Provo Sailing Club

The 18th Annual Fools Regatta!

2008-07-07T16:32:00.012-04:00

The 18^th Annual Fools Regatta, Saturday June 14^th, 2008

In my opinion 3 things combine to make a successful Fools Regatta:

1. Good Weather

2. Good People

3. Good Cause

This year was successful on all counts. We could not have asked for a better day. We had great wind around 12 to 15 knots, no rain and a bit of cloud cover to keep people just cool enough. The water in June is warm and inviting and even though it was a little choppy the breezes were strong enough to keep the boats cutting through.

Everyone was having a great time! The Turks and Caicos Football Association (TCIFA) pulled together and served up great Hamburgers and Hotdogs and drinks. Mary Higgs was offering up her usual great island inspired food with her sister and Sonya Hamilton kept everyone cool with her shaved ice machine. The Tug O War tournament kept people entertained on the beach while we waited to see the exciting finishes of the Big Boat Race and the Sloop Race. As well, people cheered on their favourite sailors in each of the Hobie Wave events. There wasn’t a single negative issue in bringing an estimated 500 people from all walks of life to the beach to enjoy the day.

This year the fundraising was a joint effort as the TCIFA took care of Food and Beverages and raised funds for their organization while the Provo Sailing Club earmarked proceeds from the t-shirts and hats sold as well as event fees for the Provo Children’s Home (formerly Nissi House). As well, we chose to bring the Fools Regatta back to the Children’s Park in the Bight this year to softly promote the soon to be Provo Sailing Centre which will be located in the Bight. This facility will be built and operated with a sole mandate of organizing sailing programs – particularly for children - and special events like the Fools Regatta in one of the best sailing locations along Grace Bay Beach.

The event could not have been such a success without the help of a small “army” of volunteers particularly Jaime Hedges and Kelly Hedges who co-manage the Provo Children’s Home and David Douglas of Atabeyra and the Provo Sailing Club who helped pull it all together. As well, special thanks to James Merlevede who came up with this year’s T-shirt and Hat designs – everyone loved them!

I would like to thank our Sponsors for helping us:

The Wine Cellar
Mount Gay Rum
Connelly Zahm Properties
“Blue” from DECR
Lee & Astwood Architects
Abuv-It-All Limited – Mike Rosati
Simon Wood Architects
Provo Golf Course
Mr. Lloyd Evans as our Chase Boat
Provo Primary Steel Drum Band
Dock Direct
Dredknox Sounds / Baller Magazine
Johnston International
Blue Loos
SkyJuice
Beaches Resort

Winners:

Maritime Heritage Federation Sloop Race:

This race was pulled together by J.J. and Goldray Ewing of the MHF and represented the spirit of the Maritime Heritage Federation as the Skippers raced each other for pure braggin’ rights. Everyone on the beach agreed that the colourful Sloops and the traditional cut of the sloop rigged boats were a very pretty sight.

A Class First Place: Mr. Baba Harvey and crew aboard Evergreen

A Class Second Place: Mr. Quentin Dean and crew aboard Eagle III

B Class First Place: Mr. Rob DeMatteo and crew aboard Mary Jane

B Class Second Place: Mr. Lee Penn and crew aboard Cable & Wireless

B Class Third Place: Mr. Marshall Ewing and crew aboard the DECR Sloop

B Class Fourth Place and Special mention: Mr. Leial Missick and crew aboard Valley Stream.

Special Mention:

With a combined age of approximately 40 years, Leial Missick (Skipper) Tao Harris, Ira Capron and David Walker raced the Sloop “Valley Stream” against 5 other Maritime Heritage Federation Sloops and, according to Goldray Ewing, were beating a couple of the adult crewed Sloops through most of the Race. These young men were recognized for their courage and sailing ability and the skills they are building to potentially be part of Turks and Caicos’ future Olympian sailors. With their passion for sailing, properly structured coaching and some corporate sponsorship, there is nothing standing in their way to realizing this goal.

