Kudos, etc from your REAR!!!!

Rear Commodore, that is!! Kudos to our VOLUNTEERS!!....first those that helped Phil Case paint, and then the bartenders..... Karl & Bev Dresen, Nancie Elliott, Ron Sawchenko, John and Gerri Gunn, Pam Edwards, Roger Born, Walt Meagher, Lin Folsom, Bill Short, Wendy Gray, Brandy Britton, Barb & Tom Stockton, Mellie Kennedy and if I'm forgetting someone...a special thanks to them!!!! Notice how many are new members...and how much fun they're having!!! You too can join in...just sign the sheet at the bar.

And kudos to Andy and Steph for the rousing success of the racing program!!! And to my Wendy Gray for the pics of new members...and to the $3 night crew (tonite Myra McEwan, Bob Knowles & Carol & Mike Herbert...more new members!!!!)

Remember, as these folks have, it's an all volunteer club and our success depends on us...all of us!!

On another note, for your information, AYC has an account at Fisheries Supply in Seattle...if you can't get it in town here, you might try them..Acct #613089 for online or your AYC membership card at the store.

See you all tonight!!

Hey AYC sailors we need YOU!

Your adventurous Race Chairman is heading out to seek other sailing waters for awhile. Huntington Lake, then the Pacific, and back to Huntington, with a stop in SantaCruz in the middle... RC duties are typically filled in week by week, depending on who is available, with Andy helping out as needed. So, we need a couple weeks worth of volunteers in place before his ship has sailed...

June 30 is the first of Wally's Tours, near and dear to the RC's heart. We need a RC crew: boat and driver, chaseboat driver, recorder and flag person.

July 7: Steph is volunteering the Rumpus crew because we'll be loaded up on the trailer ready to head out on the road, but can stick around to run races that night.

July 14: third night of Wally's Tours: We need the same crew as above.

Be thinking of whether you can help with this, or know of someone who might like to help out. We'll fill these positions before we announce results after racing tonight. Doesn't have to be your entire crew, even one volunteer from a boat will get it done if we work together!
thanks!

AYC does it again!

Warm southerly winds ruffled the skirts of the 6 brave skippers that took to the waters to do battle in 4 buoy races on Padilla Bay. Very tight starts and lots of corners, including an Olympic course kept the gaily attired crews holding onto their tiaras in the mayhem. Yes a womens' regatta @AYC is a sight to behold. Of course without a system in place for gender testing or performance enhancing drugs nearly anything goes. Thanks to Charlie and Debbie Guildner for providing an RC boat and all the helper people on board also Kyle for scoring and I think I spotted 3 different bartenders. Results are posted. 7 skippers, skipped services Sunday morning for the annual singlehanded race. Tanker dock, round Huckleberry and back. Steph on the Rumpus was first across with a full spinnaker and chose to go the wrong way around Huckleberry which turned out to be the right way but still couldn't find the legs to save time on new guy Mark Robie in Zipper, results to be announced Wednesday night. We will need RC help in July as the Rumpus is headed back to it's birthplace for some regattas, please contact Andy if you can help.

Northern Century Open for Registration...

For those of you who have been anxiously waiting for this moment, the Northern Century (Aug 27-29) is now open for registration HERE.

2010 will be the third running of this epic event and there will be two divisions (as usual) - a double-handed division and a fully crewed division. The course starts in Fidalgo Bay and heads north to Point Roberts, down Boundary Passage, then south through Haro Strait to Hein Bank and returns to Anacortes with a finish at the west entrance of Guemes Channel.

The race starts on Friday, August 27, 2010. Double-handed entries start at 1930 followed by fully crewed entries at 1940. It will likely take most competitors until Saturday night to finish and perhaps later.

This year we are mixing things up a little and have even more prizes to distribute -

• First, second and third place finishers in each division
• The last boat to finish before the time limit in each division
• The boat voted by the race committee as having the most fun during the event
• Boats breaking the elapsed time records in each division

Get out the Boat: Girls and Singlehanded Regattas this weekend!

