northstarsailclub • tell tale • march 2013

From the Commodore

[Date]

North Star Sail Club

North Star Sail Club recently hosted world famous sailor, author, TV commentator and National Chairman of The Leukemia Cup Regatta program Gary Jobson to kick-off our 2013 Leukemia Cup Campaign. About 100 enthused sailors and fans enjoyed an evening of great sailing stories and video. Wild Bill Wildner also gave an inspirational talk about his involvement and success in raising money for the cause. During the event the club got off to a great start and raised $3,000 toward or 2013 campaign. Special thanks to Claudia Drummond and Rob Kirsten for their devotion to this cause and holding this event. On Saturday March 2nd the club will be hosting another big event. North Sails’ North U will be conducting an all day seminar on the 2013 Racing Rules and Tactics. As you may know the racing rules are modified every four years and there are always important changes to learn about. They will also be discussing racing tactics as part of the seminar. We expect a big crowd and if you are interested, you can register right from our own home page at www.northstarsail.org. We have some fun social events coming up as well. Bunny Day, Blender Wars, and more Darts Nights. See Social Director Jim Hodson’s article for details. Long time valued NSSC member Jack Vallad recently went over the bar. Jack was a petty officer and destroyer veteran of WW II and was in Tokyo Harbor for the signing of the peace. He was an avid sailor and a Mackinac racer “Old Goat”. He was a 63 year member of North Star Sail Club. A Memorial visitation will be held at Blossom Heath Banquet Center on March 16th at 10AM. His service will be at noon followed by a NSSC Commodore’s Memorial and Naval Military Honors. We will miss you Jack. This is the time of the year that we select a Member of the year. The coveted award was voted on and determined at

[email protected]

Written by: Joe Moceri Commodore North Star Sail Club

our February Board meeting. The Racer of the Year and the Swetka Award for Sailor of the Year have been selected by the Race Committee and the Cruiser of the Year has been by the Cruise Committee. In addition we have our “fun” awards for Boner, Duck, and Brass Balls. The winners of the “fun” awards will be announced at our April General Membership meeting. Again, we have some very deserving nominees, but if you have a worthy candidate please let me know. The Member of the Year, Swetka Award, Racer of the Year, and Cruiser of the Year will all be presented at the Commodore’s Ball on March 9th, 2013. The theme this year is the America’s Cup and I understand that the Ball Committee is having a lot of fun with the theme. The Ball is being held at MacRay Harbor and we will have great food and entertainment, but most of all, a great time. It will be a special time to socialize with your friends and have a wonderful evening out. I hope you will be able to join me and Lady Audie at our Ball.

Friday, March 29 TGIF Bar is Open 5pm - 10pm

8:00pm Darts Night

Friday, April 5 TGIF Bar is Open 5pm - 10pm


8:00pm Darts Night



NSSC Events

www.northstarsail.org

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From the Vice Commodore Written By: Brian Isaacs Vice Commodore • North Star Sail Club

The Iceboating has been a lot better this year than last. Iceflyingtim is the place to get a look at the action over the last few weeks. I would like to complement the members that are so generous with their equipment as to let a rookie friend of mine have his very first ride! He got off the boat and assured us he would now go and get one! Wow, what excitement!

We are in the heat of the winter Dart Competition that runs under the able leadership of Murphy Palmer and Mike Parrow on the second and last Fridays of each month. The popularity of the activity has lead us to extend the season out til the 12th of April. Buffalo Wings have been added to these evenings to add to the enjoyment, thanks to Greg Juviler for cooking and serving.

We have planned the House Committee Meeting for the second week in March to get started on the next actions that we should take on behalf of the membership inside the clubhouse. If you have a specific idea or need, please share it with me or any of the committee members. These members are Kathy Rodgers, Greg Thompson, Bruce Wilber, Dan Cavanaugh, Rob Kirsten, Jim Boylan and John Quinlan, and I really appreciate them volunteering their time again this year.

Jim Hodson, the Social Director, and John Quinlan, the Inside Maintenance Director, have prepared reports that are in this edition of the Tell Tale to advise the members of activities that they will undoubtedly want to support.