The Big Boat Race (large Sailboats – this year, all multihulls)

First Place: Mr. Mike Robertson sailing the trimaran Minx

Second Place: Mr. Jamie Carlson sailing Ivor Stanbrook’s 33’ Catamaran

Third Place: Mr. Jason Soderquist sailing the catamaran “Captain Mayhem”

Fourth Place: Mr. Phil Shearer sailing the pretty catamaran “Beluga”

Hobie Wave Cat Sailing

The Resort Challenge:

This traditional event is made up of employees of Resorts, or sailors representing their favourite Resort, racing each other for the prized perpetual Cup. This year we added a twist by making it mandatory to include a child/young adult on board.

First Place: Eric Douglas and David Douglas representing Point Grace

Second Place: Percy Parangue from Amanyara Resort and “his kid” (sorry - name didn’t get recorded)

Third Place: Mike Rosati and “his kid” (sorry - name didn’t get recorded) representing Ocean Club Resorts

Mixed Doubles (one Kid, one Adult)

The Mixed Doubles event is really what the Fools Regatta loves to promote – getting kids out on the water. Whether the teams are made up of family members or an excited kid who needs an adult skipper, everyone wins when you see the smiles on the kids’ faces as they race their buddies.

First Place: Millie Twigg and Adam Twigg

Second Place: Patrick Musgrove and Patrick Staples

Third Place: Eric Douglas and David Douglas

Governor’s Cup (“Elite” Sailors)

This event is the ultimate event for bragging rights among Provo Sailing Club members and alumni. Featuring some of the islands best Sailors (at least on Hobie Waves!) this is for a Silver Cup sponsored by Lee & Astwood Architects and for a case of Mount Gay Rum.

First Place: Mr. Rory Stevens

Second Place: Mr. Percy Parangue

Third Place: Mr. Michael Rosati

Bent Prop Award:

(This is a perpetual trophy handed to the Sailor who has the “hardest luck story” of the Fools Regatta. The trophy is a very beat up, heavy bronze propeller that the lucky recipient is allowed to keep for the next 364 days or so!)

This year the Bent Prop goes to Mr. Phil Shearer of Big Blue Unlimited for enduring an epic 6 hours beating into the wind to Pine Cay and back to The Bight again! Phil, thanks for committing to finishing a grueling marathon aboard Beluga – next year will be more fun, we promise!

Tug-O-War Tournament

First Place: Provo Primary!!

Second Place: Johnston International – “Aussies”

Third Place: Johnston International – “Poms”

The Tug o War event was one of the highlights of the day as spectators soon came to the aid of their favourite 5 person teams by jumping in and grabbing onto the rope in earnest! Soon teams grew from 5 a side to 45 a side as the tug-o-war battles raged on.

Thanks also go out to Camille Slattery who organized Kayak Races for the kids with boats donated for the day by Big Blue Unlimited.

Great Sailing last weekend!

2008-05-08T16:39:00.003-04:00

Hey All!
Haven't had too much to report for the last few race days however this past weekend was one of the best sailing weekends I've had for months!

Friday became a sanctioned event with 4 boats out on the water by 5pm and cycling through a tight course with 6 sailors (two always waiting on the beach). It was blowing around 20 and gusting at least 25...everyone say "cooooolll". Seas were a bit choppy but we had set a "course" in close to shore using the Club Med dive boats, navigation buoys and Mike Rosati's skiff as the windward mark. Hey, whatever works right? There were some great starts, mark roundings and a couple of upsets which made it that much more fun. Special thanks to Paul who ran home to get two masks and snorkels to help me recover my RayBans that got stripped off my head in a gybe. Too bad James sat on them after putting them in his pocket once I found them! Irony sucks.

Sunday was another great day and we had 7 boats on the water!!! And enough people to sail them - even more amazing! A great showing by the alumni Rory and Simon who were back on island - something tells me they made the trip specially for the first Sunday in the month. Again there was some very competitive sailing going on and experience wasn't always leading exuberance as some of the rookies put in a good showing. Regardless everyone was exhausted with knees practically bleeding by mid-afternoon due to all the tacking action.

