Jim Fogg/Fred Finlayson and their Sonar Team chosen Sailor of the Year - MSA Awards

Jim Fogg/Fred Finlayson and their Sonar team has been chosen as an award recipient at the Sail Manitoba Awards Ceremony on Thursday, November 14, 2013 at Fort Whyte Alive. They will be receiving the Sailor of the Year Award, which is presented to the sailor who has made the greatest provincial impact on our sport over the last year. They also won the Manitoba Keelboat Championship Trophy, LOWISA Correct time and competed in the Sonar World championships.

Dinner tickets are $35 per person and also available for family members and friends. Please contact the office at 204-925-5647 or sailing@sportmanitoba.ca as soon as possible to confirm your attendance so we can plan accordingly.

Hot off the success of “Cars” and “Planes”, a room full of executives dreams up the next big thing… “Boats”!

Boats from Justin Dec on Vimeo.

Boatig, Drinking and Dancing a bad combination

Race Results Witch Bay

Flying Sails division
 1st Kite
2nd Grand Cru
3rd Black Knight
4th Raven

Silver Fleet
1st Sanity
2nd Blondie
3rd Intrepid

All IS Lost - Movie Trailer

Faces of LOWISA 48

Results from the Safety race:

First - Tie between Black Knight and Grand Cru (see note below)

Third - Kitchen Party

Fourth – Sanity (first for the Silver Fleet)

Fifth – Rambunkshush (second for the Silver Fleet)

Sixth – On A Call (Third for the Silver Fleet)

It is difficult to get a tie in sailboat racing, therefore a description is in order.   It was an exciting last ½ mile with Safety turns, spinnaker sets and douses, overlaps, and rules calls between boats.   With 50 meters to go, Black Knight had the inside lane with ½ boat length lead, but Grand Cru had more speed.  As the overlapped boats’ noses were turned  down to cross the finish it was too difficult to say who crossed first.  If we had specified finish line between the edge of the island and the buoy, Black Knight had the advantage, and if we had specified the point on the island closest to the buoy, Grand Cru had the advantage.   Needless to say, lots of fun for the kids …. and the adults.

The Pampered Chef - Supporitng LOWISA.

Who say's you can pull up to gas dock in big wind!

Greek Island Ferry Flawlessly Executes Heavy Seas Med Moor.

This is the roro passenger ferry Adamantios Korahs performing a mediterranean mooring procedure (stern-to-dock) at the Greek Island of Sikinos in the Aegean Sea.

Summer Solstice Race Results

After our late start this year, the conditions for racing on Saturday could not have been better. 8-12 knots SSE, steady with few holes to either get stuck in or to take advantage of. Much hotter than it seemed as evidenced by the bright red burns on some.


We had two boats representing the Silver Fleet (non-spinnaker), Sanity and Rob Nuttall, so we would like to encourage more boats entering into this category.

There were a few close battles along the way with Auberg and Raven exchanging positions a few times. At the finish line it was Raven and Grand Cru neck and neck with Grand Cru edging out Raven by a boat length for honours. Micangelo shaved the distance by cutting close to the last island to pass Auberg in the final ½ mile.

Results Summer Solstice Pursuit 2013:

Grand Cru 1st

Raven 2nd

Micangelo 3rd

Auberge 4th

Black Knight 5th

Sanity 6th (1st in Silver Fleet)

Rob Nuttall 7th (2nd in Silver Fleet)

Kite DNF

Next Race events take place on July long weekend. Warroad and Traverse the Traverse.

Norwex supporting LOWISA 48

Norwex is supporting LOWISA 48 by donating the profits during the month of June when purchased through the LOWISA or Northern Yacht Club website. LOWISA 48 is less than 8 weeks away, so whether you love to cruise or race Suzanne Gray has put together products that are suitable for the boating life and have little to no impact on the environment.

Click for the exclusive LOWISA purchase site.

Fire Safety Day

Northern Harbour History - McClelland Boatworks

http://www.genoabay.net/


Above is a link for Jim McClelland Boatworks website showing most of the boats he has built, may of them built at Northern Harbour during the 70's.

Kenora Airshow July 3rd, Kenora Airport

http://www.kenoraairshow.com/

Water in the Anthropocene is a 3-minute film charting the global impact of humans on the water cycle.

Water in the Anthropocene from WelcomeAnthropocene on Vimeo.

Red Neck Outboad

Apparently we are not the only place with snow in April..

