Everyone knows sailing and windsurfing are good for the heart. Even so, CSC periodically sponsors First Aid classes to keep club members knowledgeable of what to do in an emergency.

Back in June, CSC sponsored a CPR/first aid class that went over the new standards in CPR and first aid, and also taught us how to use an AED  (automated external defibrillator). 

Heart disease is still the leading cause of death in the US, accounting for 1 in every 4 deaths.

The most common reason for a sudden cardiac arrest is ventricular fibrillation, which is an arrhythmia that interferes with the heart’s ability to beat properly and pump blood. We were advised to start with CPR (which circulates blood in the body), but a shock from an AED can restore a heartbeat if the arrhythmia is one that's "shockable". 

After taking the class, one of our Executive Committee (Excomm) Members, Joel Gussman, took up the special project to get an AED for the club. Thanks to his efforts, we now have one set up and ready to use in the clubhouse!  In an emergency, we should always call 911 right away, but while we wait for emergency vehicles, we have CPR and the AED to try and help improve the victimes survival chances.

What better way to celebrate Sophie & Tudor bringing a kid into the world than roasting one...a goat that is!

Sophie & Tudor met at CSC a few years ago, got married, and are about to have their first child. It's a true CSC-style love story. Most know Sophie as our fantastic (co-)Port Captain and phenomenal windsurfer. What many may not know is that Sophie got her start at CSC in sailing and taught some of Tudor's first lessons...it's how they met! Sophie's still windsurfing like a boss in her final trimester - who would expect any less?

We hosted a party for Sophie and Tudor yesterday in celebration of the upcoming newest novice CSC member, along with the requisite delicious food. Oh and a bouncy house. Did we mention the bouncy house? (Pro tip: do not get in the bouncy house right after eating 3 desserts. Just, don't.) 

It's been a phenomenal season filled with lots of epic wind and novice sailors and windsurfers learning how to get around using this wind, thing - time for the deliciously warm months of Fall! :)

[Photo copyright owned by & courtesy of Jennifer Kroon] 

For those of you who may not have heard, or didn't know to begin with, we receive an annual grant from the Department of Boating and Waterways (now Parks and Recreation Department) to teach safe boating in the Bay. Our introductory open house sails, youth rides, beginning dinghy, beginning windsurfing, and keelboating courses and instruction all serve towards providing affordable access to the water for the public, all while teaching safe boating. 

Each year, we write an application for the grant and report on our past year's activities. In addition to all of our regular programming, we also partner with local programs like helping the Berkeley and Albany fire departments train their rescue swimmers by sending some of our fleet out and asking the sailors to act like a bunch of fools for training purposes :)  We also partner with local schools and youth groups to take underserved and minority youth out on the water. For many children on our Youth Rides and youth and adults on our open house introductory sails, this is their VERY first time out on the water! And we get to teach them about the importance of wearing life jackets, safely moving around the boat, getting on and off the boat safely, wearing appropriate attire to avoid hypothermia, etc. 

We recently received the news that we'd be getting our grant again this year (woohoo!) to apply towards a new RS Venture (trainer dinghy), new novice windsurfing boards and sails, and new masts and rigging to keep our fleet well maintained and safe during the summer months. Grant funds should go directly to helping provide access to the water for beginners, and teaching safe boating.

Big thank you to all the volunteers who helped make our programs a big success in 2014! And thank you in advance to those who will help keep our programs strong in 2015. It is hard for all volunteer-run programs like ours to successfully receive funding because they do not provide the level of instruction and structure that we do, so thanks for helping keep the wheels on as well as you all do :) And remember that a big part of why we're here is to take people all the way from fledgling sailors and windsurfers up to superheros taking kids out for their first sail and getting more people out on the water.

The SF Sketchers group joined us for our Nov. 9, 2014 Open House, to sketch and paint the scene. Here are the results. More at the link!

http://www.meetup.com/SF-Sketchers/photos/25729234/431485165/#431357192

Ten times a year, CSC offers Open House introductory sailing lessons to members of the public for free. It's a great introduction to safely sailing on the Bay!

Check out this neat video from the Berkeley Bay Festival, where CSC offered CSC Open House rides!

1. Wear comfortable, non-restrictive gear and as many temporary pirate tattoos as possible.

2. Get a really, really long tiller.

3. Have awesome background music. 

4. Get out there.

Sailing in the Bay in a Dinghy can be challenging, to put it mildly. You're exposed to brutal wind, waves, and cold weather. Summer is often colder than spring and fall! And you look like a fashion disaster.

I often get asked about what to wear. Now a wetsuit is key, as we all know. I prefer to wear foul weather gear over my wetsuit to keep the wind chill off and keep the wetsuit from snagging on sticky-out bits on the dinghy.

