From the Captain
By Mike Hibbs

Once again the holiday season has come and gone, and with it the Fleet 20 holiday party. One of the things that Fleet 20 does at the annual holiday party is to elect the next year's Captain. Tag, I'm it. No seriously, I am honored to be this year's Fleet Captain.  I want to also acknowledge Dale Mack as the new Fleet Secretary/Treasurer. Last year's Captain, Dennis Thomas, did an excellent job and I can only succeed him as I certainly don't think that I can replace him. Thank you Dennis for your hard work on our behalf.

Some housekeeping items include the annual dues that we all need to pay.  Please feel free to send it to our new Treasurer, Dale Mack.  I would also like to schedule a meeting in March to discuss several topics. These include the upcoming racing season, the local cruising agenda and also the annual big cruise to the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands. Hopefully we can nail down some sort of schedule and timeframe for the San Juan's cruise when we meet. So bring you calendars and date books.  I think that several people are talking about the San Juan's cruise to go around the 27th of July through the 5th of August, but that is still subject to many changes on an almost daily basis.  I will set the meeting up by the next newsletter and announce it then as to time, date and location.  I also want to add that even if you don't want to race, and don't think that you will make the San Juan's Cruise,  I would still like to invite you to this meeting to discuss the local cruising agenda as well as off the water activities such as the April swap meets and going to the Oakland Boat show in April.

It sounds like we might have a few boats ready to race this spring. If you are interested in trying your hand at this, please let me or Dale Mack know. The Races are VERY low keyed and gives us a chance to get out on the water and touch base with other Catalina 22 owners. You would be amazed at how different each boat is, in spite of them all coming out of the same mold.  Whether you want to crew on someone else's boat or get some crew for your boat, let me or Dale know and we will try to get you the help you need.

Deb, Rachel and I went to the Seattle boat show this month to look at the many options we have for our next boat.  Of course no boat show is complete without looking at the Catalina line-up.  They are amazing boats. Lots of room and amenities with a price that is reasonable by comparison to other boats. But then I come back to our little C-22 and wonder what all the fuss is about.  Because, other than hitting my head a few times or Deb bonking her knees until they are black and blue, there is nothing better than to just jump on board our little C-22 and sail the afternoon away.

May the wind always fill your sails and your days be long.

Renew Your Fleet 20 Membership
By Dale Mack

Fleet 20 is conducting its annual membership renewal drive.  For those that would like to save the fleet the cost of postage, you can print off the application/renewal form by clicking  here, and then sending your $10 dues to the address on the form.

Membership forms will be snail-mailed mid-February to anyone who hasn't renewed by February 10th.

Recruiting New Members

Fleet 20 draws members from Oregon and Washington.  While many of us sail the Columbia River, we also have members who moor their boats on one of the region’s many lakes or trailer sail to various destinations.  While such a distributed membership might seem like a huge disadvantage (it definitely plays a role in why we don't have monthly meetings), it can also bring us in contact with Catalina 22 owners beyond the Portland/Vancouver metropolitan area.

To assist with recruiting, the Catalina 22 Fleet 20 brochure describes who we are, what we do, and how others can join us.  The brochure is available online as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file, so it is viewable and printable from most people's web browsers.  Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded for free by clicking here.

You can help by leaving a Fleet 20 brochure (in a Ziploc bag) on every C-22 you see, or by walking up and introducing yourself and the fleet to any C-22 owner you encounter.  Belonging to a network of fellow Catalina 22 owners is the best reason for joining Fleet 20.  Being able to talk to someone who may have already tackled that project you're contemplating, receiving a helping hand with launching or pulling the boat, or just cruising in the company of you buddy boat as you visit new waters (as we do with the San Juan's cruise) is immensely valuable.

Buddy Boat:  Recommended best practice of pairing up a new sailing family with a more experienced sailing family on cruises.  The experienced buddy boat is usually a family that has attended the cruise once before, so they can answer all those questions about how to prepare, what to bring, and what to do on the cruise.  The two boats will typically sail near each other on the cruise.

Award Winning Newsletter
By Mike Hibbs

Did you know that this very newsletter has been awarded the BEST newsletter of 2001 by the Catalina 22 National Sailing Association? That's right, our very own Dale Mack has tirelessly put together, month after month, a newsletter that he and we can all be proud of.  Congratulations Dale for an excellent job.

