Chesapeake Sailing Club

September 2011

SCUTTLEBUTT

Newsletter of the Chesapeake Sailing Club

Calendar at a Glance
    Sep 3 - Labor Day Cruise and Race
    Sep 10 - Start Fall Cruise
    Sep 24 - Rock Hall Picnic
See the detailed Cruise Schedule

Commodore's Column
Dave Ewing, Cherette

We had a wonderful picnic and Annual Meeting at Belvedere Yacht Club on Saturday, August 13. Our numbers may have been small but our spirit was great! Seven couples were represented and all enjoyed each other's company.

• The Treasurer's report was accepted and shows a balance of about $1000 before this picnic and the cost of crab cakes for the upcoming Rockhall picnic.
  
  
• The Vice Commodore's report included the upcoming events:
  
  The crab cake raft up on Sept 24 which will be partially financed from the club treasury and will cost each person $12 for crabs or $10 for chicken.
  We will try again for the West River raft up and restaurant meal on October 15.
  The Forces have graciously offered their home for the Holiday Party on December 3.
  
  
• The Fleet Captain's report included the following items:
  
  The upcoming fall race which will take place during the September 3-5 Raft Up.
  The September 10-18 Fall Cruise itinerary will be to the upper bay so we will be close to home if weather threatens.
  Dave Nance then gave out the spring race awards to Southern Lady 3rd place, Ariel 2nd place, and Cherette 1st place! They were beautiful engraved glass plaques.
  
  
• We then had a discussion and vote on raft up expectations. We decided - -
  
  In the case of land parties, the host may decide if they wish to provide wine or request BYOB.
  Spring and fall cruises would be BYOB.
  Water raft ups would have the wine provided by the host boat. Normally 2 big bottles would be enough unless there is a big turnout.

We then thanked the Vice Commodore , the Fleet Captain, and the Webmaster for all their hard work.

Elections were held and Frank Cingel was reelected as Webmaster, Susan Whaley reelected as Treasurer, and our new Commodore, starting in January, will be Mal Singerman!

We then had sinfull deserts and left feeling happy, full, and ready for the next events! Keep a lookout for announcements of all our events!
See you on the water! Dave Ewing

Vice Commodore's Report
Joe Powers, Aquavit

It looks like the commodore has pretty well covered the annual picnic and business meeting at the BYC so I will just have a few words about the next get-together.

Our next get-together will be at the Sailing Emporium in Rock Hall. Cocktails will be at 3 PM with crabcake dinner at 4 PM. The cost will be $12 for crabcakes and $6 for chicken. Drinks will be BYO.

We will ask people to bring either an appetizer or a dessert. I will be putting out a more specific call asking for number of attendees in early September.

If you plan to sail to the event you will need to make a reservation with the Sailing Emporium Their phone number is 410-778-1342. Be sure to mention that you will be with the CSC. We will try to get them to group us reasonably close together, but that will depend on what slips are available.

Fleet Captain's Report
Dave Nance, Ariel

Weather has been the word for August. The planned raft up at Broad Creek (the one off the Magothy) was called off due to the heat and humidity that just would not leave. The next week end was the Picnic and because of the forecast for bad storms, no one sailed to the site at The Belvedere Yacht Club. Then we had an earthquake and a hurricane. We should have a celebration for the end of August!

Make your plans now for the annual Labor Day raft up and race. Then plan for the fall cruise around the upper Bay, starting September 10.

See you there.

Cruise Report-
Eastern Shore Happiness
Glenn Whaley, Bay GyPSy

A casual look-see at the CSC summer cruise schedule shows that we were all going to rendezvous at Broad Creek, off the Magothy, on the weekend of August 6-7 "if the weather cooperates" (reference: CSC website, 2011 Cruise Schedule). It was that "weather cooperates" thing that got us. We didn't go. It was just too hot. (There's been a lot of that this summer!)