But where is the style, you say? The panache? What if you're trying to dress to impress? Unfortunately, Armani doesn't make wetsuits. Which these guys took to heart:  http://youtu.be/0e_rDFy6VhI . They don't let the fact that they're sailing a 49er get between them and looking good. Brown shoes with a black suit, though? Ouch.

But what if you're not into suits? I've done a bit of field research, and here are my suggestions for your summer dinghy dress style.  I did all of my testing in one of our more challenging dinghies, the RS 500. And much of the field research was conducted solo. For maximum science and stuff.

CSC update as of 7/14, we have more than 1,000 members :)

Sunday 7/13 - we had dinghy racing, followed by an Open House and a party afterwards with the first ever performance by the CSC Band. Antony, Scott, and Kaylia serenaded their adoring crowd. Check out the video of one of their original CSC-inspired songs on Cal Sailing Club's facebook page! 

We had approximately 200 Open House attendees and one fearless Commander of a Pearson Commander, David Frasier, taking out eager new sailors--you're our hero, David!

July's Junior Sailing Fast Track from 7/7 - 7/11 came and went, and all we've got to show for it is a bunch of lousy pictures. Oh, and we have NINE brand spanking new juniors - congratulations!! 

We covered rudderless sailing at our Monday afternoon advanced dinghy lessons last week. Knowing how to rudderlessly sail is crucial not only in the (sort of rare at CSC) event that your rudder falls off (!), but also deepens your understanding of sail trim, boat handling, and makes you look pretty epic out there on the Bay. And let's face it: if you look good, you're probably sailing gooder.

It's also a skill you need to know to pass your senior dinghy & keelboat practical tests at CSC.

One simple resource that can be useful to get your started is this rudderless e-book (click the link to download), written by CSC member Joel Brand. 

Some pointers from our rudderless practice session and discussion last week:

If in a dinghy, try and get your rudder completely out of the water. It can still affect your course if it's in the water. As with all these tips provided below, however, try all sorts of different ways to maneuver and see what happens. Try it with the ruddder up, then down and swinging freely. Wind strength, waves, sail plan, and weight in the boat will all affect how your actions impact your course corrections...much like on any given day. Experiment!

What gets a bunch of sailors out of bed before 8am on a weekend?  The annual cruise to angel Island of course! 30 CSC members and guests poured into Commanders and Merits for a gorgeous sail to the aptly named Island, for a sizable feast that would make your grandmother proud. 

Creaking at the seams, some of us chose to hike off the calories, others napped, and many took the short hike/quick nap combo that capitalized on the best of both worlds. 

The sail back was mostly uneventful, with half of of us sailing down Raccoon straits, around the Island and into Berkeley, and the other half taking a straight shot back to Berkeley. It was scorching in the wind shadow of Angel Island, but cooled off nicely with a 5knt breeze as we cruised into the Berkeley Marina. 

Stepping on and off a dinghy with style can be an art. One of the best pieces of advice I received early on in my CSC career (after making it onto the dock still dry by sheer luck) was to commit to stepping off and never looking back! We all fear the dreaded plunge into the murky waters of our beloved dock...to inevitably be witnessed by the many bench sailors and commentators who collect like barnacles around the club house. The key, as beautifully demonstrated here by our soon-to-be Junior sailor Phillipe (and gif-elated by our very talented Jennifer Kroon), is to stay low/keep some bend in the knees, keep hold of the boat to steady yourself as you move forward, and let go as soon as you're ready to step off.  Anything else leads to wobbly do-the-splits-ville...and doom. Okay, not really. You're not a full-fledged sailor in my opinion until you've fallen into the water at the dock at least once to wash yourself clean of any dignity you may have been clinging to.

Click the image below for the brief video.

Any other tips for looking like a boss at the dock?

 The Berkeley Bay Festival Open House on Saturday, April 12 was a huge success with 303 adults and 78 children going out for sails on CSC dinghies and keelboats--that's a whopping 381 people in attendance! We had a big cook-out afterwards with nearly 100 people hanging out and dancing at CSC. We had two phenomenal bands who kept us groovin' throughout the day, and gorgeous weather. Big thank you to everyone who came out and volunteered to provide free sailing to members of the community, teach safe boating, cook massive amounts of food for the volunteers, and show your support (and best dance moves) for CSC!  Tide and wind was tough for this one and you all were troopers. See you on Sunday, May 18 for the next OPEN HOUSE! 

Tons more great photos from Lon here: https://plus.google.com/103254638147711764669/posts/LrWgSgWEMhL 

Busy day!

Hello CSC!

