The annual NSC rites of spring have now passed, with a great THRASH by Social, Launch, and weekly Interclub Racing has begun (Yeah!) as I’m finally pulling together this quarterly report. Your 2015 Fleet Committee volunteers have been busy putting the final pieces in place for the start of a fantastic Sailing season.
As reported at the members Spring Information Meeting, a number of program elements and initiatives were undertaken by the team these past months. These include some of the Q2 Fleet accomplishments highlighted below in-line with this year’s strategic 2015 Sailing Program Priorities.
NSC Racing/Cruising Webpages: A project was undertaken to update, refresh, and reorganise the 100+ Racing and Cruising program related pages on the NSC website to improve information flow. As well as numerous updates, the project included adding more descriptive program benefits to the initial pages and new summary pages on the Race Program, Weeknight Racing, Weekend Sailing Events, and our fantastic array of Race Fleets for newcomers to the club and program. My thanks to the NSC web team of Hugh Morrin and Daniel Servranckx, Phil Wilcox (Results), Jenn Holiday (RC Volunteer sign-up), Ted Ceelen (Crew Bank), and others who made this significant pre-season refresh possible.
Race Management Course: A regional OSA Level 2 Club Race Officer (CRO) course was hosted at NSC, March 28-29th. The seminar was well attended by both members and this year’s Race Bosuns, helping replenish the much needed pool of qualified Race Management officials. Thanks to Rick Anderton and RC’s R Us for organising this key training.
2015 Race Bosuns: An experienced and talented NSC Race Bosun team is in place for this season, lead by returning Head Race Bosun, Wynn Davies. The team includes returning Senior Bosuns Peter Viets and Andrew Verheyden, and Junior Bosuns Sam Lowery and Charlie Juryn. Please remember to stop and say hi to the team who will be working on your behalf each race night/event.
PHRF/Race Registrations: Jan Huus, Chief Handicapper/Registrar, has been busy processing the 105+ keelboat PHRF certificate renewals and Race Registrations and 40+ dinghy Registrations submitted so far. If you have forgotten to send in your Race Registration forms, please do so ASAP. Keelboat owners are encouraged to check their 2015 Race Registration status.
2015 RC Volunteers: The NSC Race Committee Volunteer program continues to perform very well with 85%+ of this season’s 220+ RC duty slots already filled! Thanks to all of you who have already volunteered. Our thanks to Fran and Jim Kelly who have volunteered to serve as RC Volunteer Coordinator replacing Jenn Holliday after a solid past 3 seasons.
2015 Sailing Instructions: The Interclub Sailing Instructions & Calendar have been published for the 2015 season. Major changes this year include the following:
- The addition of a dedicated Able Sail Martin 16 & 2.4mR start to Wednesday night dinghy racing and other changes. – See Part D.
- A new Dinghy Frostbite Series will run on Saturday, September 26th. – See Part F.
- The Summer Series course swap for PHRF, One Design, and JAM keelboats will extend for two weeks into the Fall Series. – See Parts C and E.
- A shuffling of the calendar, partly due to Labour Day being 6 days later then in 2014.
Competitors and participants are strongly encouraged to review the applicable sections of the 2015 Sailing Instructions in advance to avoid confusion on the course or miss an opportunity. Many thanks to Hugh Morrin for pulling these together, and coordinating with BYC. No mean feat each year.
2015 NSC Regattas: The club proudly hosts a number of major weekend Regattas for all types and levels of sailors throughout the season including Youth, Able Sail, Dinghies, and Keelboats. The regatta Notice Of Race and On-line Registration are now available for the upcoming major NSC events; Ottawa Skiff & Cat Grand Prix, June 6-7, the Nepean One Design (NOD), June 20-21, and the 2.4mR North America Championships, July 24-26. So Skippers, time to pull your teams together and register! Or if your boat/class doesn’t qualify, consider volunteering for Regatta RC duty as a great way to spend a weekend on the water and check out the action.
After the long winter and spring months with the core planning and Sailing Program largely now in place, Fleets focus in the coming months will turn to finalizing plans for Regattas and major events on the NSC Sailing calendar, and the day-to-day running of the program itself.
Its time to get out Sailing and Boating folks! See you on the river soon.
Ross H. Ernst – Fleet Captain 2015