Social and competitive sailing aspects of our 2022 season are covered below (with lots of photos). Included are social events, sailing trophy and award winners, recognition of some special people, a bit of humor, attendance records (or lack thereof), and well, "other events".
SOCIAL GATHERINGS
We began to get back to normal this year holding all of our social events (Spring Social, Memorial Day Breakfast and Labor Day Breakfast). For 2023, all we need now is a host for the Spring Social. If you are interested or have questions, contact Tom Schroeder by hitting the comment button at the end of this post (he will get your message, but won't post it), or call the office and ask Beth Ann to let him know.
The Spring Social at Larry and Nancy Olson's was well attended and the weather was great for the outdoor event.
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| Our photographer was having such a good time he forgot to take photos of the gathering, but here you can see the Olson's place all decked out including nautical flags. Thanks Larry and Nancy! |
The Memorial Day Breakfast at John and Rachel Gall’s:
The Labor Day Breakfast at Robb Bonebrake and Chris Braun’s new home.
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| Oh! May I ? |
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| Yay! |
Thanks Rob and Chris!
Post-Race Gatherings
After each day's races, sailors and volunteers, past and present, gathered on Arlene Truex's patio overlooking the lake to re-live the race, resolve any rule infractions a.k.a. "protests" (thus the term "protest meeting"), but mainly just to socialize. Thank you Arlene for hosting us!
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| Racing tactics are discussed and infractions are alleged and defended. Weighty matters! |
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| But we mainly just socialize. |
OUR SAILING SEASON:
We had 7 race days this year.
We had 32 participants, and it's about half women and half men
Of these, 18 were Sailors and 14 were Committee Boat volunteers
VOLUNTEERS RECOGNIZED
We are grateful to our Committee Boat volunteers!
<---A complete list of our esteemed volunteers is in the Port Column
They certainly get into the spirit of things as Gretchen and Steve demonstrate below:
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| Welcome to Margaritaville! |
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| The gourmet lunch tradition continues. And they did manage to officiate the race as well. What, no table cloth this year? |
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| The set-up crew positions the yellow flag where they want the officiating boat. This boat becomes one end of the starting line. The goal of anchoring the officiating boat is to get it as close to the yellow flag as possible. This is a lot harder than it sounds on a windy day. For this race, you will notice that Jack and Steve anchored such that the yellow flag is touching the side rail of the pontoon boat. That is a perfect anchoring job! Perhaps we need an anchoring award. |
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| Jim Riffle, GYC's Encourager-in-Chief, kept watch over the sailors from his pontoon boat in case someone needed help. More on that later. |
Committee Boat Chair, Beth Auld, makes sure we have Committee Boat volunteers for each race and volunteers many times herself. She also pitches in with other things like...
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| ...having Yacht Club T-shirts made as a fundraiser and pitching them at the breakfasts |
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| This year she was able to crew for John in a race |
Thanks also to harbormaster Arlene Truex whose dock is the center of race day activity in addition to our gathering after each race. She is the busiest of all of us on race day!
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| She races as well. |
Kevin Preuss, our Race Chairman, organizes the races, keeps our race gear ship-shape and makes the difficult calls on whether to cancel a race if there is to little or too much wind; or if there are storms, excessive heat, etc.
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| And, when necessary, he guards the snack table. |
Lisa Duret our Secretary/Treasurer greets you with a name tag at social events, registers members, keeps track of our membership dues and expenses etc. She and Kevin get all of our trophies ready for the awards gathering and all sorts of other things.
SPECIAL AWARDS
Ghost Sailor Award
The ghost sailor award goes to the sailor who wasn’t here as often as we would have liked, but really, really truly, scouts honor, cross his/her heart, wanted to be racing with us and was here “in spirit." Really they were. The trophy itself is quite ornate, large, and very heavy. Storing and displaying it can be difficult.
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| Commodore Tom is shown here carefully lifting the ghost sailor trophy off the awards table. Then he explained that there are two winners of the trophy this year. So the trophy must be cut in half; One half awarded to each recipient. |
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| Tom pulls out a saw and carefully holds the trophy while cutting it in half in just the right place. This half-trophy can be best displayed with the cut end facing a wall. And not to worry, if cut properly it can be super-glued together next year so no one will be able to notice. "Trust me - you'll see" he says. |
This year's Ghost Sailor Award goes to Matt Bartlett and Dianne Fisher! We hope to see them sailing with us in 2023.
