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In this issue:
- Upcoming Events
- In Memoriam: Bob Collins
- Breakfast on Ashby Shoal, And A Viking Funeral
- Way Back When ... Memories from CSC Greybeards
- Crusty's Corner
- Contacting the Editor: need work hours?
Upcoming Events at Cal Sailing Club
Clinics and Workshops are open to all current CSC members. Send your ideas for future clinics and workshops to the [rear_commodore@cal-sailing.org]. Watch for notices posted on the CSC email discussion list and at the clubhouse for details on all upcoming events at CSC.
Visit the events calendar on the CSC website for descriptions of the events listed below.
- June 1 Docking Dinghies and Keelboats, with Allan Champion. 10:30am-12:30pm at the clubhouse.
- June 1 OPEN HOUSE, 1 - 4 pm
- June 1 ExComm meeting. 6:30pm at the clubhouse. Open to all members.
- June 7 All Club Work Party. 10am-2:30pm. Fulfill your membership work hours by coming down to help out with many sailing and windsurfing projects.
- June 8 Women's Sailing Clinic. Special Byte Workshop w/Ed Shirk 1pm. Contact Susan Margulies [bajichuan@hotmail.com].
- June 13 Moonlight Madness Sail and BBQ. The club will remain open for evening sailing, conditions permitting. Bring a waterproof flashlight.
- June 15 Cruise to Point San Pablo Harbor. Skipper Dominique Barthel. Advance signup required.
- June 15 ExComm meeting. 6:30pm at the clubhouse. Open to all members.
- June 21 Laser Clinic w/Chris Hsu. Rigging and basic Laser sailing. 2-4pm at the clubhouse.
- June 22 Women's Sailing Clinic. 1pm-4pm. Contact Susan Margulies [bajichuan@hotmail.com].
- June 23 - 27 Junior Fast Track. 5pm - 8:30pm. Contact Jeff Lewis [JuneFastTrack@hotmail.com] to register.
- June 26 Fundamentals of Windsurfing, with Pete DeKay of ABK. 7pm at the clubhouse.
- June 29 How to Teach Windsurfing Right (Part 2), with CSC member and US Sailing Certified Instructor John Mathias. 10:30am-12:30pm at the clubhouse.
- June 29 OPEN HOUSE, 1 - 4 pm
- June 29 ExComm meeting. 6:30pm at the clubhouse. Open to all members.
- July 4 OPEN HOUSE, 1 - 4 pm
- July 13 Windsurfing Land Clinic, with Jason Voss. 4pm-5:30pm at the clubhouse.
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June 5, 2 pm-7 pm
June 7, 3 pm-7 pm
June 9, 4 pm-7 pm
June 14, 10:30 am-2:30 pm
June 19, 2 pm-7 pm
June 21, 2:30 pm-6:30 pm
June 28, 9:30 am-1:30 pm
Do you miss out on workshops or cruise sign-ups because you learned about them too late? Join our listserve, an email discussion list, for announcements about club activities, lessons, and work hours. To subscribe send a blank message to [cal-sailing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com] In Memoriam:Bob Collins
Bob was the originator of the Wednesday night lessons, starting I believe in about the mid-70's. It was done informally at first, then became institutionalized as a regular club activity. He taught every Wednesday night without fail for a couple of decades. I remember one dark winter night in 1985 when it was raining buckets, and Bob and I, then a student, were the only people who showed up. We sat in his car for a while by the J dock gate, watching the rain drench the windshield and waiting for anyone else to show up, and after about a quarter hour decided it wasn't maybe such a good night to go sailing.
Bob loved the social aspect of the Wednesday night lessons, including the dinners afterward at Spenger's. He liked to draw everyone, in his affable, courtly way, into the dinner table conversation. His gracious wife Marie sometimes accompanied us on the lessons and to dinner.
Bob was a machinist for the Electronics Engineering Dept. at UC., and was able to use some of the special equipment there to fabricate flawlessly-working, indestructible custom-designed parts for the CSC boats. He did this for the first two fleets of Lidos, actually - rudders and tillers, centerboards, and mast steps.
Bob also had an extensive machine shop in the basement of his house in the Berkeley hills. The equipment there was antique, inherited from his father, who was also a machinist. I used to go up to his house from time to time when I needed to fabricate special boat parts - the last time was probably only about five years ago. It was always a pleasure to be hosted by him at his house and to work with him on the boats. Also, at times Bob and Marie hosted dinners at their home for groups of club members - I attended one of these in the mid-1980's in honor of new Senior Skippers.
Miss ya, Bob.
