The weekend of May 11 has been scheduled for facility repair, improvements and to reconfigure the site for summer dry-sail lots. Many volunteers are needed to get the clubhouse, grounds and committee boats ready for the season. Work parties will form at 9 am and finish at 4 pm each day.

We are hoping that all work can be competed over the weekend so we can spend the rest of the season concentrating on sailing.

Our Wine and Cheese / Spring General Meeting is on April 20 at 7pm.

Introduce your children to sailing, windsurfing or rowing lessons in a fun and safe environment in our sheltered, protected harbor.

OHCC has partnered with the OHSF to offer these camps. Registration and additional details can be found here.

Season results by fleet:
5o5 Spring Summer
1. Mike Agrell
2. Angus Ross
3. NA
5o5 Summer Fall
1. Angus Ross
2. Alistair Martin
3. Mike Agrell

Albacore Spring Summer
1. Jefferson Hall
2. Ian Brayshaw
3. David Harris
Albacore Summer Fall
1. George Wilson
2. John Martin
3. Jefferson Hall

Contender Spring Summer
1. Mike Smits
2. Peter Hale
3. Roger Martin
Contender Summer Fall
1. Stephanie Mah
2. Frank Wittington
3. Peter Hale

Miscellaneous Spring Summer
1. Jim Erven
2. Ted Rosen
3. Doug Gordon
Miscellaneous Summer Fall
1. Adam Nicholson
2. Jim Erven
3. Bob Fahy

Thank you to all those who assisted with Race Committee, Tuesday night feasts, and who participated in the races. See you next season.

We are looking forward to another really great sailing season, with Docks-In planned for the 14th April. I hope to see many members showing up. (I know how busy it can be — I have a friend’s wedding I need to attend that evening.)

Here are a few guidelines we should go by, when running the race on Tuesday or Thursday nights:

• If you can’t make it on the night you have been selected, please contact someone else on the race committee list and see if they can switch with you; or contact the Commodore or the Rear Commodore. This will help ensure that we will always have a race committee.
• Do your best to get everyone to sign up before the race. Of course there will be a few that will arrive after the committee boat has left the dock, but you will help the RC’s job of getting sail numbers. And competitors: if you haven’t signed up, please check in with the committee boat for safety and scoring reasons.
• Make sure, if you are running the race, you have at least one other person to assist you on the committee boat.
• Use the Rule 26 for Starts, which is a 5-4-1-Go and flags accordingly.
• Make sure you have everything you need for going out on the water, your Pleasure Craft Operators Card, your Harbour licence, and photo ID, along with proper clothing for the conditions.
• For results, please write clearly the sail number, class, and position in the race.

Over the course of the winter, I was asked to  look at updating the Race Course for the races on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We have been using the same course for many years — for as long as I have been a member anyway — just six years now. After having spoken to members in various classes, and — with some compromise, I feel that this is the best possible race course for all the classes and for the Outer Harbour.

The course will be of two triangles and with a windward-leeward-windward finish; and that finish should be placed closest to the club, either windward or leeward. The same decision process applies, if the wind is light or dies, the RC has the choice to finish the race at any mark, but should conform to the Racing Rules of Sailing.

If any members have any questions about starting and so on, see me at the club or give a call.

Good Luck this season everyone! Fair Winds!

Adam Nicholson

At the first meeting of the Stakeholders, the opening/introductory presentation of OHSF was cut short by the moderator, and the second meeting was spent in trying to identify sources of funding to cover  the cost of the Don/Keating Channel Flood Control System at an approximate cost of $700 million. This is the key to development of the Portlands — China was suggested as a source of funding.

 With the Stakeholders apparent lack of interest in the needs of the boating community, the Ontario Sailing Association (represented there by our member, Stephanie Mah) and OHSF made arrangements for a special meeting with representatives of WT, the City, OHCC and our neighbouring clubs.