Northern Yacht Club 213 Calendar

Sat, May 18 – Icebreaker Social featuring “the Perpetrators” & guest MC Bob MacDonald

Sat, May 18 (daytime) – NH* Kid’s Party

Sun, May 19 – Swap Shop/ LOWISA Early Registration & clothing preview

Fri, June 14 – Beer & Brats

Sat June 15 – a.m. Safety presentation

Fri, June 21 – NH* Annual Cancer care Fundraiser

Sat, June 29th – Canada Day Beach Party : location tbd

Fri, July 12 – Fish Fry

Fri, July 19 – Tex Mex Night

Sun, Aug 4 to Sat Aug 10 – LOWISA

Sun, Aug 4 to Sat Aug 10 – Cruise w/ LOWISA

Fri, Aug 23 – Rum Runner Night

Sat, Aug 31- Frock Night: location tbd

 Fri, Nov 1st – Fall Lift

Noted LOWISA dates & NH (Gary’s) events for reference only

 

Club Race Schedule - Club races to be set by Stewart/Blair

 

Sat, Jun 1 – Tea Cup Shakeout race – no club points

 

Sat, Jun 8 – Summer Solstice Pursuit to 22 Ft Bay

 

Sat Jun 29 – Wed, July 3 – Warroad

 

Sat Jun 29 – Mon, July 1 – Traverse the Traverse

 

Sat July 13 – Commodores Cup (Queen Island Treasure Hunt)

 

Sat, July 20 – Sgt Dick Booth Safety Race (destination not selected)

 

Sat, Aug 24 – Rear Commodores Cup (Witch Bay)

 

Not relevant to calendar of events, but we will be adding a Non-Flying sails (Silver) fleet competition for this summer to encourage more participation.

Safety at sea. ISAF approved course.

Vera and I went to get certified this January! Already certified as a pair of crazy midgets we now have a 5 year certification for the offshore personal survival course. We waved Good Bye to our husbands and did this through BC sailing and Sail Canada at the West Vancouver Yacht club.

We got asked by many of our sailing friends about why we had signed up. Several smirky comments such as “ you just stay on the boat” which did make us wonder if this wasn’t going to teach us much. To all the nay sayers and anyone with an interest in offshore racing and quite honestly anyone who likes living and reducing their chances of seeing the lit tunnel anytime soon, I can’t recommend this course enough.

Primarily it was incredibly interesting. Our course instructors were people who had 30 000 – 50 000 ocean miles under their belts. They had raced in Sydney to Hobarts and the 1979 Fastnet and multiple Vic- Mauii, Van Isles, Swiftsures and deliveries. Our participants were racers who had extensive experience including several near misses with death to humble them. There was us two; with some blue water sailing and experience of racing in lakes close to Winnipeg! It was a bit intimidating, but in no time as always with sailors, there was great camaraderie. The course runs with expert planning and attention to detail on improvements. David Sutcliff who was heading up this course made it clear from the outset that if we left not understanding an issue they had failed and the point of this course was not the test.

We had the honour of an additional participant in our class who is a helicopter pilot for search and rescue based on the east coast. He had plenty of stories to make the information real about rescuing sail boats from storms and practical suggestions to assist us.

Prior to arrival we were given the CYA sea survival text book to read. Knowing that we were going to be tested and that we had a 2 1/2 hour pool time to swim with all of our wet weather gear on, with out and with a life vest, there was some pressure to read and understand it from cover to cover. I also felt that push ups at the gym might be quite easy compared to walking on the pool floor 8 feet under water!

The prior reading woke me up to a lot of what I did not know despite having taken a bunch of courses up to Advanced Coastal cruising and 25 years of messing about in sail boats.

The West Vancouver yacht club is a beautiful location and club, but may be knowing that Vera and I can be distracted by squirrels there was brown paper taped over the view. The class of 24 persons got to mingle in coffee and lunch breaks and during break out sessions to problem solve scenarios.

On day 1 after the intro we covered weather, heavy weather, hypothermia and man overboard, storm sails, damage control, safety equipment, life raft, life vest. There was a practical session on cutting stays and sawing through metal followed by a knowledge review.

On Sunday we got up at 4;30am to drive to the West Vancouver aquatic centre for 5;30am and do our water drills. Fear of drowning does work better than coffee! In wet weather gear and boots we swam a couple of lengths, then tried it again with our life vests on. We swam as a crocodile, held the HELP position, did the huddle, figured out how to suspend an injured person in the water and had the opportunity to don a survival suit. We tried to get up a 15” bulk head (law is a ladder if over 18” and only 2 people out of 24 accomplished this), open the life rafts, tried to right them and get into one with 10 other persons. After some breakfast we covered fire, search and rescue, giving assistance, emergency communications, emergency signals, video and real life and deaths stories and another knowledge review.