The "Jim Riffle Perfect Highest Attendance Award"
Unlike the past few years, no one, not even Jim Riffle had perfect attendance. Therefore the award (a jelly donut fresh the day before from Jay C) was awarded to the four sailors or volunteers with the highest attendance. We cut it off at four because that is how many donuts made it home.
The award winners were:
VOLUNTEERS
- Jim Riffle 9 of 13 races
- Bob Orben 8 of 13 races
SAILORS
- Laura Garrett 11 of 13 races
- Tom Schroeder 10 of 13 races
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| Jim was pleased to receive his jelly donut. |
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| Fresh yesterday? Kept in a baggie? Kept where? |
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| Oh well, someone will eat it! |
The Booby Prize
Two significant instances of mayhem occurred this year. A sailing team won for booby-prize-worthiness.
The runner-up was the Committee Boat volunteer team of Jack & Sandy Miller, Steve & Gretchen Fisher, and Bernice Rains. They gallantly took in all the race markers after the June 26th race, but no good deed goes unpunished. They were heading for home and got blasted by a huge downpour. This did not deter them from volunteering again at a later date and we are grateful.
The Booby Prize was awarded to a captain and his crew:
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| Depicted here inside the chamber pot trophy are two heads bobbing in the water next to their overturned sailboat. The mast and sail are completely underwater pointing toward the bottom of the lake. |
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| Captain Tom Schroeder and trusty crew Phil Bush are the heads bobbing in the water. Since the centerboard would not stay up, they couldn't right the boat themselves. The safety boat, manned by Jim Riffle, Kevin Preuss and Lisa Duret got a line ready to help right the boat. Even more maneuverability than the pontoon boat was required, which led to the Good Samaritan Award (stay tuned). |
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| Tom and Phil accepted the award. The trophy will spend the first half of the coming year in Phil's garage and the other half in Tom's furnace room (if Phil can find a way to leave it with Tom). |
The Good Samaritan Award
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| Matt Claymon showed up in his Jet Ski and offered to pull the line to right the sailboat. |
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| And voila! |
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| "My work here is done. Adios!" Thank you Matt! |
RACING AWARDS:
Holiday Trophy Race Winners
"Memorial Day" Race
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| Jim Voelz accepts the Memorial Day race trophy. The trophy had a "second story" added because of all the name plates of decades of winners. Most of the name plates are Jim's. The trophy is now a monument. |
"July 4th" Race
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| TOM AND SARAH CARTWRIGHT won the "July 4" race |
"Labor Day" Race
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| TOM SCHROEDER won the Labor Day Trophy |
Crew Awards
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| 1ST PLACE CREW: SARAH CARTWRIGHT (in blue) |
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| 2ND PLACE CREW: ELIZABETH HALE (left) |
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| 3RD PLACE CREW: PHIL BUSH |
International Class Awards:
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| 1ST PLACE INTERNATIONAL CLASS: TOM & SARAH CARTWRIGHT |
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| 2ND PLACE INTERNATIONAL CLASS: TOM SCHROEDER (left) With appreciation for his crew members Phil Bush and Arlene Truex |
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| 3RD PLACE INTERNATIONAL CLASS: CATEY HALE & DAUGHTER ELIZABETH |
Laser Class Awards:
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| 1ST PLACE LASER CLASS: JIM VOELZ |
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| 2ND PLACE LASER CLASS: LAURA GARRETT |
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| 3RD PLACE LASER: KEVIN PREUSS |
CLUB CHAMPION - JIM VOELZ!
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| Jim Voelz accepts the Championship Trophy. On the bottom of the trophy are little name plates for each year's winner. Most of them (nine) are Jim's, No sailor has won the championship trophy nearly as many times as Jim. |
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| After accepting the championship trophy Jim was asked to tell us about some of the dozens of other champions through the years whose names are on the trophy. We enjoyed a great history lesson and Jim's description of some of the great sailors and races at Grandview over the last 60 years. It was interesting to hear about many of them who were transferred to Columbus from the U.K by Cummins, bringing excellent sailing skills. There were many colorful characters! Jim's father, the late Joe Voelz, was one of the founders of GYC and a club champion. Jim's wife Peggy is also a champion sailor. It will just be a matter of time for daughter Laura to win the championship and then Jim and Peggy's grandkids who are beginning to sail as well. | |
Here is hoping for another back-to-normal year in 2023! See you then!
