Old Point Comfort Yacht Club​
     100 McNair Dr, Bldg. 183, Fort Monroe, Va
                                37.00'06.7" N, 76 18' 53.2"W​​​

Has spring sprung? The gloomy, blustery cold days of February and March have given way finally to the familiar sounds of hull sanders and grinders at many boatyards and at marinas all around the area people climbing masts checking halyards and making their boats ready for the upcoming season. The final cruising schedule is being confirmed and the racing schedule is set, PMU has a couple more weeks left and the excitement of the upcoming season - to me - it is like a boy impatient for the arrival of Santa Claus. I couldn’t stand the wait  and had to get Luna Blu underway on one of the nice days last month, just enough to knock off the cobwebs. The cobwebs did get swatted away and it was a nice sail and even got the spinnaker up for an hour or two. Other than the grounding on Hampton Bar… it was a beautiful day on the water. 

 

The last weekend in March will be a bit unusual for me. The Citadel’s Sailing Team (my alma mater (and also a Sailing Team alumni)) is in town for a match race against Hampton University which coincides with the Hampton Roads Citadel Club Annual Alumni Muster. We have invited the Cadets to participate in our Muster at Hampton Yacht Club, and the Team’s Coach asked that we exchange burgees with them. So, OPCYC’s Burgee will find a prominent place in the Citadel’s new $16 MIL Boating Center on the banks of the Ashley River,  not far from where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet to form the Atlantic Ocean (according to Charlestonians, anyway!).

 

PMU is going strong, and we have three more excellent lectures coming up in April. On March 29th we will welcome Captain Cheryl Duvall who hails from Annapolis. She is going to provide a lecture on planning a trip from Chesapeake Bay to Maine. An accomplished cruiser who has thousands of cruising miles to her credit, it is going to be an excellent lecture that I hope will not be missed.                    

 

The following week on April 5th we will welcome back to the podium Alan Bomar who is the Lower Chesapeake Bay PHRF Handicapper and will discuss the PHRF Rating System. The following week there will not be a PMU lecture, but we will have the Boat Part Buy-Sell-Swap Party in the morning, so bring out your old stuff gathering dust in the garage- someone might actually need it! And immediately following will be the Annual OPCYC Sock Burning Party, so bring your old, holey, musty socks to be given as sacrifice to King Neptune and then join in the clubhouse for the party!  Details provided later in the Social section. Even if you have no boat parts (or don’t have a boat!) come on down to the clubhouse for a fun time! There will be no PMU the following week, and the 26th we will enjoy one of Steve Runals excellent and informative lectures to update us on the “State of Play with NOAA and USCG’s tools for using On Demand Charts.” As NOAA ceases to produce paper charts, it is important for all of us to know how to build the charts that we need, and how to have them printed.  There is a lot going on at OPCYC in April!

 

A couple more notes:

In May, Cruising Club of Virginia Racing (CCVR) will be hosting a Crew Training Course  for anyone interested in learning how to sail and crew on a sailboat. Courses are offered April 29/30, May 6/7, 3/14 and 20/21. It includes 4 evening classroom sessions, each followed the next day with actual on the water racing experiences.  There are plenty of openings, so if you are interested in expanding your nautical knowledge or want to sail on a variety of boats this is the course for you. A couple of Luna Blu’s crew have taken advantage of the opportunity and said it was well worth the money and time investment. To register, go to CCVR’s website (https://ccvracing.us/ training/). For those on the Southside, BBSA is also hosting a Crew Training Course called BBSA Crew-U. It also begins in May for a cost of $60 and meets three times throughout the month with  classroom instruction as well as on the water hands-on

training at a cost of $60. Signup is on the BBSA website

(Broad Bay Sailing Association - BBSA Crew-U) .   

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See y’all on the water!

 

Keith Midgette

Commodore

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(Right)  Nick Johnstone, Coach of The Citadel Sailing

             Team, as he and Commodore Keith

              exchange burgees at the Hampton Roads

              Citadel Club Annual  Alumni Muster

              held at Hampton Yacht Club March 29th,

              Saturday night.