Irish You Were There
Jane and Kirby did an excellent job hosting the St. Patrick’s Day Social this month. Everything was delicious and presented beautifully. We give thanks to Jane, Kirby, and all who volunteered their time to help—you are invaluable!
Mark your calendars for our next scheduled Social, which will be Flag Raising and Derby Day combined on May 7th, 2022. I hear there will be champagne and mint juleps involved…
-Autumn
From the Fleet Cap'n..........
Don’t look now but we are starting to look like a sailing club again! Despite it “blowin a gale”, we had a terrific turnout for our Fleet Crew workday Saturday the 26th, and got a tremendous amount accomplished and WILL be ready for the start of Sailing Season. All the Opti’s are clean and rig ready, each with a full set of gear. The Lasers are matched to sails, spars and foils and our newest Albacore “Yellowbird” is ready to launch. In addition, the loft is uncluttered, clean and organized. All the off-season parts or non-essential items have been moved to the Jr. Sailing storage area as well. Thanks to many of our members who joined us but a special shout out to David W. for taking charge and organizing our strategy in “attacking” the Loft.
The next big step will be launching the Keel boats in mid-April and getting them back on their moorings… We still have some work to do getting the moorings cleaned and secured but we’ll have that done by mid-April. The Club plans to have a second general workday in April which I encourage you to attend, and we will assess any additional Fleet items we need to address then. We want to make sure we have everything spit shined and polished for Flag Raising in May!
Lastly, Scott T. has started to organize and plan various cruising trips in the Southern Bay and has a Cape Charles trip planned for April 14-16. If you are interested, please contact Scott @ sct42171@gmail.com.
Respectfully, Your Fleet Capt. Jim Garrett
Welcome New Members!!!
WRYC welcomed the following new members in February.
Matthew, Pam and son, Reid of Gloucester. They are interested in sailing, socials, tennis and pickleball!
Jeanne of Yorktown is interested in joining other like minded people who enjoy small boat sailing. She’s come to the right place!!! Thank you Alyssa for referring her to WRYC!
From the Commodore
We started the year with rough seas. Our annual meeting in January was postponed and the dues increase was the first order of business. It passed. This is my third turn at the helm of the club and I look forward to working with this strong, hard working board. Collectively they have accomplished many good things and we hope to grow on that success. Jim Garrett held an all hands sailing meeting last week that was well attended and has many facets: junior sailing, summer sailing camp, women’s sailing, dinghy racing aka Sunday Series, adult keelboat lessons and cruising. Lookout, we are turning into a sailing center.
During my last term, as Commodore, I oversaw a dues increase and received quite bit of negative feedback. The most common refrain was that the members used to do all the work and now we hire it out. This is true and thus the dues increase then and now is appropriate. An annual cost of living increase of 5% for dues should be the norm but we try to be thrifty, frugal sailors. This is your clubhouse, dock, pier, boat yard and ramp. We all have to pitch in physically and fiscally to maintain the property.
We have 136 members. We are authorized to have 175 members. A member is one family unit regardless of whether you are the Waltons with 8 kids or single. We have room to grow and we need to attract more members. The sailing program have been a big draw and we hope to capitalize on this wind. Please spread the word that we are looking for new member applicant and that we have a lot to offer in terms of social activity, boating and access to the water.
Financing keelboats and tennis courts. I am sensitive to the financial obligations of belonging to the club. We have maintained many boats with baling wire and bubble gum. We have used our club members to repair and build many parts o the club. We have members make anonymous donations to the club, e.g. the large, flat screen television. In 2021 a proposal was put forward for anyone interested to make a specific donation to the club to purchase another keelboat. That fundraising effort was successful and our boat is in the final stages of launch preparation. Likewise a fundraising effort was implemented to restore the tennis courts to their former glory. Thanks to the excellent work of Gary Hermanson, the forest around the courts has been thinned and the resurfacing will commence in 2022.
The pier is slated to be repaired 100 feet at a time. This work will be performed by an outside contractor as we need new pilings, stringers and walk boards. Please be patient as the work takes time but is well worth the effort.
It is time the interior of the club gets makeover. Perhaps painting the walls, new carpet, chairs, tables, lights? This is a big, expensive project the board will consider. We welcome your input.
I look forward to seeing you at the club.
John A. Singleton, Commodore
Sailing Awards and Winter Meeting
Happy almost March! For those who couldn’t be with us at the annual meeting I’m happy to report it was well attended and all our awards recipients were there in person to receive their awards. It was my honor to present The Wesley C Morck Award for promoting WRYC and Sailing throughout the Southern Chesapeake Bay, to seasoned member and former Fleet Capt. Scott T. Besides Chairing the Gov Cup Regatta last year, Scott also participated in the Cape Charles Cup Race in his Alberg 30 and continues to promote our Clubs involvement with sailing thru his postings and shared articles using social media. Congrats Scott!
I was also honored to present The Sailor of the Year Award to newcomer Stephanie P. who has been a wonderful asset to the Club and helped all year to promote both our Sunday sailing as well as the adult sailing Saturdays. In addition, Stephanie crewed in the Gov Cup Regatta, Albacore Nationals and Hampton OD Nationals, and helped organize a women’s sailing group I’m calling “Women on the Ware”. Steph and her husband Gary joined just last year! Congrats to Stephanie and all the award recipients.
In addition, we held our annual winter sailing org meeting on February 19th and were fortunate to have 15 members in attendance. We were able to line out our sailing season for the year, discuss a reservation calendar we’ll be rolling out soon, use of our keel boats and some cruises around the bay, as well as setting dates for spring cleaning, boat prep, and organizing our sail loft. Several new members stepped up to take Chair positions and I want to specifically recognize those folks for volunteering:
Dinghy Sailing/Loft - Stephanie P.
Boat Maintenance - David W.
Adult Sailing - Joe M.
Cruising - Scott T.
I’ll be taking on R/C duties and helping the other Chairs manage things throughout the year. We have some seminars planned around racing rules and hopefully some more clinics to set up. MORE TO COME!
Respectfully
Jim Garrett - Fleet
Social Season 2022 Underway
We are excited to kick off 2022 Social Season at WRYC! This season, we say goodbye (but not really…) to our previous Social Committee Chair, Jane. Jane promised Autumn a smooth transition, and we thank her for her time served! As your new Social Committee Chair, I am impressed with the volunteers we have gathered so far to help out with our planned events—we cannot have the fun without you! We still need many volunteers throughout the year to host, help in the kitchen, or on clean-up crew. Take a look at the Socials Sign Up sheet below for positions we desperately need filled—if you are feeling compelled to keep our Club lively post-pandemic, please reach out at bariautumn@gmail.com or (240) 520-2109.
Our next Social is hosted by Jane! Mark your calendars for the event on Saturday, March 19th for St. Patrick’s Day! Be on the lookout for a email with more details. Looking forward to a fun-filled Social Season!
—Autumn