The winds on Sunday were the dreaded “light and variable,” but the mood was festive and we held an impromptu on-shore spinnaker handling clinic.
Many thanks to Nancy Black, Camille Oliver, and Tyler Dunlap for running the race committee for the weekend and to Paul Willing for the electronic scoring. And, of course, CONGRATULATIONS to our race winners! Bart Hawkins won for the Open Fleet, and Gabe Black and Adriana Ramirez took first in the Buccaneer 18 one-design fleet. Full results are here:
Other weekend highlights included Dave Johnson’s epic fire dance, a scrumptious potluck featuring Darren Black’s pulled pork BBQ, and time spent with brand new members Tiffany and Scott Picquet and Jimmy O’Rourke. Nancy Black posted a bunch of great race pictures in the #racing channel in the club’s Discord server, so check ‘em out! We also got a video of Dave’s fire dance; you definitely don’t want to miss that.
Alaska at the BNAC!
The ASC has two teams representing Alaska in the Buccaneer 18 North American Championships (BNAC) this year: Steve Ryan & Gabe Black and Darren & Jake Black. ASC member Bruce Lee is also in the mix. This year, the BNAC will be hosted by the Tampa Sailing Squadron in Apollo Beach, Florida. Nancy Black is taking pictures and posting live updates in the #racing channel on the ASC Discord server, so you can follow Team Alaska’s exploits there.
This is the 58th annual Governor’s Cup, and as far as we can tell, it’s the oldest continuously running organized sporting event in Alaska. Mt. Marathon lost the title in 2020 when they wisely canceled the race due to COVID-19. Fortunately for us, sailboat racing was unusually well suited to social distancing.
For this year’s Gov Cup, we’ll race on both Saturday and Sunday. We’ll have our skippers’ meeting on Saturday at 2:00 PM and on Sunday at 11:00 AM. Racing will follow the skippers’ meeting on both days as soon as winds allow. We’re planning starts for two classes:
Beginner sailors are welcome, and if you’re new to racing, we’d recommend sailing in the Open Fleet, even if you’re racing a Buccaneer. (The Bucc class can be a little intense.) And note that we’re still looking for one more race committee volunteer. Absolutely no experience is required, and working on the race committee is a great way to learn about racing. If you’d like to help out, just point a note in the #racing channel on the ASC Discord Server.
Instructor, long-time racer, and (occasional) Gov Cup winner Geoff Wright (that’s me!) will be putting on a free Intro to Racing clinic on Friday evening at ~7:00 PM. New sailors are strongly encouraged to attend, especially those who took our classes earlier this summer.
We’ll have a group potluck on Saturday evening after racing. Rumor has it that Jonathon “Dr. Party” Ramirez will DJ the event, so bring your best dish and your dancing shoes!
Also, Nancy Black is cleared to walk, so the planned scooter race is CANCELED. :-)
It’s gonna be an epic weekend, so we hope to see a packed house of sailors!
Polaris K-12 Sailing Intensive
For the second time in ASC history, we hosted twenty young aspiring sailors and two teachers from Polaris K-12 for a four-day introduction to sailing at the club. I was lucky enough to be out there with a crew of volunteers for an absolutely magical time.
I had too many “favorite moments to count,” but I thought it was worth sharing the last-day reflections of two of the students. One said it was the best Polaris intensive she had ever participated in and even better than the Disney World intensive. Another said the whole experience was like an amazing dream, where when you wake up, you just wish you could go back to sleep and keep dreaming.
I want to give special thanks to Addy Wright for making this happen. (She was also responsible for the first Polaris K-12 intensive when she was a sophomore in high school.) She took a full week off of work to volunteer with the kids at school and then at the lake. And that’s after teaching both beginner classes and getting her US Sailing Instructor certification this summer.
In addition to Addy, our volunteer crew for Polaris K-12 sailing intensive included the following folks:
Christopher Cryan (and Adrian was in the intensive!)
Angie Oberlitner
Clayton Oberlitner
Cathy Wright
Oliver Wright
Darren Black
Steve Ryan
Darren wasn’t on the official volunteer roster, but he showed up and helped anyway because … he’s Darren. And although Steve wasn’t on-site during the intensive, I included him anyway because the club boats were all in perfect working order, and nobody has worked harder to make this happen than Steve. (It was fun to tell the kids about how the Flyin’ Ryan got its name.)