So we went with a backup plan, and a pretty fine one it was too. We all bundled up our sealegs and trundled over to Kent Island and Annie's Paramount Steak and Seafood House right on Kent Narrows. It was a fine evening all around, made all the finer by the great companionship and good eats. (Of course, the air conditioning didn't hurt, either.) There were fourteen of us all told for the Saturday get-together: Commodore Dave and Janet Ewing, Vice Commodore Joe and Margie Powers, Fleet Captain Dave and Lois Nance, Frank and Liz Cingel, Glenn and Susan Whaley, Paul and Shirley Berson, and Dick and Alice who were friends and guests of the Bersons.

Now, being people of the boatful persuasion, we all know we CSC-ers much prefer being on the water rather than merely next to it. But sometimes that's good enough. This was one of those times - especially since the fall cruise beckons just over the horizon. A delightful evening out with friends, the prospect of a Labor Day weekend outing and race, and then a week-long cruise of the northern Chesapeake Bay - does it get much better than that? Looking forward to seeing everyone on the water soon!

Member's Corner-
Bay GyPSy - the Nature Preserve

See the picture. I would invite your attention to the fine looking bum staring down at you from the top of Bay GyPSy's mast. But, however fine it might be, that bum is probably not what caught your eye. Instead, it was probably that stick-built condominium that an enterprising osprey pair has been trying to build for the past couple years, latest edition. You've heard versions of this story before. Maybe you're tired of hearing it. Sorry. Some things we just gotta share, even if it's a little whiny: I'm just not sure what it is about our mast that makes it so attractive in a fleet of easily eight or ten other fine looking masts at Belvedere. I mean, they all share the same wonderful waterfront view, don't they? But for whatever reason, it's ours they like.

After two years of this, we've even given them names. Oscar and Opal. They're actually kinda cute, in a raptor sort of way. After awhile, they sort of grow on you. Their handiwork grows on our mast, that's for sure! If you happen to be down at the Belvedere Yacht Club, you can probably meet them, at least from afar. They usually do their thing when most of us aren't around, but you can occasionally catch one or sometimes even both of them weaving sticks - sometimes BIG sticks - into their latest condo project. As an added attraction, they usually leave at least as many sticks (and other interesting stuff) on the deck as they do up on the mast. You can wander down to Slip 25 sometime and check it out.

Now, usually I'm able to knock the odd sticks down by running a broomstick up the mainsail halyard and wiggling it around a bit. But recently, we had been out of town and such so hadn't made the pilgrimage to Belvedere for two or three weeks. You can see the result. Given another week or so, I'm sure it would have been a full-up nest. Of course, if that had happened, DNR would have declared our otherwise fully mobile sailboat a Nature Conservancy or something and that would have been the end of our sailing season.

So on a recent fine morning, a friend at Belvedere, assisted by First Mate Susan, hoisted me up the mast to disassemble - one woven stick at a time - Oscar and Opal's latest handiwork. Those birds are good at what they do, I'll give them that! Not only do they use lots of big sticks and rushes and such, but whatever they ate - or at least what's left when they're trough with it! - is mixed in, too. That made it a whole lot of fun to take apart. You can see from the picture what my orientation was while disassembling the thing. It didn't help even a little bit that I had to be looking up most of the time, either. (There is actually a picture of what I looked like after I got back down from there, but it's way too disgusting for a family-friendly newsletter.)

You can call us silly, I suppose, but even with all the whining we've actually grown kind of fond of our pet ospreys. Even though they've cost us two Windex windvanes so far and at least four trips up the mast since they decided to homestead onboard Bay GyPSy. It's just part of the boating adventure, we figure.

But do you think we could interest Belvedere in sponsoring a fer-real osprey nesting pole somewhere out on the end of the pier? I mean, a flat platform would have to be a more attractive nesting site than the pointy top of a sailboat mast, right? I'm just saying....

Webmaster and Editor
Frank Cingel

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