Alaska Sailing Club

Ahoy!

  • 2024 Pirate Race

    2024 Pirate Race

    The pirate race will take place at 1pm on Saturday, July 27th at the Alaska Sailing Club. Please have boats in the water and be ready to go before then!

    Ahoy me hearties, sailors, pirates, and swashbucklin’ adventurers!

    I be in a right pickle, I am! Me ankle’s gone and snapped like a rotten yardarm in a storm, leaving me and me crew marooned at the worst possible time! Arr!

    We recently received the inside scoop on a stash o’ the finest treasure ye ever laid eyes on. But alas! With me leg in a splint and me spirit unwilling to let such finery slip through me fingers, why not give me ol’ “friends” a chance to claim it?

    Now don’t be thinkin’ I’ve gone soft! I’ve crafted a little game for ye, and I hope yer ready to puzzle it out with yer trusty crew.

    If ye dare to join, set yer course for 61.5°N, -149.9°W on the twenty-seventh day of July. Be ready to hear the rules at 1300 hours, for I’ll be tellin’ them but once.

    NOTE! If ye win, yer crew DOES NOT (necessarily) have to plan next year’s pirate race.*

    A taste o’ the bounty up fer grabs:

    • A free sailing class (or membership) to use or gift within the next year (expires at the end of the 2025 sailing season)
    • First pick of the ASC boat fleet for next year’s pirate race
    • A shiny $100 voucher to West Marine

    Some additional tidbits fer ye:

    • We’ll be havin’ a pirate themed potluck after the race!
    • Extra prizes for the best dressed pirate!
    • Earn a bonus treasure point if ye regale us with yer best pirate story or joke.

    Specific Race Rules

    • No capsizing
    • No Pedal Drives
    • Teams limited to 5 sailors per boat

    So, me fellow pirates, are ye ready to rise to the occasion?

    Fair winds and followin’ seas,

    ~The Dread Pirate Hannah, Fair Lady Fancy Nancy, and Cap’n Darren “RedBeard” Black

    * The next pirate race planner will be chosen via lottery. Aye, there be a way to wiggle your way out of the drawing, but I ain’t spillin’ the beans until the day o’ the race.

  • 1st Class Recap and 2nd Class Starting

    1st Class Recap and 2nd Class Starting

    • The great round of introductions on the first day. I knew it would be a memorable class just based on hearing about everybody’s interests, backgrounds, and sailing passions.
    • Watching the class head gamely out into the rowdy weather after just one day of sailing instruction, and watching how well everybody handled it.
    • Waking up to “pike ’n eggs” on Saturday morning compliments of Darren Black and the teen instructor fishing crew.
    • As always, there lots of the magic happened after class each day, including sailing the Ensign 22 in the evening breeze, tying knots by the campfire, and indoctrinating new sailors into the “ASC Swim and Sauna Committee,” and just handing out by the campfire and getting to know all the new ASC members.
    • Watching Matt Flickenger hand out the US Sailing Instructor scholarship money to Gabe, Addy, and Oliver while the whole class cheered.
    • The Saturday evening pizza party in the dumping rain, powered by Nancy Black’s culinary magic and high-tech pizza oven. Also: dessert pizza with Nutella, marshmallow fluff, and orchard-fresh cherries!
    • Seeing Brie and the entire kids class out ripping around in high wind on the Flounder, the ASC’s Catalina 16.5.
    • Working with Clayton and Gabe to run the race start drills on the final day. Some of those starts were just remarkable! It was honestly difficult to imagine that everybody could come so far with their sailing in just three and a half days.

    I also wanted to send a shout-out to the (many) volunteers who put this together, including:

    • Brie, Cathy, Darren, and Addy: our fabulous instructor crew.
    • Gabe, Clayton, Oliver, and Jake: our high-energy teen instructor crew.
    • Nancy & Angie: our make-everything-happen super volunteers.
    • Steve Ryan: the reason we have a fleet of working boats!

    I also wanted to send a special shout-out to Michele and Luciana Liu. They’re the mom and sister of Kendrew, who took the class. The two of them were at the club during much of the class and jumped in to help wherever they could.

    I did a terrible job getting pictures, so I’m hoping that other folks have some to share. But Brie got a great shot of the kids’ class on the Flounder (that’s our header image), and Tom Harrison got a good shot of the class rounding a mark in one of the calmer and dryer moments of the weekend.

    The 1st 2024 Introduction to Sailing class rounds a mark. Photo by Tom Harrison.

    Next Class Starts on Thursday!

    Our next class starts this Thursday, and once again, we’ll have all the club boats in use from Thursday through Sunday. We’re planning on a class potluck on Saturday evening, and club members are all welcome (and encouraged) to join us. Note that we should have plenty of space for RVs this weekend since we have a permit with the Mat-Su Borough during the class that lets us use the area by the public boat launch for overflow parking.