Sure hope June 1 will be blowing as I'd love to see this turnout again, especially since it follows the Big South Regatta in South Caicos May 24th and precedes the Fool's Regatta on Provo on June 14th. But those are other posts.
Happy Sailing!

The Big Erection Party

2008-01-02T20:40:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year Everyone!

In my haste to get the last post out regarding our new "home", I did not take the time to thank all of the people who helped de-construct the Sailing Shed at my house and re-construct it at our home beside Rickey's Flamingo Bar. The move could not have gone more smoothly; no one got hurt, the shed came apart in sections just like I designed it to and more importantly it went back together in sections like clockwork with alot of helping hands. Hell, the door even closed smoothly after re-construction! Amazing!

So a big Thank you to:

Alex Coronado-Guzman who begged a truck and trailer from Stan Hartling for the big move and helped load and unload the shed

Peter Staples, my father who landed late Saturday for a two week vacation and got roped into the move
Simon Wood, on island by himself and graciously chipping in by showing up at my place at 8:30 am
David Douglas who came down island to my place before he had to do a full day on Atabeyra
Trem Quinlan who made cappucino's and coffee for the crew

Anna Staples, my mother, who was likely wondering why she had to get up at 7am on her first day of her Christmas holiday and who took the pictures of us loading up
Paul Fletcher who met us up at Ocean Club for the re-build and jumped right in
Julian Petrucci, our newest member to be who also showed up to help with the build and to meet some fellow sailing enthusiasts

Jeff Lee for moral support and his superior supervisory skills
Nelson Nakao who climbed like a monkey on to the roof of the shed for the finishing touches, man, he's quick with a hammer too!

I hope I got everyone!

So, within the span of 2 or 3 hours and a bucket of sweat, we managed to bid adieu to our little box on the beach that I built 3 years earlier out of surplus plywood used to board up our condos at the golf course during Hurricane Francis (or was that Jean). Paul and Nelson said a few words during the last opening of the box...
From this:
to this:
I'm very sorry we did not get a group photo in front of our new home. The pic above was just after the last few remnants of the box had been loaded into the back of Simon's truck (thanks again Simon) and everyone had moved on to enjoy their Sunday.

However, here is a group pic of our race day down to the Conch Festival in November, yet another long over due Blog posting but I'll save that for another day...

2007-12-26T21:39:00.000-05:00

Good Lord!!
Last update was November 5? And here it is past Christmas...
Where to start? I guess the biggest news for the PSC is the granting of space at the Cultural Center and the building and erecting of the new Sailing Shack that happened over a week ago now. So, if you haven't been sailing over the holiday season, shame on you, but now you'll find a 6'x6'x9' high shed beside the security shack at the cultural center. The same old lock is on the shackle and the key is hanging behind the shed for now. I will be tallying who has paid their dues for the '08 season and sending out a reminder email in early January. After that point I will only be sending out emails to paid members of the club for upcoming events etc. and I will be changing the lock to a combination lock for members knowledge only.

So, if you are still interested in sailing our Hobies but have not paid up yet, please make arrangements to do so.

I will be posting another entry with a few pics in the next while. Please check back again.
Pat

Try again this Sunday?

2007-11-05T22:35:00.000-05:00

According to windguru.com, it looks like we might get lucky with some decent wind this Sunday. If anyone would like to commit to racing at 10 am for this coming Sunday Nov. 11 please send me an email or respond to this post below. Thanks.

Shut out again!

2007-11-05T21:38:00.000-05:00

Oh well, good intentions shut down by no wind and huge surf. Sunday's scheduled race day was a non-event unfortunately. However, four of us made good use of the lack of wind and fixed the leaking hatches on another boat. Mike, Paul Fletcher, Noel Percival and I spent an hour visiting, wishing for wind and taking apart the hatches on a boat that was less than water proof.

What follows below is a good combination of Mike Rosati's experience on how to fix a boat, Paul Fletcher's suggestion to document how to fix the boat, Noel's photography skills and my posting abilities (and tools).

