America's Cup Rocks!

Poking around Tumblr.com, I came upon two America's Cup racing sites. They are both worth checking out. Terrific photos and videos of races and race highlights. You will also see some fun facts of the San Francisco series. So take time to visit http://americascup34sf.tumblr.com.

For sail racing fans, another site, http://americascup.tumblr.com is also worth visiting. Following is a hint of what you will find.

An amazing moment in Race 8 of the America’s Cup. The New Zealand boat saw a heel angle just shy of 45 degrees when they tacked without enough hydraulic pressure to fully tack the wing sail…. still hard to believe that they did not go over.

Oracle’s re-built AC17, foiling on San Francisco Bay.

Did you know the San Francisco agreement required Ellison’s team to invest $80 million to renovate city-managed piers to get them ready for the regatta, and raise $270 million to manage and operate the event in exchange for rights and concessions to the race? Check out the sites noted to find out more.

4th Tie-Dye, Oh My!

Thanks to Jackie and Larry Klopps for hosting their annual 4th of July party at Klopp's Beach. It was a beautiful sunny, breezy afternoon. Many people showed up who haven't attended recent BBYRA events. So attendance was very good. We had three gas grills going. The variety and diversity of the food was terrific.

Unfortunately, no-one took photos of the event. Too busy eating, apparently.

But afterwards, some of us continued on to the home of Craig and Gloria Drake. Gloria set up a tie-dye in the back yard. Gloria prepared bottles of various colors of dye. She provided t-shirts, small stones and rubber bands to enable the "tie" part of the process. Then we all proceeded to "dye" by squirting the colors on all parts of the tied off shirts. The process is somewhat messy. But it's a lot of fun. Some had their own tying technique. Other's relied on luck to produce an interesting design. Here are some photos from the Drake's backyard tie-dye.

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Series 1 Winners

Surprise! Surprise! John Currier's boat, Priority, sailed away winning the Saturday Race Series 1 PHRF fleet. John and his partner Larry found that a key to their success was an age old sailing secret: Tighten the head sail taut against the spreaders. SHHHH! Don't tell anyone! Here is a photo of John skippering his boat.

EchoToo won both Saturday Series 1 and Tuesday Series 1 for the C22 fleet. But they did it with Hausboat coming in a close second. Hausboat has actually prevailed 4 times this season thus far against EchoToo! Perhaps the Mathewson's aren't untouchable after all? You will want to check back again later to learn who wins series 2.

The Bainster, Tom Bain, won Tuesday Series 1 skippering the eponymous Bain. The Paceship nearly lost its transom the last race of the series out-maneuvering Priority at the start, darting to the inside of Priority to be nearest the committee boat. WOW! That was a close one!

Sailing Season Underway!

Our 2013 sailing season finally began with the start of Tuesday Series 1 on Tuesday evening, June 4. The winner this night was EchoToo. Here is a photo of the winning boat.

Hausboat pulled in second place. Lucky Duck took second. Blue Heaven was third. This blog starts a new series of posting photos of each race's winning boats. Skippers, if they want their boat's photo posted in this blog, now have incentive to place as high as possible. Our resident photographer, your editor, has yet to get photos of Lucky Duck and Blue Heaven. But I was able to snap a shot of Hausboat, it's acclaimed skipper Craig Witthaus and his primary crew Peggy.

On to the next race!

Tuesday Series Change

Tuesday Race Series 1 will commence on Tuesday, May 28. That is one week later than originally scheduled. In other words, the first scheduled Tuesday race has been canceled. With the late spring, many boats have yet to be launched onto White Bear Lake. That includes the judges boat. So we are delaying Tuesday sail racing by one week. The Board of Directors will consider a make-up date at its next meeting.

Saturday's race schedule stays the same. The Mayhem Regatta will go forward on Saturday, May 25th @ 12:00 Noon with Skippers Meeting @ 10:30AM. Sunday, May 26th is the third Regatta race again @Noon. The first club sponsored social follows after that race at the Witthaus residence. Saturday Series 1 will begin the following Saturday, June 1.

All other race start times remain as scheduled. Tuesday evenings at 7:00 PM; Saturdays @ 12:30 PM with Skippers Meeting at 11:00 AM.

Membership Cards Available

2013 BBYRA membership cards are now available to those members who would like one made for them. The price for each card is $4. A sample card is shown below. Each card is double sided. On the reverse is a non-functioning magnetic strip, along with a QR code linked with bbyra.com.

We are selling the cards for the cost of materials. Each one is custom made with the member's name. It looks and feels like a regular ID card or credit card.  If you would like one made for you, send me an email with your address. Or send me a check for  $4. I will make your card and send it to you.

Lawrence Sagstetter

1696 E. Third St.

St. Paul, MN  55106

email: lsagstetter@bbyra.com

New Google Calendar App:  If you would like to receive email prompts of BBYRA events, email me the address at which you would like to receive them. You will then begin to receive prompts a day or two ahead of each event on whatever device you have linked with your email account.

This is easy for me to set up. I just need your approval to do it and the email address at which you prefer to receive prompts. 

Or, on your own you can use the following address to access the BBYRA calendar from applications. Just copy and paste this into any feed reader.

https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/lsagstetter%40gmail.com/public/basic

Terrific Ice-Breaker

Rob and Lori Wood kicked (pork) butt providing food for the 2013 Ice-Breaker at Cedric's Landing. The apple slaw and spicy potato salad spiked with mustard and horseradish were a great accompaniment to succulent pulled pork. The perfect pork end product gave no hint of the work involved in rubbing it up and smoking it with oak wood, pulling it apart and chopping it so it could be stacked high on a bakery roll. The Woods' neighborhood must have smelled terrific with the pork butt smoking away for hours in their backyard smoker!

Karen Alness, Executive Officer of the White Bear Yacht Club Sailing Division, provided a well delivered overview of her own personal history with sailing boats on the lake. Her experience began using leaky small-craft and graduated over time to using the modern boats of today. She talked about WBYC plans for the coming summer, with Interlake Regatta races planned for the first week of August. Volunteers are needed to help with tasks required to have a successful regatta week of activities. Contact Karen if you want to be part of this exciting event.

Jason Brown brought us up to date with redesign and access issues involving the marina waterfront over the coming months. Parking access should be okay due to temporary paving and striping. The boat landing north side of the VFW will be made more workable and accessible for transferring boats into and out of the water. Plans are to update the waterfront with a boardwalk. Eventually, existing docks will be updated and replaced in a new pattern with better dock security, as well.

Plans remain in place, said Jason, to construct a community room or center to accommodate future BBYRA social events, among other things.

Here are some photos from our successful 2013 Ice-Breaker. Next up: Sailing education sessions begin with WINCH's April 9th and Rules & Tactics at Rudy's Red Eye Grill on Tuesday, April 30. See you there!

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New Blog

Welcome to the new BBYRA Bow Spray. This blog is a work in progress. It is targeted at providing news, information, and fun photos to club members and others interested in our activities. It is interactive in that it allows for comments to posts. And you can sign up for email. So when news or information is posted you will be emailed a reminder to check the site for an updated posting.

If you have BBYRA news items or photos to display, send them to the administrator. All ideas are welcome.