    As usual, everybody is welcome to be at the club during class, and it’s always a blast to meet all the new members.

  • Firecracker Regatta Results & Introduction to Sailing

    Firecracker Regatta Results & Introduction to Sailing

    Darren & Jake flying the spinniker

    We had plenty of breeze, but it was shifty and kept everybody on their toes. Winds were lighter but steadier on Sunday, and we decided to use the day for some group practice, including tack-on-the-whistle drills and spinnaker work.

    The biggest treat of the weekend was getting to spend time with sailing adventurer Barbara Meier. (You can see her in the banner image for this post.) She even sailed with us during the regatta. You can admire her well-traveled Sunfish (“Annie”) if you’re at the club over the next week, since we’re storing it for her while having a few more Alaska adventures over the week.

    Congrats to new ASC members Ben Sturmer and Charlotte MacKay for winning in the Open (Portsmouth) Fleet. And congrats to Gabe Black and Steve Ryan, who took first in the Bucc 18 Fleet. Thanks go out to Camille Oliver, Hannah Pratt, and Brie Busey for race committee work. (And special thanks to Hannah for also being our on-water photographer!) And thanks as always to Paul Willing for compiling regatta results. You can see all the detailed results here.

    Introduction to Sailing Starting Thursday

    Our first intro class stars Thursday afternoon and continues until Sunday at 5:00 PM. During that time, we’ll have the following club boats in use:

    • All six Lido 14s
    • The Flounder (Catalina 16.5)
    • The three club Lasers
    • The Ensign 22, but only during the evenings after 7:00 PM or so.

    We’re planning a class potluck on Saturday the 13th, and club members are encouraged to join us! And of course everybody is welcome at the club during the class. It’s a great opportunity to meet a whole group of new members. We’re also happy to have as much “shore support” as possible, especially with rigging and helping get class members on and off the docks.

    It should be a fantastic weekend, and I’m excited to meet all our new sailors!

    Bucc 18s lining up for a race start
  • Youth Sailing Class Openings

    Youth Sailing Class Openings

    These classes are open to kids aged 8 to 12 and are a ton of fun. You can read more details here:

    Introduction to Dinghy Sailing

    (Make sure to read the Youth Class Special Notes at the bottom of the course description.)

    If you’re interested, you should sign up quickly because these spots always go fast! If you have questions about the class, just go to our Contact page, fill out the form, and select “Class or clinic question” in response to the How can we help you? question.

  • Barbara’s Epic Sailing Adventure

    Barbara’s Epic Sailing Adventure

    Barbara will be arriving at about 11:00 AM on Saturday, and is planning to join us for the regatta. So let’s roll out the ASC welcome mat for our visiting dignitary! And even if you’re not planning to race this weekend, you should still plan to join the Saturday evening potluck and meet Barbara.

    You can see Barbara and Annie in the title image at this post. They’re at the North Shore Yacht Club in MI, which you can tell is a solid place because of the Buccaneer 18 picture on the first page of their website. :-)

    I asked Annie to write an brief missive about her adventures, and you can read that below:

    A little bit about me:

    I am a relatively new sailor. I took a couple lessons on a rented Sunfish about 3-4 years ago. I was hooked. I purchased my Sunfish, Annie, shortly after that and sailed whenever I got the chance, just for fun. Last Spring, I started out on my “Sunfish Adventure,” my quest to sail her in every state.

    I sailed in many states on the east coast, around the great lakes, and back down to Florida. I joined the Sarasota Sailing Squadron last winter, and also the women’s sailing club, “The Luffing Lassies.” They are trying to make a racer out of me, which I think is hilarious, but it is a good way to improve my sailing skills.

    In April, I set out again, this time, heading up the center of the country, and across the northern border states. Mostly, I sail by myself, but there have been a few sailing clubs who welcomed me to sail with them. The photo attached shows me with two of the members of the North Shore Yacht Club in Highland Park, Illinois, where we sailed on Lake Michigan last September. This was the first club that I sailed with, and we had a blast on very, very wavy conditions. I have since sailed with Hobcaw Yacht Club in Charleston, SC, Louisville Sailing Club in KY, Lake Thunderbird Sailing Club in OK, and  Sandpoint Sailing Association in ID. I arrived too late to sail with North Flathead Yacht Club in MT, and I arrived on a weekday, when no one was home at the Lincoln Sailing Club in NE.

    When I saw that there is no Wet Wednesday scheduled for this week, I was so afraid I was going to miss my chance to sail with The Alaska Sailing Club, which looks like too much fun to miss! I have been driving hard since Thursday to get here in time to sail in the Firecracker Regatta. I can’t wait to meet everyone and have some fun on Big Lake!