Fireweed Ladies Race & Brewery Sail
The Fireweed Ladies Race was soggy this year, but we had a dauntless group of women skippers out despite the weather. Congratulations to Angie Oberlitner and Brie Busey for taking the top seat on the podium. The full results are here:
On the Sunday following the race, we had our first-ever fleet sail to the Susitna Brewing Company. Continues were damp, but spirits were sunny. I’m personally hoping this will become a regular feature of Fireweed. :-)
New Discord Page on the ASC Site
We now have a permanent Discord page on the site that explains the platform, all the channels, and our server rules. The page also includes a form for requesting an invitation. You can find it here:
And I should mention that our post header image is from the Pirate Race. That’s Taylor (new member from our first class) at the helm and Dave working as her able crew and gunner. They’re showing off proper crew/skipper configuration for the Fireweed, although you have to stow your water cannons for this race.
Friday Night Racing
As a warmup for the Fireweed Ladies Race, we’ll be running some low-key around the buoys races starting at around 7:00 PM, and we even have some sunshine in the forecast. I’ll be out mid-afternoon to get the racecourse setup, and I’ll can also do RC duty for the race. This is a beginner-friendly event, and new sailors are encouraged to come out for this. We’ll do a little on-shore refresher and a few practice starts for new sailors in attendance. Oh, and gents are welcome to helm for these races.
Fireweed Ladies Race
Here’s a missive about the race from Brie Busey, our very own Racing Vice Commodore:
Hey ladies (and gentlemen crew),
It’s time for the annual Fireweed Ladies’ Race this weekend!
As always, women skippers only and anyone can be crew! If you don’t have someone to sail with, you should definitely show up anyway because we can generally find someone for you to sail with. The number of boats will determine whether we have one or two fleets. If you are available, we might do some practice races Friday night.
We will attempt five races on Saturday. Skipper’s meeting will be at 11am. First start at 12pm, wind dependent. We will have a potluck Saturday, but it could be afternoon or evening, weather dependent.
We had a great idea from Geoff, where instead of racing on Sunday, we sail to the brewery together. So if everyone would like to try that out for Sunday if we get enough races on Saturday, then I think that could be really fun.
I hope to see everyone out at the club this weekend, and please come, even if you are a new sailor.
Brie
Susitna Brewing Co. Fleet Sail
We’re going to try a new thing and take the entire ASC fleet to the Susitna Brewing Company for lunch on Sunday. All sailors and all boats are welcome for this. I’ll call the brewery in the morning once we have a head count and warn them that we’re showing up. We’ll take off at (roughly) 12:30 PM and return whenever we return. Hopefully, we’ll have enough wind to sail, but don’t forget to bring paddles if it’s light.
A hearty thanks to all who joined the twentieth anniversary o’ the ASC Pirate Race! The chaos and fervor were truly beyond compare! Fair winds in our sails and blue skies overhead fueled a day of jolly mayhem.
Thirteen crews faced off in this year’s Pirate Race! Cap’n Gilt Garb Wright and his trusty mate Kent Wait emerged victorious as team Narwhale, tied with the SkibidiJack crew, Gabe and London. After much reckonin’, the final decisive factor was Geoff’s fabulous pirate garb. Still, a tip o’ the hat to London and Gabe fer snatching all the unstealable treasure points by bein’ first to complete the tangram puzzle, the swiftest in the sponge race (with a time of 1:03, only 6 seconds faster than team Ritteabaarrgg— Johnathan and Emily), and for deliverin’ the best pirate joke. Gabe and London sailed into the harbor with a single treasure, but with those three bonus points, they tied 4 and 4 with Geoff and Kent. Just shows— bein’ a pirate really is all about putting on appearances.
While team Lucky Banana stole the spotlight with their matching outfits and won the Best Dressed Pirates award, they also fought like true pirates fer the final treasure to hit the docks—the Immunity Idol. A Lucky Banana indeed! Oliver and Piper were spared from the lottery fer plannin’ next year’s race. That honor fell to The Black Wind crew—The Christensen Family.
Some o’ me favorite moments include (but be not limited to):
Peter abandoned his crew after bein’ bribed with snacks onto another vessel…and he took treasure with him to the Trimiran—aka team Kerberos!
