Yacht Clubs of Brooklyn: Sorta Edition, Sebago Canoe Club

It's finally Spring, which means that we'll be sailing soon. But what do others, who have a passion to breathe the salt-air and experience the aero- and hydro-dynamics of sailing, but have a very limited budget do to start making plans to get on the water?

The simplest thing would be to find a friend with a boat and mooch! (For those moochers out there, the appropriate etiquette is to offer to help the skipper perform pre-season work on their boat, such as sanding and painting. And when you're invited, bring something, whether beer, fruit, water or sandwiches. It will be appreciated.)

Let's say you don't know anyone with a boat, there are still some low-cost options out there for you. One is the Sebago Canoe Club located on the Paerdegat Basin in Canarsie, Brooklyn. SCC has been around for 75 years and is easily accessible to Jamaica Bay after a short sail/paddle under Belt Parkway. As we can personally attest, Jamaica Bay is a fantastic sailing area, but our friends at SCC tell us that Paerdegat Basin "can be a bit nasty at times - particularly when the sewage goes to the storm drains and empties into the Basin, but once out of the Basin and into the Jamaica Bay it is an amazing place to sail and perfect for small boats and truly beautiful."

Sebago Canoe Club's sailing program is very different from a traditional yacht club/sailing club. The club is all volunteer - no paid staff so everything is done by their members - and the sailing committee is quite small (15-20 members) by comparison to the club's kayaking group.
All of Sebago's boats are limited by what can be carried down the ramp that goes to their dock. In terms of sailing, they sail one-design dinghies including Lasers, Sunfish, and Force 5s. The club has several sailors who have larger skiff type boats and some members still have and use sailing canoes. The club's boats include two Lasers, three Sunfish, a Super Sunfish, a Force 5 and a Club 420.

SCC's club boats are available to members who have been "certified." (Information is on their website outlining the requirements.) Additionally the club requires yearly work by it's members as part of the membership requirement. Because SCC maintains all of its boats, their sailing members must be self-sufficient with getting their boats down to the water and launched. Unfortunately, SCC does not offer rentals and does not have a youth program.

SCC has an annual sailing class for members, that includes classroom, rigging instruction, some on-the-ground practice and then on-the-water practice both days - (second day usually includes an extensive cruise, followed by a beaching, setting up buoys and putting the students through the paces of boat handling and capsizing). This year it takes place on June 28th and 29th. Our friends at Sebago Canoe Club limit their classes to members because the class has a 1:1 ratio of students to instructors. In addition, SCC's sailors plan cruises once a month throughout the summer and have races every Friday evening (on the water by 5:30pm). If last year is any indication, SCC is serious about racing. They had more than 16 club races in 2007.

The only time SCC takes out non-members is at their open house, which is scheduled to take place on May 24th.

Considering that family memberships start at $250, individual memberships are $175, this may be one of the best summertime options for New Yorkers looking to get on the water. I'm sure that even Madame X would approve of this expense.

Winter Swans in Sheepshead Bay

A family, or a few families, of swans live in Sheeepshead Bay throughout the year, even in the Winter. (The picture above was taken on December 29.) The swans are deceptively large, maybe 25 or more pounds, and the whitest, white I've ever seen. They also make a mess, so people try to keep them off their land, docks and boats. The swans are generally passive and don't bother people, they are not afraid to protect or their turf. You don't want one of these things to charge at you. Trust me!

The October 24, 2004 issue of the New York Times writes about Sheepshead Bay's swans noting they are mostly feral mute swans native to Europe. And for many years wildlife workers have been controlling the Jamaica Bay swan population to keep the swans from proliferating, crowding out native wildlife and fouling freshwater ponds. The swans are good relocators and have made their way to Sheepshead Bay where they've most likely grown used to being fed.

Sail Brooklyn Celebrates its First Year Anniversary

On May 21, we celebrated our first year anniversary. Since our inception, we've had approximately 6,555 visitiors, viewing more than 12,400 pages on our blog. We crafted 80 posts over the past year.

We are thankful and grateful for the response and the positive feedback and hope to continue to keep our readers informed.