Step 1: Find the leaky hatch.
Paul described how he took out one of the boats and had to drain the hulls 3 times! So, time to get busy. Under each seat pad is a round plastic hull cover fastened to the hull with six screws. Mike's suggestion to find the leaky hatch was to remove the drain plug and use a kiteboard pump to "inflate" the hulls. Worked like a charm - the leaky hatch started to hiss and was further identified by pouring a little water to see bubbles form around the hatch cover.

Step 2: Remove and clean the hatch
The plastic hatch is held in place by 6 easily removed screws. We used a sharp paint scraper and a knife to remove any dried glue and sand encrusted glue underneath the seat pad.

Step 3: Apply Goop
Once cleaned up apply a liberal bead of Marine Goop (actual glue product) around the hatch opening and place the hatch cover back over the screw holes and screw back into place.

Step 4: Spray adhesive
Next, the seat pad needs to be glued down using a spray adhesive. I used 3M's product that should be allowed to set up for 5 or 10 minutes before pressing the seat pad back in place. Don't be afraid to apply lot's of spray adhesive. Do be afraid of overspray covering your watch face. I'm hoping I can remove the oversprayed adhesive with Goo Gone!

Repeat the above steps for each hatch that you find leaking and don't sail the repaired boat for a day. That should do it for another year!

UK Halsey Racing Quiz

2007-11-01T17:16:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Simon Wood for the following link:

www.ukhalsey.com/RulesQuiz/index.asp

This is a great site and worth spending some time understanding the rules of racing. The animations keep it interesting and give you a good understanding of rights of way etc.

Now there will be no excuses on Sunday's race day..."STARBOARD"!!!!!

Thanks again Simon!

Mike fixed our wheel!

2007-11-01T16:37:00.001-04:00

Mike just called me and said he has fixed our tire on the cat trolley and he will have it back on tomorrow. He's keen for racing on Sunday (see last posting), so see you there - the more the merrier!

Here's the Happy little Commodore delivering our new boat from a few weeks ago!

See you Sunday! If anyone wants to show up a little earlier than 10 (eg 9am) to help me set up please let me know. Thanks!

First Race Event for '07/'08: this Sunday Nov. 4

2007-11-01T12:41:00.000-04:00

Just a quick reminder that Sunday November 4 is the first Sunday in November, the first Sunday of the 2007/2008 racing season and also Daylight Savings time. So, turn your clocks back an hour Saturday night but still get up for racing at 10 am on the beach! The new boat is ready and waiting...

Also, only a handful of members have paid or contacted me to make payment for the '08 year. Please make arrangement to drop off your waiver forms to me or Becky Carlson as soon as possible as year end was yesterday. Or, bring your info and cheque to the beach on Sunday and we can get it then.

Happy Sailing!

Minutes of the AGM last week

2007-10-25T17:49:00.000-04:00

Here it is a week gone by already and I’m just now sending out the minutes to the meeting last week. What follows below is the main Agenda items followed by the discussion and outcome.

It was a good meeting but only 8 of us were in attendance. Lot's of good ideas and discussions.

If anyone has any suggestions or comments please leave a comment using the link below. Thanks!

Attendees (I hope I didn’t miss anyone):

Pat Staples

Becky Carlson

Nelson Nakao

Gary and Margot MacFadyen

Mike Rosati

Raymond Cushnie

Paul Fletcher

AGENDA:

Welcome everyone and introduction of new members.

Welcome Nelson who is now certified by Mike and spent last Sunday sailing most of the day with his wife Lumi (sp?)

New boat has arrived and is ready to sail! New wheels coming…

The boat is on the beach and I think I was the first to sail her. The rudders are Hobie’s new design which is much simpler to set up and operate. The sheet goes directly to the foot of the sail between the rudder and the sail rather than over the rudder handle like on the old boats. Pushing the rudder handle down sends the rudders into the down and locked position, pushing the rudder handle up brings the rudders back up – no cam to worry about. Make sure you remove the plastic pins that lock the rudders in the up position BEFORE you start sailing. Any questions call me or Mike Rosati.

New sail box or shed? And where to locate it?

