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Well, I've had a lot of fun learning to sail with the Washington Yacht Club! Here are some of my most memorable experiences and the people who brought them to me. Thanks to everyone and Happy Sailing! My experiences with the Washington Yacht Club began in the spring of 1997 when I signed up for Ralph Jackson's novice dinghy class on Wednesday evenings. I don't think we got on the water the first day, the class was huge. We were plagued with several days of very light wind and a few days of decent wind. The weather was nice and warm though and on the light wind days we spent a lot of time practicing dry capsizes. Eventually the class size dwindled to just a few and in the end a handful of people got their single-hand novice ratings, and 2 got their double-hand novice, me being one of those. Ralph puts his students through the hoops and everyone says that if you survive Ralph's class, you'll be around the club for a long time. I guess my experience supports that theory! At my first Opening Day party that spring, Ralph was the only club member who talked to me. Thank you Ralph, for your lessons and your friendliness! My next experience was Rebecca
Linde's women's keelboat novice through skipper class. This was
another class that started off pretty big. We would get together on
Wednesday nights and sail on Frenesi starting in the fall and lasting
through the spring of the following year. Once again light winds
plagued us, and we spent a lot of time practicing docking, which is not a
bad thing! Rebecca's class was very thorough and no-one was able to
hide and scrape by. We even got to practice going aground on the
weeds in the moat (unintentionally) which was an interesting
experience. Eventually our class size dwindled and we did lots of
classroom sessions learning about radio procedures, lots of navigation,
anchoring, and other topics. We read the entire Annapolis
Book of Seamanship! We had lots of interesting encounters with the
smoking lady at the locks, and got a good chuckle out of the locks school
which I highly recommend for the entertainment value. In the end,
there were four of us
Rebecca also was the person who invited me on my first weeklong cruise, which was wonderful! We spent New Years in Friday Harbor, had frosting fights, watched Sparky earn his nickname, had our anchor pulled by crabbers in the middle of the night, and concluded with a spectacular sail ripping in heavy wind between Kingston and Seattle. Rebecca was also responsible for my second week long cruise. That would be the now infamous Frenesi incident. I suppose not too many people look upon that cruise in a favorable light, but I felt that the entire experience taught me a lot, and though I wouldn't recommend it, I feel I am better off for having experienced it. Rebecca was also the person who made it possible for me to go windsurfing in the gorge in the summer of 1998. She let me ride along with her, lent me equipment, and taught me how to water start. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Thank you Rebecca for all the wonderful adventures you brought to me. I will not soon forget them! I will also never forget my sailing experience with Andrew Roberts (and I don't think the rest of the yacht club will let him forget either!) Andrew needed help sailing his wooden trimaran Okapi up to Seattle from Olympia for Snooze and Cruise. I volunteered and Andrew picked me up in Seattle and we drove to Olympia. Well, Okapi was a unique vessel. An open plywood trimaran painted in a very 70's brown with yellow trim. It was just the two of us, we had some water, a loaf of bread and some other sandwich fixings and a poncho to wear when using the 'toilet'. Neither of us ever took advantage of the 'poncholet' on that trip. It was difficult to get water at Andrew's marina, and I ended up filling the water container by standing in the shower holding it up to the showerhead. Andrew had also forgotten his charts and there wasn't anywhere nearby to buy them, but he assured me he had local knowledge, and besides, Okapi didn't draw hardly anything with the daggerboards up. Well, we departed Olympia in very little wind but under sail. We reached a fork in the waterway and Andrew said we could go either way so we took the one with more wind. Well, that was a dead end (Henderson Inlet) so we turned around. Back at the entrance, we chose a different route, and soon we were looking at Olympia again. It was getting a little late in the day by now so we turned and sailed out, this time taking the correct route, and slowly meandered our way towards Tacoma. Of course, by now we were not reaching the Narrows at slack, but instead had them running pretty much full steam against us. We sailed until we were no longer moving forward (about at Toliva Shoals) and then we began motoring, and motoring, etc. Around 11pm we finally broke out of the Narrows and headed for Tacoma, hoping to find the Totem YC reciprocal moorage. Andrew was driving and I had fallen asleep sitting up. I dreamed that I fell overboard and woke up with a start, very much disoriented. We finally gave up looking and tied up to the first empty dock we could find. I remembered teetering across half asleep to tie up the boat (there is no netting between the hulls). Andrew crawled under the foredeck and I fell asleep in my foulies with a tarp in the cockpit. The next morning, we discovered we had tied up at a fuel dock (a big NO NO!) so we bought some fuel and I desperately searched for and found a restroom. There was no wind that day so we motored all the way to the WAC. Of course, this couldn't go without incident as we reached the Fremont Bridge between 4 and 6 (when it doesn't open) and Andrew didn't know what his mast clearance was. Well, we weren't going to wait around so we pulled the pin on the forestay, dropped the mast and motored on through. We put the mast back up in Union Bay while Andy Sack looked on, shaking his head. It was a fun trip, but the next time someone tells me they have local knowledge, I'll insist on a chart! Thanks for the adventure and extensive tour of South Puget Sound, Andrew! There are many others in the club that I would like to thank for wonderful sailing experiences. Pat Loomis for my first trip onto Puget Sound. Chris Peragine for several interesting adventures aboard Ariadne. Glenn Klute for my catamaran class and encouraging me to try some Hobie regattas. John Courter for teaching me how to windsurf. Dave Banks for introducing me to Olson racing, the scar on my leg from that spinnaker pole will never let me forget! Perhaps the person I owe the most thanks to is Rich
Gile. My first encounter with Rich was in Mats Mats when he had me
pull up his anchor even though I was sailing on Excal at the time.
But if it weren't for Rich, I may not have continued sailing. Rich
was the one who gave me the opportunity to continue sailing after Frenesi
sank. He was very supportive throughout that trip, encouraging me to
drive and navigate, which was very helpful in regaining my
confidence. I enjoyed teaching a couple of classes with
Rich. We spent a whole summer repairing
I enjoyed sailing with many of you, and hope to see you on the water again! |
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Front Page CrewList WYC Memories Skipper Ratings Eye Splice Crew Choice Bottom Paint Unflattering Photos
Rotating Masts
Mentoring
Program WYC Events Calendar
Bylaws Amendment
WYC Memories Heather Squires,
now ex-Telltale Editor and Reciprocal Moorage Chair
left and we had a terrific skipper cruise
circumnavigating Bainbridge Island in June, the weather was fantastic and
so was the food which Katie prepared. Two of us ended up taking the
marathon essay written skipper's test, on my birthday. A long test
but the salad that Rebecca made with the flowers on it made up for it
being my birthday. 
CTB after her close
encounter on Puget Sound, and had numerous coffee coffee milkshakes.
Rich was there for me during a very difficult time in my life, and it was
because of Rich's encouragement that I applied for, and got, my job
working at Dunato's, which I feel was an incredible learning experience
for me. In so many ways Rich has had a positive impact on my
life, thank you Rich for everything, I hope you will come sailing
with us on our boat some day!