of our intentions. Panic was be- ginning to set in. Images of splintered fiberglass were running through my mind. This was not the way we wanted to be remembered in Latitude 38.

And then it happened. A single horn blast loud enough to rattle the rigging. Fortunately, sound signals are one of the elements of COLREGS that I have memorized. One blast in international waters (which includes San Francisco Bay) means “I am altering my course to starboard.” That was all I needed. I immediately gybed to starboard, David trimmed the jib, and we gracefully sailed out of harm's way, the ship con- tinued on its voyage, and we both let out a sigh of relief.

Before you leave port, read COLREGS online: http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=navRulesContent

Dudley s/v’s Kia Orana, Catalina 36 Blown Away, Capri 18

Classifieds

Flying Junior Sailboat for Sale – Contact Port Captain Bryant Cockroft for

more information: .

530-265-5196 or email [email protected]

Asking $600

13.25’ molded plywood and fiberglass club racer, cen-

terboard dinghy, fractional sloop, in fair/good condition

with nearly new Pineapple sails.

No trailer

Oday 23 for sail and for sale!

We got a new one, so this one must go...... Bella Donna comes with an easy roller trailer with a new axle and surge brakes, new lights this year too. Boat has had a lot of work done on it in the past few years: Bottom painted 2 years ago with anti-foul- ing, most of the standing rigging replaced, along with the hatch runners. Comes with Simrad GPS/chart plotter/depth finder, compass, VHF radio, solar charging panel and 2.5 horse Honda motor. 5 bags of sails (2 mains, 2 - 110 jibs and one North 150 Genoa, all well used but serviceable) Great family boat! 2K lead keel keeps it upright when the wind really kicks up. Sleeps 5, 3 in the main salon, 2 in the Vberth.Contact Howard or Donna Hendrich for more information and a test sail if you're really interested. (530-272-6969)

Gold Country Yacht Club

PO Box 813 Grass Valley, CA 95945

PHONE: 916-774-6610

E-MAIL: [email protected]

On the Web See us at: www.gcyc.net Continued…

Classifieds continued