North Star Sail Club • Tell Tale March 2013

From the Rear Commodore Written By: Chris Gerkin Rear Commodore • North Star Sail Club

The race schedule for the year has been completed early by Jim Rodgers Jr. and the Race Committee. This year we are looking at windward/leeward, pursuit and Modified Olympic courses. As always there should be great racing out on Lake St Clair. The ABYRA Skippers meeting is set for April 26 at NSSC. The Spring Top Gun Series starts on May 4 and the AYC series starts May 7. The first invitation race is the Boston Yachtsman on June 10. The schedule is posted out on the North Star Sail Club website. We are working with Ray Templin to have online

registration for our races this year and I will keep you posted. The Leukemia Cup has been scheduled for August 12 which is the same day as the Macomb Daily Race. This format worked extremely well last year and we hope to repeat our success and keep the Leukemia Cup at North Star. ABYRA will have new marks on the course this year that are yellow and should be more visible and more durable.

We are still talking about race flags for the year. As you know our regular supplied from several years ago is out of business. We should have these discussions finished up over the next couple of weeks.

The Racing Committee took input at the last meeting for Racer of the Year. The winner of the award will have shown outstanding achievement in the sport of sailboat racing. The Racing Committee also took input at the last meeting for the Commodore John Swetka Memorial Award which is presented to the North Star member who best exemplifies the active promotion of sailboat racing, makes major contributions to the NSSC race program and actively participates in the NSSC program. The winners of these two prestigious awards will be announced at the Commodores Ball.

Junior Sailing is looking forward to another great year under the leadership of Nickie Kowal and her Board of Directors. Nickie will outline her program and talk about exciting upcoming events in her Tell Tale article.

Kris and Karen Tonn are once again heading up the cruising program at North Star. The Cruiser of the Year will be announced at the Commodore’s Ball in a couple of weeks. The annual Cruising Meeting will be held at North Star on April 14 and it is a pot luck event.

Ray Templin the Communications Director has been very active in the development of the digital assets at North Star as well as the Handbook. He is working on more online registration for events and other activities. The WIFI system is working well. Ray’s Tell Tale report will give to the rest of the detail within his area.


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Praesent vitae nisl.


From the Fleet Captain Written By: Laurie Jamieson Fleet Captain • North Star Sail Club

Good news! Only 8 more weeks until launch!

Thank you Steve Hicks for volunteering as our new Crane Chairperson with Tracy Tower as the co-chair. Ideally, Steve would like a 2 member co-chair team. If you are interested and able to help out please see Steve, Tracy or myself. Perry Smith will also help out with the excel program for the haul out. Thank you all.

Our 2013 yard captains have been identified:

Mike Parrow • Club Front ( same as 2012) Chris Gerkin • East Marina East (same as 2012) Tracy Tower • East Marina West Charlie Jennett • West Marina Don Leonard• Count Property Bill Kreager • South Marina

The 2013 mooring committee has also been identified. This committee is led by the current Fleet Captain along with the 2 past and 2 members, Chuck Drummond and Bill Jenkins. If you have any questions about well assignments or mooring committee questions in general please see one of us.

Thank you everyone who sent in their well contracts and payments. There are still a quite a few contracts that we are missing so please get those in if you haven’t done so already.

Now here’s one of everybody’s favorite subjects we love to hate to talk about; crossing over to Canada and back in our boats. We all have so many questions about what the procedure is and the funny thing is so do most of the customs agents.

Here is a quick summary:

I-68- this card costs $16.00 per year. It is only good for 1 year. Each time you renew it you have to go through the interview process at a border crossing. You still have to call in when you enter Canada and when you enter back into the states (even if you don’t anchor or dock).

NEXUS card- this card costs $50.00 (free under the age of 18) and is good for 5 years. You will still need to go through the interview process at a border crossing initially and when renewing. You still have to call when you enter Canada and when you enter into the states (even if you don’t anchor or

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From the Fleet Captain (cont.)

Written By: JIm Hodson Social Director • North Star Sail Club

As I sit and write this article in the last week of Feb. and having just returned from a weekend of cross country skiing and snowshoeing it is tough to imagine spring is on its way. Between now and then we have several great events coming up.

Blender Wars Re-scheduled March 16 This event due to scheduling demands has been moved to March 16 so get your blenders fired up and your Island gear and flip flops out of the closet. As always highly sought after NSSC awards will be given out for top recipes and originality. Dave and Bev Sherman will be the blender masters for this event and all recipes need to be emailed to Claudia by Mon. March 11th so that all ingredients will be on hand.

Bunny Day March 23

This one is for the kids and it is a great event with many smiles all around. In the past years this has been an event which we invite our neighbors from Huron Pointe to attend and we fill the club with kid games, cookie decorating, good food and of course the Easter Bunny. Bring the kids, bring the grandkids and let’s all have a good time.

