The SLYC AGM was held on January 28, with a good turnout at the Wicklow’s upstairs room. The meeting dealt with some reviews of events from the past year from the various Executive members, we have another healthy budget, and some discussion was made on whether the Club should donate some money to a worthy cause and where that money should go. Stay tuned for a possible on-line poll on this subject. Also, a resolution was passed to amend the definition of club membership in regards to what constitutes a “family” membership, the new wording will be published in the Yearbook this spring.

Retiring this year were Janet Jensen, who had put in a great effort over the past years as Vice Commodore, as well as Linda MacFarlane who made sure all the club events came together under her tenure as Rear Commodore. Stan Lavigne hung up his Fleet Captain hat, after having run the last few Jack and Jill races, and John Jensen has left the Secretary post. Many thanks to all four of you for your great service to the club!

Tage Thomsen continues another term as Commodore this year, as well as Kathy Ireland as Treasurer. New (or should we say returning?) to the ranks of Exec positions for this year are Barb Thomsen as Secretary, John Timmerman as Fleet Captain, and George Paget as Vice-Commodore.

The position of Rear-Commodore remains vacant – I’m sure the Exec will be eager to welcome anyone to take up the position if they would like to help run the show. Volunteers to help run the individual events, or help out with the Jack and Jill race are also always greatly appreciated!

Finally, there was the telling of the “Bent Prop” tales… people must be doing their best to stay out of trouble this year, as there was only a single tale to be told! This was the Spanish Banks Grounding Saga, as re-told by yours truly (Sean Smith) about Kevin & Chiera’s not-quite-intentional grounding of their boat, “Northern Dancer”, on the sands at Spanish Banks. No harm done, thankfully, but a fine tale emerged from the event, to be re-embellished and told again over a fine scotch I’m sure!

"How come the depth sounder only reads three feet?"

Orion Safety Products has issued a recall for two models of its hand-launched aerial signals, citing problems with the devices failing to launch and/or ignite.

The recall applies to older Orion XLT and 12-gauge signals made with orange ABS plastic. XLTs are self-contained, hand-launched signals, while 12-gauge signals have a pistol-style launch and a plastic shell.

In 2008, Orion switched from orange ABS to red-colored, glass-filled polyethylene for its better strength, durability and resistance to moisture. The last XLTs that used orange ABS in the launch tube body expire this month, while the last 12-inch gauge shells using the orange ABS plastic expire in March 2012.

If you have an XLT signal with an orange launch tube that has an expiration date between November 2011 and December 2011, or an orange 12-gauge shell that has an expiration date between November 2011 and March 2012, you are eligible to receive a free, four-pack replacement at no cost.

To return these flares in Canada, an email to Andre Gagnon at CIL with details and a photo is required. His email is andre.gagnon@cilexplosives.com. They will ship out replacement signals.

(thanks to Council of BC Yacht Clubs for forwarding this information to us)

Happy new year, folks! Let’s hope 2012 will be a great year for sailing! A couple of things to put on the calendar while we wait out the winter rain:

Vancouver Boat Show - the Boat Show is back at BC Place, from Feb 8 to 12. Visit www.vancouverboatshow.ca for details. Pacific Yachting subscribers can get a discount on tickets too.

Ocean Lecture Series – This series of presentations is put on at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre Auditorium (in Kits Point), cost is $13 per lecture, or $50 for the series, again if you’re a PY subscriber you can get a discount ($11/lecture or $40 for the series). The series includes:

Jan 20 – Around the World in a 34′ Sailboat

Jan 27 – BC’s Remote and Spectacular Gardner Canal

Feb 3 – Family of Six Cruises the US East Coast, Cuba, and Bahamas

Feb 10 – Racing Canada’s Colours Around the World with Derek Hatfield
 

Derek Hatfield's boat

Feb 17 – Sweden to Syria and More.

See www.vancouvermaritimemuseum.com/page153.htm for details.

Ahoy folks, Bernard has posted some pics from the Christmas Party at this link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/Fletch2511/20111211?authkey=Gv1sRgCOXsgpnVtNLpYA#

The food was great, Santa was there, and we had a full house – almost 40 people filled the room! Many thanks to Linda and her helpers for organizing the Christmas party, and of course thanks to the Wicklow Pub for great food and friendly service. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

And mark on your new 2012 calendars the date for the SLYC Annual General Meeting – which will be Saturday, January 28th, in the Billiards room, upstairs at the Wicklow Pub, starting at 5 PM. We will conduct the AGM business first, and members are free to stay and have dinner from the pub menu afterwards if you like. Stay tuned for the official AGM agenda to be e-mailed out, and remember that Bent Prop contest!