Mr. Launch Driver

Perhaps one of the best summer jobs out there is driving a launch (also known as a tender) for a private boat club. The launch driver's primary function is to take club members from their main dock to boats on moorings. Without the launch driver, boat owners would have to row a dinghy out to their boat (which could be an issue if you plan to bring six or seven guests).

In addition to driving people to their boats, the launch driver acts as the "knowledge command center" for a club: he (or she) will know weather conditions; facilitates visiting boats onto guest moorings; and most importantly keeps track of who's come and gone (this is important, if a boat has been gone for an unusually long time). The launch driver your editor is familiar with also can procure large bags of ice cheaply.

In Brooklyn, launch drivers must be licensed by the Coast Guard and pass a series of tests (the license is the same one needs to drive a NYC Water Taxi). The shot above shows Frank, who drives a launch for Sheepshead Bay YC and Miramar YC at work driving the SBYC tender. He's a college student and inherited this job from his brother, who drove a launch while he was in school.

We think the positives - working on the water, in the spring and summer, driving a boat, tips and regularly hourly pay - outweigh the negatives - outside, on the water, in the rain, sometimes dealing with difficult people.

Red Hook Community Sailing: Get Involved

In Red Hook, there is a good organization called PortSide New York that is dedicated to making connections between Red Hook's land lubbers and its storied waterfront. In addition to to saving and preserving the tanker Mary Whalen, which acts as their home base, the group has a job board and and plenty of maritime information relevant to Red Hook and the greater waterfront community.

We were particularly excited to hear that PortSide New York is working to start a community sailing program in Red Hook. We've been told they have a "classic plastic" Morgan 24 sailboat donated to this effort and will be holding a meeting on Wednesday, May 16 for anyone who is interested in helping. The meeting takes place at:

Community Board 6 Parks Committee
Red Hook Recreation Center
155 Bay Street (@ Henry Street)

We love the idea of community sailing and applaud PortSide New York for their efforts.

1000 Days at Sea: It took only 15 Days for a Major Disaster

On April 24, we wrote about Reid Stowe and Soanya Ahmad venturing off for their 1,000 days at sea venture. The Combination of Reid's gung-ho attitude and Soanya's complete lack of sailing experience, particularly any blue water experience, led us, and many others to believe that this is a disaster in the making. Unfortunately, for the crew of the schooner Anne, their dream voyage turned south two days ago, during their 15th day, the Morning of May 6, Anne had a collision with a freighter.

Stowe writes, " I was on watch in the pilothouse looking for lights of ships every 15 minutes to a half hour. I heard a loud bang and some scraping. When I opened the hatch, I saw the stern of a freighter passing by. We were not hit hard." They lost the bowsprit, the bow pulpit, and the headstay that keeps the foreword mast attached to the boat. Instead of calling it quits or getting rescued by the freighter that hit them, and perhaps returning after 15 days to make some needed repairs and re-start 1,000 days at sea, Stowe is pressing on. He adds, "its imperative that we get part of the job done before we hit any heavy weather." And Soanya adds, "...we could make it work. The 1000 days voyage is still in full swing."

Huh?

What we can't figure out is who's crazier, Reid or Soanya? Reid is 55, was married and is, according to what we can gather, a very experienced sailor. Soanya is 23 and has no experience at all. Why would he take someone so inexperienced with him? And is he some sort of Svengali who convinced Soanya, against general common sense, to take a chance and head off to sea for three years? And why would Soanya agree to go on a voyage like this? Hadn't she ever seen Gilligan's Island? (and that tour was only three hours). We can assume that she really didn't know what she was getting into, but didn't she know how badly this can become.

As one blogger put it as they departed, "this could go very badly" and we also wrote "there are often closes that foreshadow the story." We'll continue to follow this tragic love story.

We wish them well and hope they come to their senses.

From the Bahamas to Brooklyn in Search of a Laundromat

A large, blue visitor came stopped by over the weekend, her name is Pasha.

Pasha, we discovered, is a custom, 55.2-foot aluminum cutter-rigged boat. She was built in 1998 and was designed by Mr. William C. Frank. We went out to the boat to pick up the owner and also saw it had beautiful beautiful teak decks and a teak cabin house. In plain English, Pasha is a very large, expensive boat.