I'm writing from CV26, Team GREAT Britain's boat, and it's windy and wavy outside! Latitude 43, Longitude 164ish. I was on
'mother watch' today, cooking all the food for the team. While the first two shifts in weeks one and two irked me, it was
admittedly nice to get out of the wet and cold for a day to let my socks and boots dry out! And I now get to sleep 8 hours,
as opposed to 3 to 4.

It's definitely hard work sailing across the Pacific, especially when weather systems pass through and you're caught in a
squall with too much sail up. It usually takes about 5  to 6 people to get anything done from putting a reef in to changing
a head sail (sometimes we wake up both watches to do a big sail change when it's windy), so it can be time consuming and
exhausting to make a few key changes to the sail plan. We have 8 people on our watch, but one is always pulled off to do
'mother' and one has been locked away in the sail locker for over 2 weeks desperately trying to patch our code 2 spinnaker
that we tore into shreds on day 3! I've definitely had some fun surfing down waves in the pitch black night; looking out
over the horizon to see miles and miles of beautiful blue ocean rolling around us; and carving a glittery bioluminescent
path to San Francisco at night...it's gorgeous out here.

There have been a couple of good scares: when we broached with our code 2 spinnaker...a 70 ft yacht on its side where
you're hanging on for dear life while the spinnaker shreds itself into pieces all around you is disconcerting! And when we
gybed before reefing and got hit by a squall with a full main and no preventer to keep from an accidental gybe in big,
rolling seas.  When the round the worlders sounded panicked, I knew we were in potentially big trouble. I've had a lot of
perverse CSC esque fun that no one but us would probably enjoy. I got to sit on the bow and lead the head sail change the
other night, clinging to the pulpit (while tethered!) to unhank one sail and get the next one up, with waves crashing onto
the foredeck. The sails are so large you're actually worn out simply from unhanking one sail and hanking the next one on. I
got to climb up bottom of the mast to fix a jammed reefing line while swinging around like a pendulum.   And I've gotten to
drive the boat a fair bit. Turns out driving a dinghy downwind with a gennaker trains you well for helming a 70 ft boat at
night when you can't see a darned thing.

Racing at this scale is very different than the day sailing I'm used to at CSC. You learn that course over ground (COG) is
very important. The skipper will pop his head up through the hatch of the nav station and tell you every 30 minutes what
your COG is. We got so sick of hearing the word COG that we started telling each other to 'COG off' as a joke. You're
really not supposed to open that nav station hatch as all the electronics are in there and if a wave breaks over the boat,
the electronics will be fried. I've been tempted to have someone stand behind the hatch with a bucket so when the skipper
pops his head up, I can yell WAVE, and have someone throw the bucket at the hatch so he has to shut it. Ah, a girl can
dream.

My point is, you have to stay on course. You can't just ride high to surf down waves to your heart's delight like you can
on a pleasure sail. So here's how you surf a 70 foot yacht.
1. Wait until the skipper is asleep or very distracted. Tell him the sailmakers are having a nervous breakdown in the sail
locker and have started eating thread, or make some vague comment about 'smelling gas'. He'll be off in a hurry.
2. Wait till you see a beautiful mountain of a wave and start heading upwind until crew are dangling from their tethers and
looking at you in panic.
3. Squat and deadlift the helm to turn her downwind. Seriously, the helm is about 1,000 pounds at this point and you've
loaded her up to weather. Keep turning or you're going to be in a lot of trouble soon.
4. Drive down the wave and try not to laugh too hard like a maniac. Look serious like this is a troubling situation that
must be remedied....you can't believe you headed up so far and have now started accelerating down the wave at 20 knts with
fire hoses blasting on either side of your rails.
5. Start heading back upwind like a madman or you'll gybe.
6. Pray you don't accidentally gybe.
7. Seriously pray you don't gybe.

I've hit 23 knts so far. The boat record is 31. I'll keep trying!

That's all for now. I'm mostly kidding about my surfing antics, don't worry. :)  They're still letting me drive, so not
gotten us into too much trouble yet!
Can't wait to get back to CSC soon, see you all again and sail in our little corner of the world.  I've LOVED the limericks
and haikus, thank you so much for them. The crew get a good laugh out of them and ask about them regularly. It will be hard
to pick a winner, so keep them coming!  We're running a pool on when we'll arrive. April 9 is the most popular date right
now. Let's hope we don't sail into a wind hole!

We're off the coast of Japan trying to get out into the open ocean. It's
been bumpy, but I've been fine on the sea sickness front and the cold is finally
subsiding. I sprained my middle finger and its a nice fat sausage but
healing quickly. No time for rest!

We had our butts absolutely handed to us for a couple of days with winds
ranging from 40 to 90 knots. I thought the boat was just going to tear
apart at one point when a squall came through that seemed impossible to
control. Ollie, our watch leader, and a massive rugby player was the only
person able to hold the wheel mostly under control. He did that until he
was exhausted; then the skipper came on deck to take over. 