If we can get permission from DECR to locate a “shed” on their land then all we need is a plan and some volunteers to build it. Simple one pitch roof, 6’x6’ square building with a single door in it, 9’ high to allow for sails to stand up and dry in racks.
I’ve given a basic drawing to a friend who is going to draft it up and then I can present it formally with a letter to DECR. Might require a bit of assistance from Honourable Williams…

Discussion of revised fee schedule taking into consideration mostly absentee members paying a reduced membership fee.

The members present discussed an absentee rate and we all agreed that the existing price of a membership is low enough that it is one rate for all members
All members will be asked to complete a waiver form and submit it annually with a cheque for $360. In return they will receive a receipt that they have paid and access to our boats. Becky noted that there have been members of the club who have used the boats but have not paid in the past. This is unfair to the rest of us who gladly pay our dues to use the boats and will not be tolerated going forward.
To accommodate those who are not members of the club but want to race, we will charge a $30 drop in for a racing event (ie a Sunday morning). Mike Rosati will receive 50% of that rate for his involvement in helping with races and loan of boats etc. As well, members will chip in $5 each race day event which will go to Mike again for his help in the race days. Having Mike there with his skiff is a big bonus in case anything ever goes wrong and is well worth chipping into the kitty.

Publish a list of sailing dates in advance for racing days.

We all decided that the first Sunday in each month will be a designated PSC sailing day! The “event” will start at 10am sharp on the beach and will be a series of races. We now have 4 of our own boats so we can determine ahead of time whether we need to use a couple of Mike’s boats depending on who is going to show up.
That means that the first sailing event of the ‘07/’08 season will be Sunday November 4^th at 10am. Stay tuned for an announcement on this later on the blog and please respond if you plan on attending.

Publish a list of social events to put in our calendar

Agreement by all that the PSC needs to do more social events to liven up the club and promote a “club” atmosphere
Suggestion was to have a monthly social night at Rickey’s café (or even at someone’s home) on the Friday night before the monthly sailing event to keep it simple and to promote the racing spirit ahead of Sunday’s event.
We will forgo next Friday night due to time constraints and due to a special event noted below:

Conch Festival participation – November 26/07

Sailing down to this event last year was a blast and showed support for our Sloop Captain Brethren in Blue Hills, Sailor’s Paradise and Wheeland. This year’s event is on Saturday November 26 and is an all day event. Suggestion is to have our 4 boats sail down to the event in the morning and join the sloops at the Conch festival all day on the water. We can leave the boats chained up at Sailing Paradise overnight and sail back on Sunday or come back late Saturday afternoon. Regardless we will need to have sailor’s and passengers committed for one or both days to sail boats.
Please keep checking the blog for more details or call me directly if you want to participate
Don’t forget that even if the boats are spoken for, the Sloop Skippers all need extra crew and you can easily get out on the water that day with them.
It was proposed that Friday November 18^th should be our first social at Rickey’s bar in order to coordinate sailor’s etc for the following Saturday sail to the Conch Festival. There will be a few things to coordinate such as carpooling and sailing back etc. for those who won’t be able to sail both ways.
More to come as I get more details from Ross from the MHF.

A few Tshirts and hats are available for $20 each.

Contact Pat Staples (Patrick.staples@express.tc) or 332-1072

Election of Board Members

President remains me
Treasurer remains Becky
Desperately need a Secretary to help with admin stuff and minute taking etc. Let me know if you are interested in helping out.
Desperately need a Social Director to help with social events and beach duties to start each race day. Margot volunteered but may not be here in the long run. Please let me know if anyone else is interested in helping.

Keep checking the BLOG: http://provosailingclub.blogspot.com

Please make use of this tool. Add your comments and suggestions after each post. Send me pictures to include in the posts etc etc. Let’s really get this club where it could be with EVERYONE’s involvement.

Renewed membership dues (October 2007 - October 2008) $360 annually.

If you have not paid your dues by end of October and are still sailing the boats – please stop. Please make arrangements to see me or Becky with your payment and completed waiver forms for the 07/08 season.
There will be no pro-rating of the annual fee for past members. Pro-rating is only in the case of a new member who wants to join the club mid-year (which is why the rate went up $10 to make it $30/month on a pro-rated basis).

