As a non-member or member of PYC or Fleet 43, being a part of the Fleet’s Wednesday night races and other activities is truly a fantastic opportunity.  Whether you have raced with the Fleet for years or are just getting involved, you have most likely already benefited from the experience.  The Fleet provides us with an incredible forum for competitive racing, socializing, and enjoying the waterfront of Falmouth Foreside.

By becoming a Friend of Fleet 43, you can give back to the Fleet.  Your support will help offset any potential rise in racing dues and food costs to ensure Wednesday night racing attracts as many boats as possible and remains as competitive as it is today.  Friends of Fleet 43 pay just $20 per year and receive a sticker to proudly display your involvement in and support of the Fleet.

Display the sticker on your car and honk when you see another ”Friend of Fleet 43″ on the road!  Or display it on your transom and let all those boats behind you know where you learned to sail so fast!

Click here to show your support to the fleet and become a friend.

Here a few upcoming important dates:

May 5th-Points East Crew Match 5:30-7:30 at Handy Boat Service

May 8th-PYC Spring Clean Up starts at 8:30 am

May 22nd-Fleet 43 Launch at Handy Boat begins at 8:00 am please bring $50

May 22-23-District One Championships in Scituate, MA

May 26th-First Wednesday Night Race/Fleet Dues must be paid

Time to get sailing on the brain!

The calendar has been updated:

Please take the time to review it and make note of assigned RC dates.

The fleet fees have been set:

Fleet dues $100 (includes and alternate skipper)

Wednesday Night Series 1 and 2: $30 each for a total of $60

Food for skipper and crew (optional): $280 (more than 8 boats participating $250)

Launch will be here sooner than you think:

The fleet launch is scheduled for Saturday, May 22nd beginning at 8:00 am

Make sure to have $50 to pay for the launch.

Brush up on your rules:

Don’t miss the fleet sponsored evening with Dick Rose on June 21st

Some folks are looking to crew-let’s get ‘em on board!

Jaime Arrison-jamie@peoplesumc.com

Ashton Potter-potterad3@gmail.com

Fleet 43 will celebrate the end of another sailing season with good friends and food on November 11th.  Chick here to view Evite.

CLEAN-UP DAY
Sunday, October 25, from noon to 4:00 PM, volunteers will have the thrilling experience of getting the House and Grounds ready for winter.  So set your TV to record the Patriots’ game in London, grab your work gloves and tools, and join the party.  Here is a partial list of tasks to be accomplished:

-    Help Bob Putnam with any remaining work on the floats and boats.
-    Rake lawn areas where needed
-    Sweeping the parking lot, walkways, porches and decks
-    Clean gutters
-    Remove flowers from Planters
-    Trim bushes near House and in the Field
-    Clean Kitchen Dumpster Area
-    Drain hoses
-    Install Dockhouse doors
-    Clean and organize the corral
-    Trim back plant beds
-    Dig out the Dining Room plant bed; remove weeds, add soil
-    Prepare worn grass areas for re-seeding and then re-seed
-    Cover Junior Power Boards
-    Put 420s in the Dinghy Racks
-    Pressure-wash house areas
-    Wash Windows
-    Clean ladders, barrels, other equipment
-    Clean and organize the shed
-    Remove all derelict vessels.

Annual Fleet Meeting October 14th, 2009
6:00 pm in the PYC Captain’s Room-We hope to have at least one representative from each boat present.

1. Budget/Treasurers Report-Shelly 5 minutes
2. Fleet Officers (Nominations will be sent out ahead) 5 min
3. 2009 Fleet Awards /Party-November 11th 5 minutes
4. Food/Dues for 2010  10 minutes
5. Trophies-Weekly, Series, and Season   5 minutes
6. Rules Seminar-Dick Rose 10 minutes
7. Race Committee and Seminar 10 minutes
8. Tonini Series-Finalize NOR and races to be included 5 min
9. 2010 Calendar 5 minutes
10. Regatta Promotions Contract-Carter 5 minutes
11. Sponsorship-Carter 5 minutes
12. Downeast 25th Annual 15 minutes
13. PYC Update/News and Rules/Policies 5 minutes
14. Fleet Membership-How to maintain and increase 5 min
15. Other Business

We will be holding a Downeast Regatta Planning Meeting  on Tuesday, August 11th at Portland Yacht Club at 6:00pm.

We have a small group of people already interested in working on making this year’s Downeast an even bigger success but always welcome more people with new ideas.

Hope to see you on Tuesday.

Mid Summer Meeting Notes

*Notes in bold

Monday July 22, 2009

5:30 in the Captain’s Room

I. Need for Rules and/or Race Management Seminar (in the fall, winter, spring)
Race Management Seminar-PYC will probably be holding another Race Management Seminar this spring; Fleet 43 will offer to help with this event in hopes to be co-hosts for the seminar.  Also Fleet 43 members will be encouraged to attend to increase attendance and to better the fleet’s race management overall.

Sailing by the Rules in the Fleet- A friendly reminder to sail under the US Rules of Sailing and if a boat does not then you are encouraged to protest them (even on Wednesdays).  As written in the Wednesday Night NOR, the fleet, as a whole, will sit as the protest committee.  One way to learn/understand the rules of sailing is to use them.

II. Calendar of Up Coming Travel Events:

A. Northeast Regionals September 19-20th
Northeast Regionals will be held in Marblehead and will follow the Downeast Regatta.  The regatta offers a low entry fee,  a crane,  rooms at the Corinthian are going to be cheap for the event (or there are plenty of other places to stay in Marblehead), and Marblehead has one of the best Race Committees in the country.  This is a world qualifier with several of the boats that were at the Portsmouth Districts.  It would be nice to send as many of our boats as possible to this event because Marblehead boats come to the Downeast Regatta each year.   The more boats we send the more boats they will send to us.  It would be nice to have the boats planning to attend register well before the Downeast so Marblehead can see our fleet participation.

