August 2013 Official Publication of Alamitos Bay Yacht Club Volume 86 • Number 8 4th of july Rich Roberts photos regatta Russ Cole photo boat captain Matt Struble won the last 6 of 7 races to run away with first place in the A-class catamaran class regatta for the young and ageless “Mom, I won the regatta!” A That was 13-year-old Maura Cannon shouting across the boat yard after being shown the final results of Alamitos Bay Yacht Club’s annual Fourth of July Regatta Sunday. The slight youngster from Balboa YC led a BYC assault on the Naples Sabot classes with first place in Sabot C2s, the first victory of her budding career. David Wood and Brad Hilliard, also BYC, won Sabot B and Sabot C1, respectively, racing on the inside bay, while outside on the ocean course ABYC’s Mike Wood drove dad Ron’s Cal 20 to first place as Matt Struble of San Diego won the last six A-Class catamaran races, discarding his worst finish: a second place in the weekend’s first race. Also notable: Peter Sangmeister, 11, of the Long Beach YC won 8 of 9 Sabot C3 class races. It was his first regatta. Then there was Barney Flam, ageless at 89 and still driving his No. 9 Cal 20 called Rigormortis, perhaps recalling when he started sailing at the age of Cannon or Sangmeister. Conditions Sunday stepped up from Saturday. Ocean competitors were greeted by whitecaps at noon as a southwest breeze built from 10 to the mid-teens that got the A-Cats’ hulls flying. “The boat’s really working well,” said Struble, who is pointing Matthew Fairbanks sails past Brad Hilliard toward next month’s A-Cat Nationals at ABYC. There were only 38 boats, the event’s fewest in several years, but on the bright side that was 37Jeff more Merrill thanphoto will open the America’s Cup competition (one) at San Francisco Monday. Of course, the entry fees were a bit higher there. ...continued page 6 inside sav e the date Commodore’s Compass .................................... 2 Club ABYC .............................................. August 9 Vice Verses ....................................................... 2 A Cat North Americans ..................... August 10-16 Rear View ....................................................... 3-4 Build Your Own Omelet ......................... August 18 Junior Sailing.................................................. 4-6 Elm Street Band in Park ........................ August 18 Membership Report ......................................... 10 Membership Meeting............................. August 23 Transpac ......................................................... 12 Mercury 18 Class Champs ............... August 23-25 Slate & Voting Dates ....................................... 13 Catalina Cruise ................................. August 24-25 Fleet News ................................................. 13-15 Labor Day Regatta + Party......... August 1 - Sept 1 sou’wester • august 2013 • page 1 commodore’scompass on Popeil Are you all ready for a very busy end to summer? I hope so, because we have a lot R going on at the club. August and September are when we traditionally hold class championship regattas. This year we are hosting the A-Cat North American’s, as well as the Santana 20 and Mercury 18 Class championships. If you would like a front row seat on the water, we have plenty of space on Patience, or the whalers. You can sign up on our club website event pages, or see our Fleet Captain Latham Bell, and he can hook you up. Our most popular summer races, the Lido/Sabot twilights, as well as LBYC and SLBYC’s Wednesday and Thursday beer can races continue thru September. Come down to race or spectate, and don’t miss the galley dinners. On Friday’s the bar is open with light dinner, the Nirvana II’s are sailing, and we are providing world class sunsets on the bay. But wait, there’s more! It’s also time for the Catalina cruise, the BBQ series, and the pine block regatta. Of course it’s not time to end summer and send the kids back to school before the big Labor Day Regatta and party. We also have off the water activities including bridge, ladies nights, and an Angels baseball outing. Events are being added all the time. Some events are created by the Social Advisory Committee, but others are from the members and fleets. Bring us your ideas for club activities, and we will work to make them happen. Have a fantastic summer, and I look forward to seeing you at the club. Cheers, Mike viceverses hat a great month of sailing! From the end of June and throughout July we’ve been doing nothing but sailing and special events at the club. W At the end of June, we had three days of Long Beach Race Week. THANK