The meeting was held on 8th March and information revealed that there was a lack of money to proceed with the Lake Ontario Park plan in the foreseeable future, although the plan was still valid. In the meanwhile, the City will present to our landlord, (OHSF) and to two neighbouring clubs draft/revised leases within two weeks. Therefore, depending on the terms of the lease, and so on, there is a possibility that the seven years of lease negotiations, may at last be coming to an end.

 A further meeting of the Stakeholders was to be held on 21st March, followed by a public meeting, with the final Portland’s Business and Implementation Plan to be presented to the City Council in July.                          

Peter Brayshaw

I HOPE that everyone had an enjoyable winter and that you are looking forward to starting a new sailing season. Once again we have created a full sailing program with many varied activities that will help to improve your sailing skills and increase your enjoyment.

Our season will start on 14 April and will continue throughout the season until 13 October; (further, in fact: there’s the Commodore’s Ball in early November, and yard cleanup two weeks later). This year’s sailing events will include the following:

• Tuesday Night Spring/Summer Racing and Feast starting on 1 May
• Albacore Friday Nights will start on 4 May
• Albacore Toronto Harbour Masters series will commence on May 21
• Three Regattas – OHCC, Albacore Open and 505/Contender
• Three OHCC sailing events – the Bell Buoy Tune-Up, Round the Finn and the Dufferin Bell Buoy
• OHCC/TSCC Optimist and 420 Children’s and Youth Sailing Programs are available during July-August for beginners to experts.        

This year we are trying to get our facility in shipshape condition by having a Volunteer Fair after Docks-In. We will set up several volunteer stations in the clubhouse to answer questions, and assign tasks to our members. The event will start after the docks are in the water, and it should take about an hour.

The weekend of 12th and 13th May has been scheduled for facility repair and improvements,

and to reconfigure our site for summer dry-sail lots. Many volunteers are needed to get the clubhouse, the grounds and the committee boats ready for the season. Work crews will start at 9 am and continue to 4 pm each day. We are hoping that all work will be completed over that  weekend, thereby ensuring that all of us can fully enjoy the season of sailing. Please sign up at Docks-In (on 14 April) to participate on the weekend of 12 May or 13th.

The TMCC (the Multihulls) will be launched on the Saturday of that weekend — the 12th.

I look forward to seeing everyone at Docks-In on Saturday, 14th of April at 9:00 am.

The Wine and Cheese/Spring General Meeting event is scheduled for 21 April, at 7:00 pm. All prospective new members are welcome to attend this event.

We have put together a good program for the year 2012 and we look forward to another enjoyable sailing season on the great waters of the Outer Harbour.  

Ralph Drake, Commodore

Albacore at Sunset Charles Wakefield, A.O.C.A.D.

Our 2012 sailing season begins on April 14 and will continue until October 13. This year we are trying to get our facilities in ship shape condition by having a Volunteer Fair after Docks-In. We will set up several volunteer staitions around the club house to answer questions and assign tasks to our members.

The weekend of May 12 and 13 has been scheduled for facility repair, improvements and to reconfigure the site for summer dry-sail lots. Many volunteers are needed to get the clubhouse, grounds and committee boats ready for the season. Work parties will form at 9 am and finish at 4 pm each day.

We are hoping that all work can be competed over the weekend so we can spend the rest of the season concentrating on sailing.

Our Wine and Cheese / Spring General Meeting is on April 21 at 7pm.

If it’s just occurred to you that those banana skins, orange peels and broccoli bits are a useful recyclable commodity, and you wonder how to go about it, pack the stuff in a plastic bag and shove it in the freezer. Keep it there, fruz solid, until it interferes with the preservation of less important items like ice cream and sides of beef, then hoist it down to the club where there are four (and a half) compost boxes all ready and waiting for your eco-contribution.

There’s one at the end of the double gate roadway, another at the angle of the lockers, and the others just to the east of the washroom trailer. You may have to throw out the garbage with which those precious boxes have been sullied during the previous days: paint cans, duct tape, bottles, coffee cups and so on. That’s par for the course; just press ahead and keep our old planet alive for a few more minutes.

The Ed.Gardner