2010 Spring Season Begins April 11! What's up for 2010? Check the 2010 Calendar.
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Time to renew, for 2010,
our memberships in ILCA; PRSA; and Fleet 50! ILCA
membership is on a calendar year basis and you can
join
or renew on-line.
To renew your Fleet 50 and PRSA memberships, go to the
Membership page. To see if you
have renewed, visit the Fleet 50 Skipper
roster or the Associate roster.
Join BoatUS for only $12.50! As a member of Fleet 50 you can join at a discounted rate. See https://www.boatus-insurance.com/newMember/joinN.asp?st and be sure to list " #GA81366S " as the Boat US cooperating group # for fleet 50 to get your discount.
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Fleet 50
Annual Awards Banquet and General Meeting,
Saturday, Feb 20! This season's awards banquet
was held at the Trattoria da Franco
in Old Town Alexandria. See
details here.
39 skippers, associates, and friends joined together for an
evening of congeniality and remembrance and awards. Frank Gallagher
was elected Fleet Captain for 2010; Bobby Astrove and David Thompson
retained their positions as Fleet Treasurer and Webmaster
respectively. Congratulations to winners of the
skipper-nominated crew awards Best New Crew Brian Ganji; Most
Improved Crew Brena Copeland; and High Impact Crew Bruce Heida.
Congratulations also to the winners of the crew-nominated skipper
awards: Team Spirit Skipper Red Fehrle; Mr. Congeniality David
Thompson, and Skipper of the Year, Frank Gallagher. Nabeel
Alsalam won the Bloody Rudder and the Iron Skipper award; Craig Huzway
was named All-weather Sailor; and Laurie Duncan was awarded the Most
Improved Skipper prize.
2010 Americas' Cup Regatta is Over!
BMW Oracle Racing (BMO) won in two straight races -- one on
Wednesday, one Sunday, in light-to-moderate winds, sailing far
ahead of Alinghi in both races. Race 2 was an equilateral
triangle, 13 NM on a side, with marks rounded to starboard. Here is
a link to more
information, where on Monday Feb 15 you could see streaming video replays of the racing.
Race 2 reruns started every three hours -- at 0700; 1000; 1300;
1600; and 1900 ET. Here is the link
for the video feed. Note the video rerun feeds were
somewhat off the above schedule -- at 0730 Monday morning for example we
saw the A/P flag come down, which would be about 10 minutes before the
start. You can see BMO achieving 33 kts
on the reach leg. See boats rounded the gybe mark at 2:15 after
the start.
Blizzard of
2010 Dumps 3-foot Drifts of Snow at WSM!
Photo by Cheryl Taylor
More Photos
Video shot 2/13
(Saturday)
Per Joe
Warren's Sunday night (2/7) report, the marina roads were not plowed and snow had blown
into 3' drifts in places. Many Lightings were covered in heavy,
wet snow, putting stress on their covers. Skippers will want to
check on their boats this week, but as of Sunday evening there
was a problem
entering the marina -- huge piles of snow from the plowing on the GW
Parkway were blocking the entrance (since cleared). Here is Joe's report:
Sunday Evening, 2/7/10:
Hello Skippers,
Doug and I did go to the marina. Nothing was plowed so we parked
in the
turn-in lane in front of the marina entrance. Walked through drifts
that
were over 3 feet in places--worthy of some pictures. The trail
had
become a cross-country skiing path.
Good News--none of the covers we checked were torn although several
under severe
stress. We cleared snow and ice off all six covers (David; Jeff;
John; Laurie; Rick; Marian) and the one near John's boat in K-20.
It has a dark green hull; don't know who owns it.
A word of warning--the entrance to marina off the
parkway is closed due
to a wall of snow piled up by plows. And, no plowing of the road
inside
the marina.
Joe Warren
"Round 2" (Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday night, Feb 9, 10), dropped another 10 inches of snow and then whirled it around in 20 MPH winds with gusts above 40. Per Brian Pavlik, as of Saturday afternoon, 2/13, the dry slip area had been partially plowed. All rows except between A and B had a path. The rest were plowed by Monday morning (2/15). At first glance there appeared to be no damage done to the [dry-slipped] boats. The parking lot had been plowed and there was plenty of space to park.
East Coast
Flying Scots invited to the 2010 Doc Gilbert Memorial Potomac Cup
Regatta! Per discussion and decision by the 2009 Fleet 50
Board, an invitation has been extended to the East Coast Flying Scott
fleet to join us in the 2010 Doc Gilbert Regatta, May 1 - 2.
Stay tuned for more on the regatta!
The Truth about
Cold Water! Mario Vitonne, a U.S. Coast Guard Safety
Specialist, recently published an
interesting
article in which he states that it is not so much hypothermia that
kills sailors who find themselves dunked in cold water, but rather
several other factors that kill first. This is a very good
argument for always wearing your PFD when on the water. PS -
yesterday's water temperature on the Potomac was 31.6 degrees.
Time to Winterize your Lightning? Some savvy skippers, knowing that snow and ice can wreck havoc on their
expensive summer mooring covers, have winterized their boats. Check them out on Slip A-13 and farther down towards the south end of the A row at WSM. David used a $60 12 X 20 12-mil tarp to provide water-tight and snow-tight protection, with the ends slightly open for ventilation. The boom, resting on double boom crutches, provided a ridge pole. David removed all boat contents -- sails, cushions, sheets, and spare lines, to reduce the likelihood of providing a mouse habitat. Jeff put on his one-piece travel cover and then set up a 10 x 18 blue tarp on top, using an old broken mast as a ridge pole. Without winterizing, occasional heavy snow will accumulate on the mooring cover, melt, freeze, re-melt, refreeze, and eventually tear the cover and begin leaking water into the bilge. When bilge water works into seams and then freezes, it can open up cracks. Save yourself the hassle of dealing with that. Winterize!
More 2010 News
2009 News