Newsletter Reflections
By Dale Mack

One of the items I become temporary custodian of  when I served as Fleet 20 Captain in 2000, was a binder produced by US Sailing's One-Design Class Council titled "Fleet Captain's Manual."  Of the thirty-nine pages of the manual, several were dedicated to ideas about how to produce a newsletter and contained advice like the following:

"The best newsletters are seamless. Regularity, standard format, people orientation and lots of news make for a readable, anticipated publication. Even better is having someone put it together using graphics-capable software. The "kitchen-table" newsletter, though, is still capable of looking great."

The "kitchen-table" newsletter reference made me chuckle because my first Catalina 22 newsletter was produced in just such a fashion.  About five months after Laura and I joined Fleet 4 in Sacramento, California back in 1987, we found ourselves volunteering to serve as the coming year's newsletter editor.  Aside from being "joiners" at heart, I think the reason Laura and I volunteered was that Fleet 4 was a lot of fun and we enjoyed the people we meet.  Getting more involved was just our way of giving something back.

Producing a monthly newsletter in 1988 for a club of more than a hundred boats, meant collecting type-written or hand-written articles from all the club's officers and event leaders, and then cutting and pasting them onto sheets that would eventually be taken to the printer who would use an offset press to produce the double-sided  four sheet newsletter.  After the printing came the stapling, folding, stamping, and applying address labels (I'd written a simple Basic program that would printout address labels on a dot-matrix printer using MS-DOS).  The last step was to deliver everything to the post office.

Intent on getting to a common look and feel, I started retyping all the article submittals so that the final results for the paste up would come off the same dot-matrix printer.  Page layout was still the cut and paste method, but at least I was now able to use Microsoft Write (it came included with Windows 3.1) to compose the text, and add some simple article headers and graphics I created.  Today I have lots of wonderful tools to choose from, but back then the PC was just seven years old, almost no one had email, and the web was something Charlotte spun.

I was very proud in 1988, when as newsletter editor, Fleet 4 was awarded the Newsletter of the Year by the Catalina 22 National Sailing Association.  Putting out a newsletter back then was a lot of hard work, not the least of which was writing articles.  Today most of the focus is on the newsletter's content and very little work goes into the production side because the tools have advanced so far.  Receiving the Newsletter of the Year for 2001 has been a real contrast to the 1988 effort.  Today's newsletter is web-based, read by more than 300 readers every month (based on website statistics I collect), and the hardest thing I do is write the articles.

With this issue (#25), I mark the start of my third year publishing the Fleet 20 newsletter.  I want to thank everyone who has let me poke my head in their boat, snap a few embarrassing pictures, and share with others some of the adventures of Fleet 20.

Portland Boat Show
By Dale Mack

So what does a boat show have to do with cruising?  Well, if you're like me, January starts you thinking about the coming sailing season, and the boat shows provide a convenient "land cruise" destination during the winter doldrums.

The Portland Boat Show, held January 5-13 was the best I've attended to date.  The floor space allocated to sailboats literally doubled over last year's generous showing.  The special treat this year was the participation of Sailboats of Oregon, our local Catalina Yachts dealer.   They brought a C28, C250, Capri 22, C16.5, C14.2, and believe it or not a Catalina 22 Mk II.  After hearing from others around the country that they never see the C22 Mk II at the boat shows, it was refreshing to see one and the number of people going aboard to check it out.  Talking to Glenn Johnson, the owner of Sailboats of Oregon, he said he's noticed a resurgence of interest in the Catalina 22 both in new and used boats over the last year.

Part of my time at the show was spent manning the Columbia River All Catalina Association (CRACA) booth located in the Sailboats of Oregon area.  I meet several Catalina owners who showed an interest in the association and several would be Catalina owners who Sailboats of Oregon pointed our way as they contemplated the purchase of a new sailboat.  I'm hoping Fleet 20 picks up one or two new members from the Catalina 22 owners I meet at the show.

The Small Yacht Sailing Club of Oregon (SYSCO) had a great booth with lots of pictures, a big banner, and a projection system setup showing Columbia River sailing.  Most Fleet 20 members who race their boats tend to join SYSCO because the membership fee also covers the race entrance fees, so if you race the Spring and Summer Series, and the One-Design regatta, you breakeven on the membership.