Charles Clausen
Bob taught TONS of people to sail, in the calmest and most unflappable manner imaginable. I can remember when he'd get nervous about someone doing something, he'd just... squirm a little, and edge toward the mainsheet. Never a harsh word, never a raised voice. "Next time, maybe", he'd say, "try it this way...."
Even better, by watching how he did it, he trained legions HOW to teach in both Lidos and Ensigns.
Bob was down every Saturday, and every Wednesday, without fail or complaint.
A master craftsman, he custom-built the stainless steel tiller/rudder assemblies for the last set of Lidos, assemblies that never broke, or jammed, or misbehaved. He could also keep the crew in stitches describing the bizarre crows-nest he built for the family bunny, so it could survey the back yard in safety.
I'm sure that was built to last, too.
Thank you, Bob.
Alex Case
In honor of Bob Collins, Cal Sailing Club will create a Bob Collins Memorial Teaching Award to honor a member who has done an outstanding job teaching and being a role model for the club. If you have any suggestions about the nomination and selection process, please send them to Beth at [rear_commodore@cal-sailing.org]
Breakfast on Ashby Shoal, And a Viking Funeral by Saul Schumsky
On May 18th a few of us awoke VERY early, and arrived at the clubhouse before sunrise to rig sailboats while there was still enough water at the dock. We all cast off by 6am and steered toward the Ashby Shoal. The wind was north, northeast which meant that you could have launched a rubber raft, laid down in it and woken up when the raft hit the shoal.
Dave Cary blazed the trail in the club's skiff, which conveniently carried all of our breakfast and camping supplies. Two lidos and two JY's navigated the shallow water across the South Sailing Basin and followed shortly behind. We would be stranded upon the shoal for the next 4 hours until the tide came back in and urged us back into our boats. Naturally the first order of business was to start cooking breakfast as we watched our own little island in the bay grow bigger and bigger. We cooked sausages and pancakes, sipped mimosa's and ate fruit salad and baked goods. We were joined by Sander and a friend, who had paddled in from Emeryville on a windsurfing board towing their Coleman cooler on an inner tube. Then Sofien windsurfed in and insisted we were on his island and had to leave immediately ... unless we learned to windsurf. We negotiated a deal, formed an alliance and all agreed to guard our new property from any invading kayaker/slackers.
Then we conducted a Viking funeral. A short time ago, while searching through the club binders for my white rating card, I found the cards of former club members who had recently passed away. I wasn't sure what to do with their cards, but I had an idea that a Viking funeral at the shoal might be just the thing. About a week before our outing I learned that Bob Collins had passed away and it was with great sorrow that I added his card to the pile before leaving the clubhouse early that morning.
Those of us present on the shoal paid tribute to the club members gone by, recalling the stories that we remembered of David Cahn, Hester Burn-Callander, Steve Kingsley and Bob Collins. We constructed a boat out of a paper bag, placed the white cards inside and brought it to the waters edge. Just to make sure they would burn, we doused the cards with camping stove fluid and when a match was set to the boat it quickly went up in flames with a "poof". I "slowly and respectfully" set the burning vessel into the "sea" and we watched as it quietly drifted downwind and burnt to its waterline.
We still had a bit of time left on the Shoal and we amused ourselves by attempting to fly a replica of one of Leonardo's flying machines. We observed that the structure of the wings was remarkably similar to modern windsurfing rigs. Darn if that DaVinci didn't invent everything. Then Paul Kamen's Dragon Boat crew arrived, carrying the first wheeled vehicle ever to land on Ashby Shoal. Some fun was had trying to ride the folding bike on the wet sand, and watching the attempt to bring civilized transportation to the shoal. We noticed that for the first time in anyone's memory, the sand actually got dry in some small places while we were there.
Finally as our island disappeared beneath us everyone cast off for home. We arrived at the Mainland and shared the remainder of the Slackers' breakfast. It was one of the longest and most enjoyable Ashby Shoals I have ever been to and certainly one of the best. Next year I encourage all you Ashby slackers to get up early and join us!
Way Back When ... Memories from CSC Graybeards by Neil Larson
I first joined the Cal Sailing Club in 1958, the summer after my freshman year at Cal. At that time the Club had two locations, a club office on campus and a boatyard down at the marina. The club office was in the basement of Eshelman Hall, (Associated Students UC Building) and was mostly used for playing Hearts with fellow sailors while skipping class. The club’s boatyard was located at the southeast corner of the harbor (behind the bait store) in the spot now marked by an empty cement pad, where two warehouses once stood. This location included a large, 5-ton capability hoist with a hand-cranked winch, which the Club shared with commercial fishermen.
