1997 Activities
21 November: Our last event of the year was The Installation and Awards Banquet which was held at the Viking Hotel. Around 120 people attended. This was also a celebration of twenty years for the JYC.
We first enjoyed dinner served by the Viking Hotel. Commodore Will Graham recognized all the past Commodores. The 1998 JYC Board was sworn in. New to the Board this year is Melanie Doherty who replaces Cheryl Rienzo as Secretary. The following Yacht Club awards were announced and handed out:
Our Cruise Chairman, Steve Brin, gave out cruising awards as well as entertain us. Of course, I, the Fleet Chairman, and Cheryl Rienzo, gave out all the Racing Awards for the Spring, Summer and Fall Series as well as for the Night Race and the Crew Rotation. Also I handed out the Sidney L. Wright Award and the Wooden Boat Award. The Sidney L. Wright Award is awarded to the JYC boat that did the best over all three series (spring, summer and fall). Since one boat won all three series in its class, it was easy to determine that Jazz, Dennis Nixon had won this award. The Wooden Boat Award was resurrected this year since we had a beautiful wooden boat race with us; new JYC member Karl Sorenson's Caya. After all this, those that stayed enjoyed dancing to the music played by the DJ. I also showed off the JYC/CYC Challenge Cup which we won this year from the CYC.
Lois Cone surprised us again with the table center pieces. The whole Cone family created helium filled balloon bouquets for all the tables. Will Graham brought his computer to the banquet to show off this home page to members who do not have access to a computer and the internet. Also, a slide show was continuously being shown of pictures from the JYC past 20 years. People were actually frostbitting in JYC boats! Many enjoyed watching the years past pictures.
17 October: The annual meeting was held at the Fire House with a recent record number or members attending. There were about 40 members attending. Ann Lane provided the pizza and beverages and Jill Anderson provided a cake which we worked on before the actual meeting. I can't believe all the anchovy pizza was eaten. The following reports were given: Treasurers, Race, Membership, Social and Cruise. The newly nominated Board was introduced. All except Secretary are repeaters. The new Secretary is new member Melanie Doherty. Our Secretary for the past five years, Cheryl Rienzo, is moving on to Board member of NBYA.
5 October: Today was the last Fall Series Race and it was a beautiful day for a race, low 70's, sunshine and 12 knots at the start and a little less later. Congratulations to the first three places of each class of each series. I hope all enjoyed themselves this year and I hope to see you all next year. The Awards Banquet is on 21 November at the Viking Hotel.
4 October: The 2nd Annual JYC Raft-Up was held on the docks of Conanicut Marina in much warmer weather than last year. Thanks to all who came out. It was a wonderful dockside event! Steve & Michaela's boat full of kids; Paul & Gloria's tales of a month abroad; May's Good Advice center, located right near the buffet table; Sheila Nixon always offering to carry something when your hands are full; our very own harbormaster, Sam, stopping by; the Cone Clan always there to help; and new members, it was great seeing all the new faces!
26 August: This was the last Summer Series Race and we had a Block Party afterwards at the Jamestown Golf Club. We had a great turnout (that's what they tell me anyway, I was on travel due to work). The results are finally posted on the race page. Hope to see a lot of you for the Fall Series starting Sunday 7 September.
23 August: The 20th Fools Rules Regatta sponsored by the JYC was held with a record number of participants and non-participants. It was great to watch people of all ages building their boats (?) and try to sail them. The Southwesterly came in strong and several designs could not handle the down wind race. Highly recommended for anyone to watch and even participate. Chris Powell as the "Chief Fool" and all the supporting "Fools" did an excellent job.
16 August: The Twelfth Annual JYC/CYC Challenge was held today. We had the best turn out in recent memory and each club was fairly evenly represented in numbers of boats (there were 23 boats on the line) but boy were those CYC boats big. It was a wonderful day to be on the water (much better than being inland anyway). The wind was fairly strong so we set a 7 mile course to keep some of the boats busy for close to two hours. There was a general consensus that it was a very nice race. Check the results on the Racing Page. Oh, by the way, JYC won.
29 July: The Crew Rotation race was held with good attendance. The results were not posted until the following Sunday since I was not in attendance either (work does get in the way some times, however I was in San Diego for the week!). I understand that the weather was nice and all enjoyed the evening.
27 June: It was a beautiful night for a race; comfortable, dry, not a cloud in the sky and thirty boats showed up for the Night Race. Well, almost all of that is true; only five boats showed up, three in Spinnaker and two in Cruising. The Race Committee (Rick, Nancy, Cheryl, Judy and Chris), thankfully, gave us (yes, I was on one of the boats racing, not on the Race Committee) a down wind start that sent us with the strong current instead of up wind against the strong current, otherwise the race would have been a lot longer. As it was it took the boats over 9 hours to go around Jamestown. I found out what light and variable means; on and off wind from every conceivable direction. It really was a nice night out and all the boats spent a lot of time around each other which made for a great race. It is too bad that more people do not want to participate in this race.
10 June: We had a great turn out after the last race at the Jamestown Golf Course for an all you can eat cookout. It was nice to see so many people there that we see out on the water. Many people were meeting fellow racers for the first time. I hope all enjoyed it. We expect to do the same thing for the last Summer race at the end of August.
13 May: The first Spring race was held in light winds (middle route to Z was a mistake for some) and rain the whole night (racers and race committee were drowned rats; as well as the paper we were writing on). A hardy 14 boats showed up for the first race of 1997. The Race Committee had a minor problem, we forgot to bring the flags, but we had the new shapes which should be showing up much better than the flags we used last year (do they?). The Race Committee was also well attended which I am very happy to see (boy were we chummy in order to keep out of the rain).
29 Apr: The Skippers Meeting was held at the Fire House. The new 1997 Race Circular was reviewed. Differences between last year's and this year's were highlighted. While reviewing the booklet, problems (typos, etc.) were found which have since then resulted in two change notices. Newport Yacht Club racing applications and information was handed out. Should anyone need this I have more. A paper by Dave Perry was handed out (I have more should any racers desire to have one) which covers the 1997-2000 rules as well as highlighting the differences between the 1993-1996 rules and the new ones. We had a short discussion about some of the differences between the old and new rules.
27 Apr: We had the Commissioning Brunch at the Chopmist Charlie's Restaurant. We were entertained by Blake Dickinson and his guitar and Roger Marshall gave a talk on preparing for a storm as well as sailing through a storm with some experiences thrown in, all while we were eating a fine lunch.
28 Feb: At the Winter Dinner, George Day gave a wonderful slide show of the family doing a four and one half year cruise around the world. All enjoyed the sights and his stories. It was a wonderful meal and evening at the Jamestown Country Club and it turns out that it was the last event to be held at the Club; it is destined to other duties for the town of Jamestown.
Created by Roy H. Guay - 30 April, 2000