I was bribed fer a handicap in the sponge race by Marilyn with chocolate and snacks (I now understand why Peter abandoned ship—Marilyn was convincin’ as all get-out) while she was drippin’ wet and shiverin’ uncontrollably. The priorities of a true pirate.
Gabe valiantly tried to intercept Piper and Oliver before they sailed into the harbor, only to capsize himself and have Piper and Oliver reclaim the treasure. (This was likely not Gabe’s favorite part.)
Nancy’s scooter slalom race after dinner, with Johnathan’s expert and hilarious commentary, topped off an already perfect day.
I wish I could’ve been there to see all me riddles and puzzles solved, but I couldn’t be everywhere at once. I’d love to read about any of your favorite moments in the comments o’ this here blog post!
A special thanks to Nancy and Darren fer all the support they gave me over the last month o’ plannin’. I’m certain they quickly realized this was more than they bargained fer, but kudos to them fer stickin’ with me. Thanks to Camille and Cathy fer manning the committee boat and handin’ out clues! Thank ye Johnathan fer bringin’ yer speaker system and MCing the day. And finally, special thanks to Duncan and Raia (me roommates and fellow pirates) fer puttin’ up with me and me puzzle-brained ways over the last month.
Enjoy some o’ me favorite photos from the day:
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Fair winds and followin’ seas, ~The Dread Pirate Hannah
On the whole, this is a great thing. It’s good to have a club that is active and growing, and it’s great that we’re bucking national trends where participation in outdoor long-form activities like sailing is declining. It means that we must be doing something right!
But growth has its challenges, and one of those is how to successfully support, integrate, and communicate with our new members who have questions about everything from rigging boats to finding sailing partners.
In the past, we had an ASC members Google Group. That worked fairly well when we were smaller, but as we grew, active conversations could easily generate north of thirty emails per day, which was just too much for many of our members. We finally closed down the Google Group earlier this year after thirteen years(!) of active service.
But this has left us with a bit of a “communications hole.” The website and email push announcements are great for formal announcements, but they don’t allow for casual “many-to-many” group communication like the Google Group did. To that end, we’re standing up a Discord server for interested club members.
And note that you don’t need to participate. We’ll continue to post official club updates via the website and email notifications using MembershipWorks. But if you’re looking for a digital connection with your fellow ASC members, the Discord Server is definitely the place. New members are absolutely encouraged to join, as are any long-time ASC members who are looking for an online sailing community and a chance to support our new members.
What is Discord?
Discord is a user-friendly communications app that you can use on your phone, tablet, or computer. It started as a platform for gamers but has evolved into a more general tool for all types of clubs and community groups. It’s like a digital clubhouse where members can chat, share information, and stay connected.
A key feature of Discord is “channels,” which are like permanent group texts for specific topics. For example, we have already set up channels for general sailing discussion, education, and off-topic (non-sailing) conversation. This keeps conversations organized and easy to follow.
If you’re new to Discord, you can read more about it in this beginner’s guide from Wired:
A Facebook Group was the other obvious choice, but Discord offers a few advantages for our purposes:
User Experience: Discord’s interface is designed for seamless communication, with less emphasis on social media features like likes and shares.
Organized Conversations: Discord’s channel system allows us to create separate spaces for different topics, making it easier to keep discussions organized, unlike Facebook Groups, where all posts appear in a single feed.
Accessibility: Not everyone uses Facebook. Some people prefer to avoid social media for various reasons, including privacy concerns or simply not wanting to maintain a Facebook account.
Notification Control: Discord offers fine-grained notification settings, allowing you to control how and when you receive notifications.
Real-Time Communication: Discord offers real-time voice and video chat, which is great for meetings, events, or casual hangouts.
Didn’t we start a Discord server a few years ago?
Yup! We’ve actually been running this server in a low-key way since 2022 and had several tech-savvy members join. But since that time, we’ve closed down the old Google Group, leaving a hole in our communications strategy. Also, Discord has become much more mainstream outside the gaming community since we originally launched. So we figured that it was time for a more official push.
Getting Started
To get started, you first need to install Discord on your phone or computer. For phones or tablets, use the App Store or Google Play. And you can download clients for Windows, macOS, or Linux here:
(Note that Discord is free and doesn’t contain any ads. And if you’re wondering how Discord makes money, here’s how.)
Once you have the client installed, just click on the invite link we sent out via email. From there, take a brief look at #welcome-and-rules channel, and then jump into the conversation!
Alaska Sailing Club 