For context,Simon NEVER comes on deck. He sits in the nav station and barks orders at
us. Not steering the right course within 30 seconds of stepping on the
helm? Ah the familiar little 'wreek' of the hinges on the hatch opening and
Simon popping his head up. "Helm? What course are you steering? "

I was so exhausted at one point, I didn't know if I was going to make it. Just non
stop work work work, grind grind grind, haul haul haul. We ripped our
spinnaker, so one guy is below 24x7 trying to fix it as the sailmaker.

One crewmate has terrible sea sickness so is down for the count during the roughest
conditions. And one is always pulled off of rotation to 'mother'. So we
have a watch of 8 with only 5 ever on deck, one on helm and the rest of us
doing all the reefs, headsail changes, etc. Even Ollie is worn out and he
is a barrel of energy.

Then the wind has died, which is less stressful but
can mean even more work hauling sails up and down trying to catch the wind.
We did that and then the wind came up like a  gale and we were left with the
wrong headsail on the forestay and a massive sail bunched up in the cockpit
with only a handful of people to deal with it.

We've had to do a few "all hands on deck" to make it through the worst of it due to the smallness of
our watch; the other watch (we're bay watch and they're crime watch, ha)
has 9 people and none sea sick, so much more muscle! The first day I was
mostly given bits of string to pull on. Now I'm really in the thick of it,
which I definitely prefer, but it is hard, hard work.

They're training me to helm with the kite up in the dark across the Pacific. Right now, only
Ollie is trusted with the helm in those conditions, so it will be good to
get at least one more up to speed; skipper seems to think I'm up to the
task, so bring it!

Let's hope there aren't too many 'wreeks' from the nav
station. They call him whack a mole, lol. I actually really like sailing
with him; he gets on deck when needed and only yells most of the time, but
not all of the time :) He's clearly doing something right as we're managing
to hold onto our lead in extremely variable conditions.

Team GB came into Qingdao first with a huge arrival ceremony. Biggest of the race so far they say (we will have to give a CSC 10-cannon salute to top it in San Francisco). According to the skippers, this was the hardest of all legs.

Sir Robin was here for arrivals and they gave the skipper Simon Talbot a cape and flag pole thingie. There were many officials announced to big cheers. Till the end when we were tired of all the cheering and sort of grunted and waved our little plastic flags. They were ushered off to a nice warm room with local beer and cakes. Then they had to go scrub the boat. I hid in my hotel for that part. There will be plenty of toilet scrubbing for the next few weeks, so I'll wait until tomorrow for the official crew changeover day to start!

It's elapsed time for this race, so we definitely have at least second and possibly first if the boat One DLL doesn't finish in the next 24 hrs. So be sure to root against those soulless pirates because we want another gold pennant for the top of the forestay.

Crew drinks/dinner tonight and so nice to see everyone. They are in great spirits and say the boat and crew are running very well. I found out I'm on the watch with rugby star Ollie Phillips as the watch leader and one of my favorite round the world crew, Owen, on my watch as well so very excited to join in! They are all incredibly nice and down to earth. With a healthy thirst for first place!

The Clipper Race site has published a gallery of pictures from the Qingdao arrival. I had Fried Pickces Sick for breakfast, I'm ready to go. Stay tuned from more news from the Clipper Race.

We’re excited to announce the launch of the Cal Sailing Club blog! Watch this space for club news and goings on, fun pics, volunteer spotlights, General Membership Meetings, Open Houses, Youth Rides, sailing and windsurfing news, tips, techniques, tricks, and just all sorts of salty & windy goodness!

We had our first General Membership Meeting of the year on February 23, and the food was (as usual) amazing! Fall-off-the-bone ribs, chicken, salmon, burgers, and I think 10 kinds of salad (okay, maybe only 9). Marshall Lombardo is our new Banquet Chair—responsible for all the scrumptious food at GMMs & Open Houses – thank you, Marshall!  I like my steak medium-rare : )

You can check out the minutes for detailed notes on the GMM by clicking on ‘Meeting Minutes’ on the front page.

At the GMM, we recognized and awarded (long overdue) lifetime memberships to some of our most active and involved volunteers (who have probably earned 3 life-times’ worth of memberships in volunteer hours): Sheldon Coad, Steve Burchick, Kim Nguyen and Mitsu. You’ll be seeing volunteer spotlights about each of them in the coming weeks.

Our current team of bloggers are Nathan Owen Ilten, Rosann Allenbaugh, Iain Thompson, and Francisco Kattan on the sailing side, and Brad Block on the windsurfing side. We’d love more writers, especially for windsurfing! Please email me at my commodore address to get involved.