YOU to all the volunteers that made that event such a huge success. ABYC volunteers came through and showed their stuff on Alpha, Bravo and Charlie courses, plus threw a fantastic party on Friday night! Social Advisory outdid themselves with great decorations handing from the flag pole over the patio and Naples Rib Joint provided a great spread! Kelly and his staff put their best efforts into bar and food service. There were more than 90 members involved as volunteers. Many thanks go to Jon Robinson that served as co-chair for the event with Randy Beers of LBYC. Planning is already underway for next year’s event….lets see if we can produce another great event. Fourth of July Regatta was a small but great event. Steve and I finally got to go racing! Lars Rosenblad and the Laser fleet put together a stellar event. It was Lars first time as regatta chair and he ran a well organized event. To make things even better, we had beautiful warm weather, strong breeze and a great BBQ on Saturday night. Competition in the Cal 20 Fleet was strong. We had three women skippers giving the guys a run for their money! I’m looking forward to Labor Day Regatta! BBQ Series on July 13, 2013 had a very light turn-out of only Lido 14s. But, what we lacked in participation we made up for with BIG fun. It was a great afternoon with strong breeze. Race Committee ran two long bay races with the finish between the ABYC flag pole and the restaurant across the channel. BBQ was a nice finish to a great day with many shared salads and wine! Next BBQ race days are July 27(new member appreciation party) and August 10. If you decide not to race, come down and enjoy the BBQ on the patio on August 10. Multihull Regatta was by the Sr. Sabot and Finn fleets. (100% participation by the Finn fleet.) We had three fleets racing outside. PRO Glenn Selvin put together a strong series of races in challenging conditions. He did such a good job that we adopted him as part of the Ellis Family! Who knew we could have light air and drizzle in the middle of July? Many thanks to Jane McNaboe, Sabot Fleet Captain and Jeff McDermaid, BOD Liaison, for all your hard work on the regatta. What’s going on with the Yard and Building? We’ll try not to replay a broken record but now that we’re working on a repaving plan for the yard we’re stepping up our patrols. Sometime in the not too distant future, we will be moving everything out of the yard to complete the repairs. PLEASE come down and clean up around your boats and make sure you tires and trailers are in good working order. Also, there is under-utilized space in the yard. Demand for Sabot racks is lower than the space available, so we are studying if it is possible to remove some of the racks to open space for larger boats. I’m open to suggestions – but plan to be out there with my measuring tape to see what we can do. ...continued next page sou’wester • august 2013 • page 2 morevice commodore ...from page 2 We’ve had a lot of questions about launching boats off the beach during the basin construction. The Board has discussed several options, one of which seems to be to buy plastic lattice to lay down for traction on the sand. The plastic lattice is light weight and can be easily moved on to the beach and off back into the yard when not in use. Please let us know if you have any designs for potential sand dollies that are cheap and easy to construct. This might help move Lidos, Finns and Lasers from the yard onto the beach without exposing trailers to ill effects of sand and salt water. We have a few months to get organized, so please let your Board Members know of any ideas. Jennifer Kuritz rearview f you blink you are going to miss out on everything that is going on at ABYC and July has been no exception. It kicked off with the firemen’s fundraiser and fireworks show. If you attended I last year and thought that was great, well this year was even better. The food was outstanding, there were T-shirts being sold, and the firework show was almost 20 minutes long! It is always nice to come down to the club and support a great cause; we are all looking forward to next year! The Friday Night happy hours are a great way to close out your week and come down to kick off your weekend and enjoy the beautiful view. The 4th of July regatta had great wind and close competition in the fleets. Following the races was a good BBQ chicken dinner out on the patio, and you guessed it…great weather to go with it! Junior twilights are in full swing…Wet Wednesdays with the Cal 20’s are always competitive with the Lidos ripping it up on Thursday’s, and the Nirvana’s rounding out the week of sailing.