Haul out-If there are not too many boats from away, boats going to Northeast Regionals can haul out at the end of the Downeast on Sunday.  If we have too many boats from away, there has been a fleet haul out scheduled for September 15th starting at 3:00 pm.

B. Lake George October 3-4th

Lake George already has 41 boats registered including Denali, Al, Steve, and Pit Party.  It is a fun regatta with a great venue.

C. East Coast Championships October 29-November 1st

Held in Annapolis, there are at least 2 boats from our fleet planning to head down.

D. Noroton, CT Regatta October 10th and 11th

E. Leafer’s Last Leg at Sail Maine October 17th

This was held in 420s and Ygnlings last year and they are contemplating adding J24s and Etchelles to the venue.  They will offer crane service to launch and haul the J 24s.  If you are interested in having a J24 line please let Stephanie Helms or Sarah Helming know.

III. Annual Meeting

At least one representative from each fleet boat must attend.  Decisions for the 2010 season will be made at this meeting so attendance is important.

A. Date and Time : Wednesday, October 14th at 6:00 pm
B. Location: PYC Captain’s Room
C. Set Agenda
1. Budget/Treasurers Report
2. Regatta Promotions Contract
3. Fleet Officers (Nominations will be sent out ahead)
4. Dues
5. Food
6. Trophies
7. Rules
8. Tonini Series
9. Fleet Membership
10. Sponsorship
11. PYC Update/News and Rules
12. Other Business

IV. Annual Awards
A. Date and Time: Wednesday November 11th at 6:00 pm
B. Venue: Same as last year, the White’s house/Potluck, an evite will be sent out closer to the date.

V. Doublehanded Regatta August 22nd
If the Trick or Treat gets in the water: To celebrate its return we will go with a Halloween theme.  Crews will wear masks/costumes etc.

A. RC: Tom Hall
B. Awards: Fun Awards
C. Food: BBQ and Potluck.  The fleet will supply the burgers and dogs and each boat will bring a side, dessert, etc.  We will have Sailor Jerry Rum and BYO Beer.  We are looking to have 8 or more boats to hold this regatta.  NOR will be out soon.

We need to take a look at the fleet grill to make sure it is ready for this event.  It may need a new tank or adapter, ask  Tony to take a look.

VI. Downeast Regatta
A. Create Planning Committee: If you would like to be more involved in the planning of the Downeast Regatta email Molly White at mollyfrommaine@yahoo.com.

B. Ideas for Improvement: go with something different from shirts or in addition to them such as winter hats, belts, shorts, a Downeast bandana, flip flops etc.  If we decide to do belts we need to purchase the ribbon up front and it will last for more than 1 year, this would be an investment.

Recruit more boats from away

Offer housing to boats from away: Nick, Emily, and the Whites will house boats, if you would be interested in housing please contact Molly White with details and amount of people you can take.  We will offer housing on a first come first serve basis.

Have our own fleet register for Marblehead early to entice more Marblehead boats.

C. Go over Jobs List
D.  Sign up for Jobs: Some people have already signed up for Downeast jobs but there are plenty more, due to our lower numbers it would be great if some people could do more than one job. The list will be available on Wed. nights.   If boats do not sign up a job will be assigned to them.

E. Sponsorship: We need more sponsors to create a great event as well as strengthen the fleet funds.  We have sponsorship packets so that fleet members can recruit sponsors.  Sponsorship dollars brought in by fleet members rather than Regatta Promotions keeps more money in the fleet.

We will start a “Friends of Fleet 43” page on the website, which lists any sponsorship less than $200 so that individual fleet members can bring in smaller donations.

Thanks to all who attended, we got a lot accomplished!

Series 2: The second series will begin this week and we will do the series 1 weekly awards next Wednesday when the glasses come in.

There are now 14 boats registered for Districts down in Portsmouth, 4 from our own fleet 43 and we hope to add 3 more!

For those of you who don’t have a boat to sail on…maybe another boat is looking for crew!

So if you want to sail at Districts and don’t have a boat…comment on this blog entry saying you’re looking for a boat or contact Molly at mollyfrommaine@yahoo.com and she will send an email out to the fleet.

It would be great to see as many fleet 43 members in Portsmouth as possible.

Hey skippers and crew,

Just a quick reminder that the Crew Match Party is right around the corner on May 6th. It is a great opportunity to get some new blood out on the boat. So make sure you swing by. The fun and crew hunting begins at 5:30.

On a similar note, I have been contacted by some folks looking to get out on 24s this summer. Below is a bit of their background and their contact information. It would be wonderful to get them involved in the fleet.

Sandra Hayward-Sandra used to sail in our fleet with Jeff on Second Chance. She was middle position (launching and hauling in the chute) and is interested in returning to that position.
You can reach her by email at: tigletandme@yahoo.com

The Arrisons-Jamie and his wife are looking for a J24 to sail on either together or separate. They have been sailing out of Centerboard on a J 29 in the past few years and before that sailed with Jeff Dinse up in Camden. You can reach them by email at: thearrisons@peoplesumc.com

Lastly, Chris Follansbee from Portsmouth would like to join us on Wednesday nights. Many of you have met him when he has been up for Downeast or over at Lake George’s Changing of the Colors. He owns the J 24 Martix. You can reach him by email at: mlboats@comcast.net

I hope to see you all at the crew match-it would be great to see Fleet 43 there.