The Club was called the UC Yacht Club (UCYC) and memberships were open only to students and faculty. Memberships cost just $10 a semester and the club did not need a budget as the ASUC automatically picked up all the expenses beyond the membership income. The Club was much smaller back then, there were never more than 50 members with perhaps only 10 active members at any time. There were no written tests, no club meetings, and no formal club officers, but we used the same volunteer system for testing sailing abilities as the Cal Sailing Club uses today.
During the summer of 1958 UCYC had only 5 sailboats: a “110,” which was a 24' narrow, plywood, cigar-shaped racing boat; and four cold-molded plywood, open cockpit “International 14” planing dinghies. Compared to Lidos, the I14's were slightly shorter, but they were a much higher performance boat because they had 50% greater sail area, a better planing hull shape, and lighter weight.
My best memories of sailing the I14’s centered on getting the boat to plane by bouncing it on a broad reach in the short chop outside the harbor. For those unfamiliar with planing, it is like sailing a Lido on broad reach in heavy winds and then sliding down a wave to start moving 2-3 times the normal speed with spray flying from both sides of the hull, similar to a speed boat. Because planing tended to bury the bow (which could submarine the boat), the crew would move its weight aft to counter this effect with one person sitting on the transom behind the skipper and hanging on while the skipper tried to avoid planing off the top of one wave and sinking the bow (and boat) in the next wave.
But the worst feature of the I14’s was the lack of reliable flotation. They used inflated rubber bladders, which often leaked air. And the boats could not self-rescue, as once capsized and righted they could not be bailed out. For these reasons, Outside Skippers always sailed in pairs, like a buddy system, so if one boat capsized, the other could drop the main and then tow the disabled boat back. These problems do recall my last two stories.
The first as told to me, occurred one summer weekend summer in 1955 when the club cruised the I-14's to Red Rock (by the San Rafael Bridge) for a picnic. In the afternoon, after leaving the lee of the island, each of the four boats was knocked flat so none could rescue the others. Fortunately, a Red Stack tug in the area came to assist, and this rescue of UC students from the Bay made the front page of the SF Chronicle.
The second incident happened during a windy late afternoon in September 1958. We capsized while sailing an I-14 near the outer boundary of the sailing area. The other boat did not witness the capsize and continued to sail away. After 5-10 minutes they turned back to search for us, sailing back and forth, but because of the high waves, the now unstepped mast, and the hull floating awash, they could not see our waving hands or hear our shouts. Eventually they gave up and returned to the harbor mouth.
After about 15 minutes in the water wearing only a t-shirt, swim trunks, and the old style May West lifejacket (no warmth), my fingers curled up with no feeling and were unable to tie or untie knots. We stayed with the boat while waves washed over the fully awash hull, shivering while watching the sunset and with no other boats in sight. Around dusk, the harbormaster come out in his skiff and eventually spotted us. He pulled us into his boat, wrapped us up in blankets, and we slowly returned to the harbor, towing the I-14 behind us. We stayed awhile in his office, which he had heated to a sauna-like temperature to cure the hypothermia.
One unexpected consequence of this incident was that during the 1 1/2 hrs I spent shivering in the water, I lost over 7 lbs of weight. Another consequence was the club made the historic decision in 1959 to replace the I-14's with a new fleet of Lidos. However, in the first summer of sailing the Lidos we busted 14 masts in our efforts to get the boats planing like the I-14s.
The moral: If you haven't sailed in one of the club's planing sailboats, you've missed real sailing excitement along with the potential for a bath in the bay!
Crusty's Corner
It's summer and some folks don't have the sense to stay inside and watch TV. Don't they know the ozone layer has a big gaping hole where all the Freon from Cousin Elmer's old fridge tore through?
From when the sun's rays first jab through the eye-snot, until Ol Sol lets up on the dilated pupils, idiots at the Marina jog, bike, fish, sail, stroll, swim, kite, crawl, hop, skip, and jump with little else on than a few gobs of goop. Like walking into a firefight wearing KY Jelly.
The few working stiffs, out diving dumpsters and selling joints at the Adventure Playground, they've got sense enough to wear three overcoats, four hats, and six pairs of socks. And the folks with real sense don't come out of the bushes until it's good and dark.
But the wackos in the sportyduds from Target think spraying and glopping and rubbing is the ticket to protect them from ultraviolet mayhem. Hey idiotz, doncha know they call that stuff radiation for good reason? Ya might as well jog straight into Chernobyl as stay out in the noonday sun.
No, these folks think that happy hour means going outside and working up a sweat without a sleeping bag over them. They're all smiley and grinning at the yellow hellhole in the wastey blue yonder, they're acting like getting blasted with deathrays down by the sparkly waters is just the peachiest ever. They're sucking their sports water and stinking of sunscreen.
Idiots. When the hell will winter roll around again?
Contacting the editor:
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