I am sure that the big take home changes will be different for everyone, but mine was that I don’t always wear a life vest. The segment about how fast we loose the nervous responses to musculature in cold water hit home for me. I get cold in the water even on warm 25 degree days. There was a video from Manitoba’s own Dr Popsicle about the minutes we have, to be able to swim if the water is 6 degrees. For some well padded guys it was less than 5 minutes. Hypothermia will take a lot longer but if you can no longer swim well, you need your life vest. Inflatable life vests don’t always inflate. The course instructors stated that consistently, they have a group of people who have sailing experience, just read the CYA book on survival and had a lecture the day before and get to the pool and 20-30% do not inflate. Usually human error, but sometimes it just happens. You can inflate the vest manually in the water. I would suggest you try it sometime and then imagine if you were trying to do it in large waves, in a storm or at night. Swimming with a fully inflated life vest is hard, really hard with out a crotch strap. What’s a crotch strap? I‘d recommend you find out rather than find out that you need one. I had never heard of it. We also had people try to don a life vest that was thrown to them while they were in the water. I also recommend that you try it. I know I felt that was what I would do prior to this course! We watched the video of a Volvo Ocean race team loose a member over board in ½ a second. He got posted through the life lines like a slim envelope, yet he was a big man. These are racers who practice MOB. They are a coordinated team. They know exactly who is doing what. It took the team 18 minutes to get him back on board. The usual stuff failed and they had to send in a swimmer to get him. It was humbling. Many of the other real stories did not have happy endings. As crew on a race boat you don’t have many rights. The coast guard won’t be taking any direction from you if the boat’s in trouble, only the Captain. Choose your captain carefully and make sure you feel very sound about her or him and the safety of the boat before you leave port. One nasty story about how the crew stopped dying once the captain died!

Back to that “just stay on the boat” advice I got from a fellow sailor. So what if you do have an aggressive fire or smack a rock that puts a hole in the hull beyond what you can manage, do you have a drill? Got an emergency procedures and muster list?

Do you have a fire blanket on board? Anyone cook bacon? True we are all careful, but it can happen so fast and that’s such an easy fix, they make compact ones to sit near the galley. When did you last have the fire extinguishers serviced? Will it work if you need it? Have you ever used one? Do you know what you need to know about using it in small enclosed spaces like a boat?

If you do fall in, spend the first minute getting your breathing under control. Panic will kill you. Then its about making all the necessary adjustments to your life vest. Swim if you can reach something, but you have minutes. You will lose heat very quickly swimming. Heat conservation is primary. Get into the HELP position. Do not kick your boots off. I thought you did to help you swim! A real life story from a racer in the class told us that you can feel the shot of cold race right through you with the first boot coming off. Seal up all the water exit points from your clothing with the velcro tabs. Expect to get rescued!

Several offshore races are now making this course mandatory. If like us you are going to do little more than LOWISA and Gimli Wednesday night racing you will learn so much and have a really interesting time on this week end course. I can vouch for our instructors who had fascinating life stories and know how to teach, not just impart information. I have taken many professional and just for fun courses. I have never been to a course that could keep the classroom wide awake and immersed for a whole week end like this. Even if you were not a sailor it would be fascinating. Do I think my chances are good if I fall off in a storm in the Atlantic or make it to the Life raft? No! They are not. Some people do survive. A bit more knowledge can not hurt. More than anything I could sail a lot safer than I have been and will make better choices in a critical situation.

Eric Hill the SAR helicopter pilot is running courses across the country and whilst he wasn’t an official instructor on our course I can vouch for how clear he can impart information. As for our course instructors (David Sutcliffe, Stewart Jones, Hale Warren and Vern Burkhardt) they were beyond excellent. Incredible value for $325).

So this is how we used to sail! Time for a lot more safety but just as much fun.

Sally Brodrick

How to explain Sailing

"VIRTUAL SAILING CANADIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS"

Sail Canada is proud to join US Sailing and RYA in collaborating with the award-winning inshore sailboat racing and training game SailX.com, and the co-hosting of the first ever "Virtual Sailing Canadian National Championships". This free-to-play online regatta will kick off on the 18th March 2013 and continue for a total of six weeks.
A Unique Online Game

SailX is a unique online game that enables users to race virtual sailboats against others from all over the world in real time and in strict accordance with the Racing Rules of Sailing and with each race lasting only 5-7 minutes.

SailX is designed to 'game' the mental aspects of sailboat racing, with the gamer able to issue simple instructions to a virtual sailor onboard their race boat. These instructions are deliberately simple (tack now, gybe now, etc.) yet the rationale behind them is based on the same complex strategic and tactical considerations that exist in real-world racing. Because of this (like chess or checkers) the game is simple and addictive for the 'newbie' and at the same time extremely challenging for the advanced user and real-world sailor.