Typically, boats of her caliber would moor in the Upper New York Harbor, most likely in the North Cove Marina, by the World Trade Center. Thankfully, these smart sailors decided to spend some time in Brooklyn.

While the boat is registered in Nova Scotia, Canada (that's why the large Canadian Flag is flying off the stern), the owner is British and lives in the Bahamas. He, along with two crew members, is delivering Pasha to her summer home in Nova Scotia. When we went to meet him, he was heading onshore to find a local laundromat. Unfortunately we couldn't help him.

Photo of the Day: Sheepshead Bay in April

Here's a shot of Sheepshead Bay in late April. From here, you can notice one of the new condo developments along Emmons Avenue. The building in the left of the picture, called La Mer Villas (very classy), is an example of what is now springing up along Emmons Ave replacing some old clubs, bungalows, and marinas.

La Mer Villas, consists of 15 townhouses and "four classic style apartments." Indoor parking and some boat slips are available. We've noticed that they are selling them in not only in US dollars but Russian Rubels as well.

Spring Cleaning

The departure of winter means that spring rituals are about to commence: for some, it indicates that it's time to plant bulbs and tend to the garden; in parts of Ohio, it signifies time to hunt wild turkeys (not the liquid type) or scour the ground for edible wild mushrooms; for boaters, springtime means that boating season is upon us and lots of work needs to be completed (subsequently lots of money is spent) before a boat is launched into the water.

In Brooklyn, the strange weather and the cold early spring delayed many of Kings County's swabbies, including your editor, in the annual maritime ritual of sanding, scraping, cleaning, masking, buffing, and painting. However, this weekend, we did get to the coast and discovered that Barnacle Bill of Brooklyn had taken advantage of the nice weather to get some work done.

For those of you readers who are landlubbers, the job of prepping a boat is very, very dirty and potentially toxic. For the sake of brevity, we are assuming that the boat doesn't need any engine work, work on any internal systems (heads, pump-outs, water systems, etc), nor does the boat need any structural repairs to fix any leaks. We're just giving you the basics here. This typically includes: sanding and scraping any loose paint off of the bottom of the boat in order to prep the boat for a new coat of bottom paint, which protects the hull from becoming a nest of barnacles and other sea organisms. What makes the paint work, is also what makes it expensive and toxic: copper and copper copolymer, which provides a controlled releases of biocide to kill off any sea creatures. The paint is also, very expensive: for example a gallon of Micron CSC costs around $150. That will, if you are lucky, be enough to cover the bottom of a 30-foot sailboat. Because a boat is awkwardly shaped, its not that easy to paint the bottom. A lot of bending and stretching is involved and most sailors will tell you, they'd rather paint a flat wall, than a boat's bottom. Additionally, if the boat has wood above the water line, that will typically need to be sanded, cleaned and oiled (for teak) or varnished to protect it from the sun and salt.

When the bottom paint is finished, granted there are no hiccups in the plan, the boat needs to be washed and dried and then waxed. Like a car, the wax protects the boat's hull from dirt and pollutants For your editor, the washing ritual wasn't so much fun this year. The bay was particularly dirty last year, and we had some oil stains and funky green stains just above the waterline that didn't come out using the powerwash. We needed a magic elixer to remove the stain. Using a brush, we applied Y-10 fiberglass stain remover , let it set for about 10 minutes, but didn't let it dry) and then scrubbed the heck out of it with a Scotchbrite pad. That did the trick for us.

Once all of this is done, your local yard can help you put your boat in the water and step the mast.

Crazy Eddie Ain't the Only One Who's Insane: 1,000 Days at Sea

This weekend, 55 year-old Reid Stowe and Soanya Ahmad, Reid's 23-year old girlfriend departed from Manhattan on a voyage to sail continuously for 1,000 days at sea: by sailing continuously, they mean no stops for provisions, repairs or food. Nothing.