Aside from all the ski boats, bass boats, jet skis, and power cruisers at the show, the Portland Boat Show usually also includes a couple of features to help draw people in.  One of those features this year was a Chinese Junk that has been used in a Northwest Airline's TV commercial.

Where Do You Want to Go?
By Dale Mack

Anyone who has ever put together an itinerary for an organization can tell you that picking events and dates at the beginning of the year is always a crapshoot.  Questions like are the destinations of interest to the membership, and will anyone show up fill your head.  You also wonder about the interest level of the membership.  Some folks don't mind trailering their boats, while others don't want to bother.  Single day rendezvous entice some members, while others like the occasional overnight cruise.

Our Fleet Captain, Mike Hibbs, hopes to pull together a fleet meeting in March to discuss the coming year's activities and the start of racing in April.  To help get the creative juices flowing, I've put together a short list of Fleet 20 traditional cruising activities (in bold/italics) and some ideas around new ones.  I'm not particularly wedded to any of the events or the dates, so please think about suggesting some of your own.

There are a couple of cruising dates off the Columbia River All Catalina Association's schedule that look like possible events we could tag along on.  The Ackerman Island destination in June looks particularly inviting since it's in the opposite direction (towards Washougal) that most of us travel.  I'm a member of CRACA, and Fleet 20 members are always welcome to attend CRACA activities.

Hope to see you at the March meeting where we can play around will different ideas for Fleet activities.

Are You Planning to Race?
By Dale Mack

Less than three months to go before the start of the first race.  If you're thinking about racing or if you'd like to crew for someone, let Mike Hibbs or me know.  Mike and I would be happy to answer your questions.  Here's just a few frequently asked questions:

Q:  Do I have to be a member of SYSCO to race?

A:  No.  Anyone can race, you just need to pay the entry fee.

Q:  Do I have to buy a spinnaker to race?

A:  No.  While Fleet 20 could race with spinnakers, its members have usually chosen not to as a group in order to keep the cost and experience level required to race at a minimum.

Q:  Do I have to strip the boat of excess equipment to race?

A:  No.  While excess weight is something to be avoided, most Fleet 20 boats race with their cruising equipment aboard.  My heavy-weight new-style C22, #14286 won the 1999 and 2001 SYSCO Spring Series and it wasn't striped.  If I and my family had wanted to leave for the San Juan's the day after the series all I needed to add was personal gear and food.

Q:  I'm a little unsure of the whole starting process and racing in general.  How can I get help?

A:  I started locally by crewing for Terry Annis.  As I become comfortable with how the local race committees ran the races, I started racing my own boat.  I also found attending the OCSA Race Management Clinic, typically held in March extremely valuable.  While the clinic is targeted at race committees, I found the information as a racer very useful.

Q:  How much does local knowledge play a part in the races?

A:  Lots.  Racing on the Columbia River isn't like racing on a lake.  In the spring the current can be running two knots and in the summer it can be 1.2 knots.  Knowing to stay out of the current when you're running upstream can be learned from any book on the subject, but knowing the places where eddies form and where the wind lands after it moves past onshore obstacles takes time to learn.  Fortunately most of the racers in Fleet 20 are pretty helpful, so you'll learn these things pretty quickly.

Q:  Do I have to race all the races?

A:  No.  Skipping a regatta or an occasional Thursday evening race isn't uncommon.

Q:  How many people do you need onboard to race?

A:  Two.  While we had one skipper come out and single-hand the boat around the course, a skipper and at least one crew is the preferred arrangement.  On windier nights, a skipper and two crew is common.

Q:  My spouse isn't interested in racing on Thursday evenings, and I'm afraid I don't know of any other people to ask to crew for me.  What can I do?

A:  Knowing of your intention to race before the season starts, might allow us to help find you some crew.

OCSA Race Book Release Party
By Dale Mack

The Oregon Corinthian Sailing Association is a group of volunteers from the various Portland/Vancouver sailing organizations that helps coordinate local racing.  With your membership in OCSA ($15/yr), you receive the quarterly OCSA newsletter, a course chart and the OCSA Race Book, which contains valuable information for racing in the Portland area:

• Race notices
• Invitations for events around the Portland area, as well as a few around the Pacific NW
• Local club and fleet information
• New sailing instructions for the year
• Entry forms

To celebrate the 2002 edition and speed up its distribution to the racing community, OCSA is hosting a OCSA Race Book Release Party.