Saturday, June 19: Women's Regatta on the bay. Meet at AYC at 10:00 to register, have a skipper's meeting, then we'll go rig up and race. 3 races are planned in the Bay. AYC will be open after racing, and we'll have some fun prizes to give out. We recommend (of course! but don't require) dressing up in team gear. Boys may come along, especially if they plan to go in drag and serve the martinis! We'll bring tiaras for them!

Sunday, June 20: Singlehanded Race. Meet at 10:00 at AYC to register and have a skippers meeting. We'll head somewhere downwind and plan to be back by early afternoon. Again, AYC will be open and prizes will be awarded!

Come enjoy and join in! Bring your boat or just bring yourself. Come sail or just hang out and help. See you there!

Windermere Results Posted...

The preliminary Windermere Racing Results are now available HERE.  Many thanks to all who made this event possible - race committee, committee boats, food, registration, etc.  A special thanks goes to Andy and Stephanie Schwenk who made the entire event possible!

Abby Sunderland Found...

In case you haven't been following the news, Abby Sunderland (16) sailed from California on 23 January 2010 to circumnavigate the globe in the yacht Wild Eyes. At approximately 1.00 a.m. (Australian Eastern Standard Time) Friday 11 June the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) detected transmissions from two distress beacons registered to Wild Eyes. The detections are currently in position 40 48 South 74 58 East, approximately 2033 nautical miles west south west from Perth in the central southern Indian Ocean. There are currently no communications with Wild Eyes.

The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre at La Reunion, operated by France, is coordinating the search & rescue response overall as Wild Eyes is in La Reunion's search and rescue region. Australia offered to assist if required.

La Reunion has requested air search assistance to establish the situation on scene, recognising that the remoteness of the location would delay any ship response. The most rapid means to get an aircraft on scene is to send a QANTAS A-330 Airbus passenger aircraft from Perth. The aircraft should be on scene mid-afternoon Friday 11 June. The aircraft mission will be to attempt to communicate with Ms Sunderland from high level and, if necessary, to descend and make visual contact to assess the circumstances.

La Reunion is coordinating three seaborne responses. A fishing vessel can be on scene on Saturday afternoon, a French Fisheries Patrol vessel can be on scene on Sunday morning, and an offshore support vessel can be there on Sunday evening. Each of the three vessels should be capable of conducting a rescue, subject to prevailing weather conditions.

The A-330 Airbus spotted Abby and here is what they saw - everything on deck gone! Looks like she will get a ride home starting Saturday afternoon...

Mindless Musing from Someone with Excess Time...

Given that we have now completed all our scheduled distance races for the first half of the 2010 season we decided to take a look at the age old question - which scoring method results in fairer racing in our club - Time on Time (TOT) or Time on Distance (TOD)?

Now for all you closet theorists out there it is time to put away your favorite stories and take a hard look at the numbers - yes we know that half of you have already gone back to watching TV, but keep reading and you might learn something...

For this analysis we re-scored all AYC distance races since 2007 where there were more than two finishers using both TOT and TOD.  When doing this analysis we found that nearly all races fell into one of four general patterns:

1. There was little difference between TOT and TOD scoring
2. Both TOT and TOD scoring favored faster boats
3. Both TOT and TOD scoring favored slower boats
4. TOT and TOD scoring diverged

As an illustration of the first pattern (little or no difference), take a look at the following graph from the 2010 Smith Island Race - there was no bias towards slow or fast boats under TOT, but a slight bias towards slower boats under TOD:

To illustrate the second pattern (where both TOT and TOD favored faster boats), take a look at the following graph from the 2009 Sinclair Island Race.  Both TOT and TOD scoring favor faster boats.

To illustrate the third pattern (where both TOT and TOD favored slower boats), take a look at the following graph from the 2009 Foul Weather Race.  Both TOT and TOD scoring favor slower boats:

Finally, to illustrate the fourth pattern (where TOT and TOD scoring diverge), consider the 2009 Smith Island Race where TOT favored faster boats and TOD favored slower boats:

Now that you are totally confused we need to turn to some relatively simple statistical regression analysis tools to sort out this mess - and the results are somewhat surprising:

When analyzing these races (all AYC club distance races run since 2007 where more than two boats finished), TOT scoring has an 8.4% bias in favor of slower boats while TOD scoring has an 0.1% bias in favor of slower boats.  