Reid Stowe has been planning this trip for some time now and had a 70-foot schooner - which he christened Anne, after his mother - crafted specifically for this challenge. Stowe and Ahmad plan to sail around the world three times without stopping. We're not holding our breath, because, like a good thriller, there are often clues that foreshadow the story. The Associated Press reports Ahmad saying, "this will be my first time sailing ever — except for up and down the Hudson River." She also writes on the 1,000 days at sea blog, "The boat is moving at 7 knots and it feels really fast compared to the 3 knots it was doing yesterday. Now that we’re going faster and the boat is leaning, it’s harder to move around, with one leg feeling shorter than the other and the longer one doing a lot of work. When I walk from one place to another, it’s more like I’m tumbling from one place to another. I guess I haven’t gotten my sea legs yet. So I decided that I would try to move as sparingly as possible."

Oh brother!

According to their press release and reports, the couple has a three year supply of food, which will be augmented by rainwater and by the fish they catch at sea. They also have a reverse osmosis water maker -- thank goodness. In addition, the lovebirds plan to grow spouts and have a small garden on deck, which is "mainly for greenery," according to Ahmad. We're curious what type of greenery grows in seawater and about their plans for 1,000 days of garbage.

While Reid Stowe seems to have extensive blue water experience, we are curious why he chose someone so inexperienced to join him on such a voyage. We wish them luck and can't wait to see Soanya's posts when she hits the Southern Ocean.

The cognescetti on Sailing Anarchy's message boards don't give these folks much of a chance and are polling members to guess how long before they throw in the towel.

In any case, we are entertained and will follow their progress.

Godspeed to the crew of Anne. We think you'll need it

Sail Makers Makin' Sails

In the mid-to-late 1800s, when New York's ports were the world's busiest, a number shipbuilders, sail makers and other nautical tradesman in Manhattan and Brooklyn thrived. There is physical evidence of the nautical trade at 164-168 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, where Two Trees Realty restored the facade of an old sail loft, while converting it to luxury apartments. While those days are long gone, it doesn't mean that you still can't find a skilled pro who knows how to craft a sail in New York City.

In City Island, the sail making tradition is alive and kicking at Doyle Ploch Sails. In fact they make some of the "fastest" and most advanced sails around. And the lofts Owner, Mark Ploch, is not only known for his ability to craft a fine piece of canvas (or Kevlar or cuben fiber), but he's also one of the country's best sailors, and one who recently dominated the Beneteau 36.7 class. We recently took a trip out to Doyle Ploch City Island to see that the old business of sail making is still alive and well. From the look of all of the bags of sails around the loft, it looked as Mr. Ploch's business is thriving.

For those of you who've never been in a sail loft, its very similar to any factory where sewn goods are made, with one major difference: the finished goods are huge and must be sewn differently in order to accommodate for the size. How Doyle Ploch does this is they have a hole, or a pit, cut into the floor of the loft that accommodates one industrial sewing machine and its operator. This is done to keep the sail cloth flat and make it easier to sew (you can see the sewing pit in the photo below).
Not only do sail makers craft sails, sail covers an other canvas goods, a good sail maker will also go out with a boat owner to help tune his rig and establish sail trim guidelines, which allows a racing crew to concentrate on tactics and speed. Some, like Doyle Ploch also sell accessories, such as attire, gloves and shoes.

We've put some photos of the loft below. More shots can be seen at Sail Brooklyn's Flickr Page

Gung Hay Fat Choy: Year of the Golden Pig

Yesterday marked the start of the new year according to the Chinese zodiac calendar. The Year of the Dog concluded and and yesterday we celebrated the Year of the Golden Pig, which occurs every 60 or 600 years (depending on who you ask). Apparently, the pig is celebrated in China and some people believe that children born this year will be blessed with good luck and wealth. This fact, hasn't gone unnoticed in China, where they expect a 10 percent boom in births during the Year of the Golden Pig.

From a sailor's perspective, perhaps the Year of the Golden Pig will bring good fortune to the Chinese America's Cup Syndicate, who's CHN 95 has the coolest paint scheme of all the syndicates, but face a tough battle in the Louis Vuitton Cup to challenge the right to challenge the America's Cup winner to battle.

Yesterday, we decided to get in the spirit of Gung Hay Fat Choy and headed to New York City's Chinatown to join in the festivities. We loved the bands, the lucky red lanterns and, of course, the many dragons.

More photos are available at Sail Brooklyn's Flickr Page.