Saturday, February 2nd
4-7 pm

Rose City Yacht Club
3737 NE Marine Drive
Portland

OCSA also plans to provide a basic demonstration of the new starting system.

RSVP by January 31 by calling 503-246-4886 or sending an e-mail to michelle@teleport.com

Food and some drinks will be provided.

Scuttlebutt
By Dale Mack

The scuttlebutt around the docks is that Don Bateson's efforts to correct the serious blister problems on Gold Rush (#4248) finally resulted in a decision to terminate the project and Gold Rush too.  The good news is that we hear Don is the new owner of a old-style C22 he found on the coast for a good price.

We've also heard that former C22 owners Bob Gales and Terry Annis went in on a partnership in the new boat, so the 2002 racing season should be quite interesting since Terry is a three-time Fleet 20 Champion at the helm of Lematike, #6800 (now Mike McGarth's Solus, 2001 Fleet Champion), and Bob Gales proved to be quite competitive racing Imagine, #13501 (now owned by Bill and Sandi Hayden).

2002 Racing Schedule
By Dale Mack

The following are the keys dates for the 2002 season that I've taken from the OCSA schedule.  Fleet 20 has missed the August One-Design for the last two years due to our shifting of the start date for the San Juan Islands cruise to the fourth week in July from its previously scheduled third week departure.

I'm hoping this year, even with a possible fourth week departure for the San Juan's that we can figure out how to get the boats back into the water and ready to race in the One-Design just one week after getting back from the San Juan's.  The One-Design Regatta is some of the most enjoyable racing I've participated in, and it's well worth the effort.  SYSCO does a great job hosting this event, and it makes for a fun weekend.

One of the things I'd like to do with the One-Design, if we can get enough Fleet 20 participation, is to promote the regatta to C22's down on Fern Ridge and C22's up in the Puget Sound area.  SYSCO typically requires a minimum of three boats to constitute a class, so we shouldn't have that much trouble putting three boats on the line.

SYSCO Spring Series (Thursday Evening)

April 18
April 25
May 2
May 9 (no race)
May 16
May 23

SYSCO Spring Regatta

April 27-28

SYSCO Summer Series (Thursday Evening)

June 13
June 20
June 27
July 4 (no race)
July 11
July 18

SYSCO One-Design Regatta

August 10-11

Getting Off the Line
By Dale Mack

Nothing like getting my latest issue of Sailing World to get me thinking about racing.  With Columbia River racing switching over to the new starting system this season, there is much to learn, both as a racer and as a race committee volunteer.  As the local clubs all scurry about pulling together the new flags and shapes for the new starting system, we can all take advantage of some clinics coming up in March and April.  We'll publish more details when they become available.  In the meantime, mark these dates on your calendar:

OCSA Race Management Clinic

March 27-28 (Wednesday and Thursday evening)

SYSCO Race Clinic

April 4-5 (Thursday and Friday evening)

Winter Time Sail Maintenance
By Dale Mack

Now is a good time to pull your sails out and inspect them for signs of wear.  How is the stitching?  Any unusual wear near where the spreaders might make contact?  How are sail lugs (any worn out)?  Have you pulled the battens out of the pockets to allow the elastic in the pockets to relax during the off season?  If you have leech lines on your head sails, do they operate smoothly?  How's the tack, header, and clew of the sails look?  Do your headsail hanks work smoothly?  Have your telltales frayed?  Try trimming them or better yet replace them.  Did you look up at your sails last season and wish you had more telltales, now is a good time to add them.

March ???.  Fleet 20 Meeting

March 27-28 (we-th).  OCSA Race Management Clinic

April 4-5 (th-fr).  SYSCO Race Clinic

April 18.  SYSCO Spring Series Race #1

April 25.  SYSCO Spring Series Race #2

April 27-28 (sa-su).  SYSCO Spring Regatta

more...

The Fleet 20 newsletter is published online once a month. Articles are the opinions of the authors and don't necessarily represent the consensus of Fleet 20.