Derby Day May 4

After a hard day of workday projects this is a good way to relax and pick your favorite ponies and sip mint juleps. A little bit of Louisville comes to North Star as this is the day to breakout the fancy hats. You know the hats I am talking about – the ones that Aretha Franklin would be proud to wear. Men, show up dressed like a horse owner with a racing form under your arm and you will fit right in.

TGIF, Darts, Wine Tasting, Just Hanging out Many good events this month and such a good time to be had by all. Come on out and use your club as often as you can as it is a great place to have some fun.

Socially Speaking dock). When traveling by other means, this card also

gets you through customs (back into the U.S.) much quicker at airports that participate in the program.

S.V.R.S.- Small Vessel Reporting System. This was a pilot program that they (LBO Local Boat Operators) started in Miami to make it easier for pleasure boats to come back into the states from the Islands. This is a free, web based reporting system. You still need a passport with this. Once you have been, yup, you guessed it, interviewed and approved at a border crossing you are assigned a program number for your boat and a password to register on-line. Before you go over to Canada you submit your float plans on-line for approval. You then get an approval code for your float plan which has to be called in upon your arrival back into the states. Because it is new-ish here and was originally designed by the LBO, which we don’t have here, many agents don’t understand it.

The only exceptions for all of these options are for racing (not for money), testing or display.

There is an agent in the area who is very knowledgeable and has agreed to come to the club to give a short presentation and to answer questions, but you have to promise me you won’t attack him. I am planning to do this at our membership meeting and will keep you posted once we get an exact date (hint: looking to do this at the April GMM).

As always, please feel to contact me any time.

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Written by: Mike Parrow Director Outside Maintenance North Star Sail Club

We managed to get a few pilings painted in the South Marina in February thanks to members Nicholas Kowal-Besler and Tom Schwandt. We had a nice Sunday but ran out of paint earlier than planned. More paint is on the way and there are many more pilings to get painted.

There are a few special projects shaping up for work day May 4th. The first is a carryover from late last year when we agreed we would install different lighting or shield the yard light for our neighbors in the south marina. I think we can save the existing fixture and fabricate an aluminum shield for installation around the bulb to prevent excessive illumination of their yards. The hardest part of this one will be getting to the fixture as I don’t think we can work on it safely from a ladder. Scaffolding maybe?? Does anybody have some?? The second one is to install a conduit or tubing under the front door sidewalk for future outdoor landscape lighting. The third is to modify all of the picnic tables so that the umbrella shafts don’t rest on the ground. This modification will extend the life of the umbrellas and may make a difference in the lawn mowing costs as the tables will be easier to move when mowing the lawn.

Of course we’ll have all of the regular tasks of getting the water systems, irrigation and pump out systems back in operation for the summer. There’ll also be the usual painting, cleaning and organizing of the general grounds and marinas. We usually have to straighten the parking curbs that get pushed around when the lot is snow plowed too. These are just a few of spring work day tasks, by May 4th there’ll be many more on the list. I hope to see you there!

Outside Maintenance

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Communications Written By: Ray Templin Communications Director North Star Sail Club

We have made great strides in updating our Membership information this past month for the North Star Sail Club roster and handbook. There is now an online form for members to update their information in the membership area of the website. We have had a great response from the membership. You can update your information by visiting the members area of the website and clicking on the membership update link.

North Star Sail Club will have a new appearance on the web and in social media. By the end of March 2013 we will have a new look and feel at www.northstarsail.org. You will be able see all the great things happening at the club with our new event calendar. You will be able to download the event calendar to your smart phones and other devices. You will never miss an event.

You can now follow us now on Twitter and with our new Facebook Fan page that works a long with our current Facebook group page. Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/northstarsail and you can also like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/northstarsailclub.

More exciting news to coming soon! So stay tune!

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North Star Sail Club 32041 South River Road Harrison Twp. MI. 48045 TEL: (586) 463-2192 FAX: (586) 463-5405 E-Mail: [email protected]

General Membership Meeting April 4th, 2013

Dinner at 6:30 Meeting starts at 7:30 Please, call the office by Monday, April 1, 4th

for Dinner Reservations.

North Star Sail Club

The principles of North Star Sail Club: To promote and enjoy yachting activity, and particularly the sport of sailing and to bring to the person of moderate means the pleasures and good fellowship to be found in yachting.


northstarsailclub • tell tale • march 2013

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