To summarize, at least for club distance racing at AYC in our local waters with our local fleet, TOD scoring seems to produce less biased results - so there you have it...

PS - we will continue to analyze the numbers and give you an update at the end of the season!

Windermere is here! Where are you?

June 12/13 the AYC hosts the Gran Prix qualifier Windermere Regatta. Not only is this regatta known for great buoy racing but also legendary good times at the club. Fanny Alger will rock the house Saturday night and Friday is the annual Karaoke contest. Come on out and join in the racing.

This year is our first ever "Plastic Classic" division for boats over 5,000 disp. but under 30 loa. In the big boat div. be on the lookout for the rivalry between Carl and the bad buoys of Veloce and Tequila Dave and his crew of pirates aboard Vitesse. The Black and Blue racing team out of PMYC are bringing their sled Dos. The red hot Red Eye Express will be representing for OIYC. Fresh from their Swiftsure victory the Crazy Ivans are ready for a little closed course action. The Iconians are likely to give Big Blue a rest but what is up their sleeve, will it be Stranger, Slapper, Good Enuf, Mikey or the entire stable? With Little Annie out of action there is room for a new star in highest rating div.

If you want to race but don't have a ride come down to the club Wednesday night and we'll hook you up or goto the forums section of ths website and click on the crew section. If you are new to the club and just want to help out contact Andy @ 360 770 7035 and you'll find yourself shoulder to shoulder with chili dog chef Christy Sunday afternoon, or behind our new BMW vacuum Saturday night, or collecting T-shirt money Friday afternoon, all these people are important to make are our all volunteer club a continuing success.

Wednesday Night Buoy Racing...

For those of you that missed it, last night was a fine evening to be on the water for buoy racing. Winds were 15-25 from the south west with plenty of carnage on the course! Here is a short video clip taken from the on-board camera of one of the prime examples of crazy driving -- enjoy!

AYC rules the waves @ Swiftsure 2010

Swiftsure the annual regatta that is actually 5 races in one was held out of Victoria on Memorial Day weekend. AYC sent 9 boats. The weather was a mixed bag up to 35kts at the start to drifting conditions on the way home. There were reports of crew overboard, two rigs fell down, and on at least one boat someone forgot the can opener.... 


The Big Blue Show (Icon) skippered by Kevin Welch and helmed by Ian Trojan Warrior Sloan (ya just gotta see the helmet) was first home in the long course to Swiftsure Bank and back and corrected to 2nd in class A. Night Runner battled for a 3rd in class B on the same course. Passepartout skippered by Peter Red X Shainin the sole entry on the medium course to Flattery finished 8th in class F. Grafix co skippered by Tom Gilbert and Dave Martin featuring 6 AYC members on board got in for 3rd in class L the juan de Fuca Race. Crazy Ivan sailed by Chris White was the sole winner in class M. Cat Sass sailed to a fourth in div. Q with Keith Rubin and Pat Barrett on board for the entire race no salvage vessels necesary. Son of Raven, Wild Rumpus (only all team estrogen entry), and Alakazam also represented for the scarlet letter A. 


Victoria puts on a good show and if you catch the tide right you can be there in 5 hours. (even on a rag bagger) Lessons learned....

1. An American dollar is no longer worth a whole lot more than a Looney.
2. Sailing wth your friends in big winds and adverse currents makes for a lively ride!
3. Don't forget they charge duty on wine @ customs...
4. Family trips on boats sometimes involve air discomfort bags (lots of them)
5. How come the rum is always gone?
6. Even if it's your 30th anniversary you will still see some familiar faces, they just look older..
7. Smitty's breakfast joint is outta business:.(
8. The Empress is still as impressive as ever, I still buy that special toffee there
9. Roaming charges suck!
10. We'll be back next year!!!