Last cruise of the year! It was nice to see so many folks (and boats) come out, despite the weather. Most of us came over on Saturday, which was thoroughly soggy, though not so exciting as the gale-force windstorm that blew through on Friday afternoon – more on that later!

There’s something nice about coming into a safe shelter, tying up the boat, plugging in the heater, stripping off the damp wet weather gear, and putting on a kettle for a nice warmer of hot chocolate! (or perhaps a hot rum toddy!)

Later in the afternoon, the fire was lit at the cabin, and folks came in to warm up, dry off, and enjoy good company. The theme was “”, which a few of us dressed up for, even wearing a flag or two. Thanks to Barb & Tage for taking care of the arrangements. As usual, there was some great appies, main course meals, and some splendid pies and trifle!

Sunday morning, Keith and Scotty put on the breakfast, coffee, juice, fruit, scrambled eggs and sausages, yum! Well done!

On the way home again, in spite of the grey skies, the winds were quite nice, seas calm, and a great sail all the way from dock to dock. For just one brief moment, the sun peeked out on me, while the boat was sailing along nicely, some tunes on the stereo, it was glorious! (well, compared to Saturday it was glorious!) Sailing in November – you never know what you’re going to get, but it was a worthwhile weekend.

A few pics from the weekend (taken by Sean):

And a video taken from “Hale Pau Hana” on Hana’s very own YouTube channel:

Some pics by Bernard (Thanks Bernard!) Just click on the pic to go to Bernard’s album:

Annie P. has been hosting a great Halloween party for a few years running now, inviting SLYC members, as well as some of her other friends and sailing cohorts, always nice to have some new people to talk to! As always Annie does a wonderful job decorating the place, and lots of guests brought some yummy treats.

Thanks Annie for hosting a great party!

Attention Sailors!

The Annual Wind-Up Cruise to Snug Cove is the weekend of November 12th & 13th. Please note that Friday November 11th is a holiday, therefore making this a long weekend. This means reserving your spot on the dock, a.s.a.p. We have the cabin booked for Saturday November 12th.

The theme this year is “International” and dinner will be true pot luck!

We encourage everyone to bring something from your family’s “Old Country”, or, any other country if you prefer. Also, in keeping with the International theme, we hope everyone can wear something of a ‘national costume’, or as close as you can get!

Appies will be anytime after 5, with dinner planned for 6-ish.

The costs will be as per usual, $7 per person towards the cost of the cabin rental. If you want to reserve any of the beds, it’s $50 for the upstairs room, $40 for the downstairs room, and $20 for the bed in the corner. These rooms are first come first served, so let us know as soon as possible if you want one.

As Bruce and Linda will be soaking up the sun in Mexico, and not attending, Scotty and Keith have offered to be the “breakfast people” .. Not sure of the cost of this yet, to be announced.

Please let us know, by phone, 604-524-1710, or e-mail, barbara-tage@shaw.ca if you will be attending, or, if you’re unable to make it. Thanks.

Tage and Barbara
Scotty and Keith

Can you guess what this is?

A tale of mechanical adventure, by John Charlesworth (of “Breeze”)…

As some of you may have heard, we have been having fuel supply problems with Breeze since we bought the boat last year. I have been through about five (yes, five) primary filters, had the tank cleaned and fuel polished just before our last week of cruising at the end of August, only to have the same problem occur again as we pulled away from Saltspring Island Sailing Club heading for Clam Bay for the raft up. It ran fine on full throttle for about 4 hours, then as we got into Clam Bay and started to slow down it starts acting up again, as we pulled towards David Lyon’s “BAB” (Big Ass Beneteau) the engine stalled as I throttled down to idle speed… Read the rest of this entry »

Another fine Turkey dinner at the Waterfront Cafe for the SLYC folks who made it out to Gibsons for the weekend of October 1-2. The weather didn’t look the greatest, but it didn’t pour either. Approximately 20 people attended the dinner, I’m told. And yes, Thanksgiving did seem to come particularly early this year – I know there was some attempt to postpone the cruise until after the official Thanksgiving weekend, but we found out that after the long weekend Gibsons Marina drops the number of transient moorage slips to only six berths – not enough room for our eager gang. Too bad. Still, Gibsons is nice to visit any time of year if a reasonable weekend happens along and you’re looking for a place to go.

Some pics, thanks to J.C. of “Breeze”:

Very nice pic of Annie with Art, the owner of the Waterfront Cafe. I think we may be his favourite customers!

Our new members, Kevin and Chiera (of “Northern Dancer”) have a new member of their own! Say hello to Isla Saylor (Isla pronounced “eye-la”), what a nautical sounding name! And she’s already been on her first boating adventure. Congratulations Kevin and Chiera!