Fund Raising Event

There was a suggestion that we should do a fund raising event at some point (Conch Festival was decided to be too soon – perhaps the Fool’s Regatta next year). With enough tickets sold the suggestion was to raffle a brand new Hobie Wave. This would take quite a bit of coordination and lots of Tickets sold to turn a profit but the prize is attractive enough. Something to keep on the back burner.

AGM

2007-10-09T18:03:00.000-04:00

Hi all,
I would like to propose the date for the Annual General Meeting for the Club. Given past feedback on Thursdays being no good for some folks, and Friday nights and weekends being sacred, I would like to suggest Wednesday, October 17 (next week) for our meeting. We will have it at Rickey's Flamango Bar at the Cultural Centre where our boats are stored at 7:30 pm. Drinks and food will be on your own dime this time if you want to order anything - Rickey's beer has been clinically proven as the coldest on the island.

On the agenda:

Renewed membership dues (October 2007 - October 2008) $360 annually. Please have a cheque or cash and a completed waiver form for the meeting. We will be giving out receipts to avoid any confusion on who has paid their dues and who hasn't, period.
New boat has been ordered and will arrive late October - Mike has put the order in for a brand new Hobie Wave and we will be back up to a 4 boat fleet!
New sail box or shed? Still trying to get a meeting with DECR to locate a small shed on their site to house our sails, sheets and buoys. As well, need to have someone help build it.
Publish a list of sailing dates in advance for racing days.
Publish a list of social evenings to put in our calendar. The last evening was a good little event and it was great getting a chance to know our new members.

So, if anyone has other agenda items to add please post them below for all to see and I'll add them for discussion that night. Please make a point of attending or at least replying whether you will be there or not. If you can not make the meeting, please make arrangements with me or Becky to make payment and hand us your completed waiver to keep on file. Please contact me if you need a copy of the waiver and I'll email it to you.

Thanks Everyone! Looking forward to getting the group together next Wednesday evening at Rickey's at 7:30pm.
Sailsman

A good Social!!

2007-09-14T22:57:00.000-04:00

Well, here is the "new" blog site for the sailing Club. As you can see by the first post, we sort of got sidetracked somewhat thinking we were going to build a real website. Hopefully this will suffice for the interim and provide a useful space to share information and create some collaborative efforts.

Great social last night and great turn out. Thanks to all for showing up and offering your input and suggestions. I will do another note later on in preparation for the AGM next month that pulls some of the suggestions together. One thought after last night that I had was I don't see why we couldn't do a monthly social (perhaps on a Wednesday next time to allow the Rugby Dudes to join us) followed up on Sunday with a race day. As long as Rickey allows us to take over some space at his restaurant - we'll continue to call it our "Clubhouse" for the time being. I think it is a Win-Win for all.

That said, let's race on Sunday morning this weekend at 10am. I'm game to get as many people out there as we can and Mike is willing to have a few of his boats available for us. Typically what we do is all chip in $10 to go toward Mike's boats and for his help in setting the course etc. Any $ left over gets put into the bank for the future. This Sunday will be an exception as we did not bring this up at the meeting. The PSC will pick up Mike's tab and next time around we will be more organized on setting up a race day - certainly more notice.

The pic below is of Karl, Wes, Jeff Campbell, a friend of Jeff's and Noel Percival when we all sailed to Sailing Paradise together to join up with the Sloop Captains from the Maritime Heritage Federation earlier this year. It was a great down wind sail and very cool to be out on the water racing alongside the 25' to 30' sloops. Definitely needs to happen more.

So, see y'all on Sunday morning. I'd like to get out on the water by 10 am so if people showed up at 9:30 to help rig boats and do a rigging refresher course for those with less experience, that would be great. If we all chip in and rig boats together it doesn't take long to get out there.
Bye for now!
Post any comments you have using the feature below. Keep the communication going!
Pat

Happy New Year to the PSC and sailing community of Providenciales!

2007-01-02T11:01:00.000-05:00