"We had Olympians training and being coached on SailX for London 2012 and we have more online now preparing for Rio 2016" explained Amando Estela, Founder of SailX.
An Exciting Build-up to Summer

Sail Canada is anticipating that this online Championship will help bring the community of Canadian sailors together online, and provide us with an exciting and distinctive build up to the 2013 sailing season. More important however, it's hoped that the event will help every sailor to emerge 'hot' and more ready to race than they have ever been after the cold of Canadian winter!

SailX creator Amando Estela also commented on this regatta saying "it will be fascinating to see some top Canadian sailing talent battle it out in this regatta. Of course a computer game can't test all of the skills involved in sailing, but as a high-performance rules and strategy based game these regatta results will provide a fairly good insight into who really has the best understanding of these fascinating and vital areas of our great sport."

While the Championship is not due to kick off until the 18th March, racing takes place on SailX.com 24/7 (approx. 100,000 races per year in fact) so there is plenty of opportunity to practice. Users who wish to prepare for more competitive racing can take part in the US National Championships which runs right up until the start of the Canadian National Championships - by taking part in one of the Official Regattas which take place at 0000, 0300 and 0600 GMT.

Registration is Easy & Free

"It's a very simple process to get involved" Amando continued. "To play SailX all you need to do is visit the SailX website by clicking HERE and register as a SailX user. Registration and racing is completely free and once you have registered you'll be racing as part of a truly global community of racing sailors with some 31,000 racers from 117 countries worldwide taking part. Once registered, your entry into the Canadian National Championships will be completed automatically the first time you complete a single race in one of the Official Championships races which take place at 2100, 0000, 0300 and 0600 GMT each day from 18th March until April 28th."

For more information on the Virtual Sailing Canadian National Championships Click HERE

About SailX

• SailX is the largest, most diverse and most active inshore racing & training game in the world

• The SailX community is made up of 31,000 users from over 110 countries worldwide

• On average SailX hosts a 12-person race every 5 minutes, 24hrs a day, every day

• That's approx. 100,000 races, 1,200,000 individual finishers and 1.5m rules incidents judged by the SailX rules-engine every year

• On average users spend a total of 10,500 highly-engaged hours (14.5 months) racing each month

Internatio​nal yacht racing

Northern yacht club sailors continue to dominate international yacht racing. On the heels of a strong showing by Fred Finlayson and Bob Webb in the Salty Dawg Rally to the Caribbean, NYC sailor Bob McDonald was a key crew member on The Abaco Rage, a traditional Bahamian racing sloop, which took top honours in a major race out of The Hopetown Sailing Club. This was the first win for The Rage in 14


years,and the first ever for this particular race. Go NYC !!!

(Bob is in the red jacket,near the bow)

North U Racing Trim Seminar with Steve Crowe

Bowline Yachts and Sail Manitoba are excited to present ...

North U Racing Trim Seminar with Steve Crowe

Saturday, March 2, 2012 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Winnipeg Convention Centre

Full day course, Course Book and one day pass to the Mid-Canada Boat Show $115 + taxes (additional crew $95 + taxes)

Steve Crowe is a North Sails Specialist from Vancouver. A boat builder, sail maker and rigger, Steve most recently managed and captained the Mayhem Racing Program which started with a Farr 40 and graduated to TP52s. He is the coach of the northwest youth racing team, which has made many trips to the winner’s podium. In this seminar, you will learn the fundamentals of upwind performance, plus advanced techniques that balance angle of attack, sail depth, and twist in both the main and jib in order to optimize speed and pointing in all conditions. Through animated graphics, photos, and video you will see how the champions do it. In addition, the course covers the latest in spinnaker trim and control for both conventional and asymmetric spinnakers.
(Note: The North U Seminar held in Winnipeg 2011 was Racing Tactics. This is a different seminar on Trim)

Registration is limited. Please Blowline Yachts for Registration.
Bowline Yachts Ltd

48 Riverside Drive, Winnipeg, MB R3T 0G2

www.bowlineyachts.ca

Phone 204.452.1227

Fax: 204.453-0809

bowlineyachts@shaw.ca

Northern Yacht Club Featured in Canadian Yachting

Sharing a Closely (Carefully?) Guarded Secret

The Lake of the Woods area comprises one of the natural wonders of North America. At over 70 miles long and wide, with more than 105,000 km of shoreline — which is more than Lake Superior, and more than 1,400 islands it is easy to see why. The lake is found in the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba and the state of Minnesota. The northern end is home to deep, clear water and the rugged Canadian Shield, contrasted to shallow water and sandy bottoms at the southern end. Boaters see wildlife that includes Canadian geese, beavers, deer, bears, common loons, moose, pelicans, and bald eagles.  Click for more...