To past-season SSS members and participants:
First – I very much appreciate your participation in SSS races during the last year.
Whether single or doublehanded, it’s just plain a lot of fun being out on the water with other shorthanded sailors.
I hope you can join us again by racing in the upcoming 2014 season – which is coming fast with the Three Bridge Fiasco just one month away on January 25th. If you were not an SSS member last year, I encourage you to both sign up for races and SSS membership. If you do just two SSS races in the coming year, its cost effective to just join SSS which includes entry to all SSS races.
You can register to be a member of SSS as part of the registration process for any SSS race – for just $135 that gets you entry in any and all of the 10 SSS races being held in 2014. For example, when you register for the largest sailboat race in the United States – the Three Bridge Fiasco (here), you can at the same time register as an SSS member getting you the whole SSS race season. Of course if you’ll not be racing this coming season, and just want to maintain your SSS membership to show your support for shorthanded sailing, you can do that too (here)!
So what’s new this year?
We have added Drakes Bay to the SSS race season – increasing the number of ocean races from 3 to 5 (Drakes Bay is two races – Saturday race to Drakes Bay and Sunday Race home). The Drakes Bay race is being run in conjunction and in partnership with the OYRA crewed ocean race to Drakes Bay. I suspect this will result in the largest number of masts in Drakes Bay since the beginning of time – along with great fun as many of us get valuable safety practice launching expired pyrotechnics (assuming we once again get permission from the Coast Guard to do this). If you have never raced to Drakes Bay, be sure to bring hors d’oeuvres as there are usually several raft-ups.
For those of you chasing the season championship, we have increased the number of throw out races to two.
Participation in SSS Ocean races now require the skipper have attended a Safety At Sea (SAS) class within the last 5 years. There is a 4 hour SAS class taking place on Sunday afternoon January 12th at Berkeley YC – so I encourage you to get this SAS class requirement out of the way early by attending (plus I am instructing a few topics during this class and I’ll be sure to deliver a shorthanded perspective J). There will be additional SAS classes offered later in the year – but why wait? Register to attend the January 12th SAS class here.
Of course this is a Singlehanded Transpac year. Is this your year to “meet the challenge” or return to Hanalei?
We Need Your Help (Again)
We are always on the lookout for help with Race Committees. SSS runs some of the largest races on the bay – which means we need lots of Race Committee volunteers. Are you a PRO who can lead one of our races? Do you know a PRO you can ask to lead an SSS race? No experience with Race Committee but have the time to help? Some Race Committee experience? I would love to hear from you (just REPLY to this email). Whether you can help us run just one or several races, we need your help. For reference, below are the SSS races and dates for 2014. I encourage (plead!) for you to reach out to me if you can help us by participating in the Race Committee for an SSS race this year. Oh, and by the way, working on the Race Committee is great fun too! On a side note, want to see what it takes to become a “professional” Race Committee member – or just learn more about what being on a Race Committee entails? There will be a Race Committee training class held in February. I attended last year – and found it just as valuable helping my racing as it did make me a better Race Committee volunteer (drop me an email and I’ll let you know when the date for this RC training firms up).
January 25 Three Bridge Fiasco
March 29 Corinthian
April 26 Round the Rocks
May 17 SH Farallones
June 28 Singlehanded Transpac
August 16-17 Drakes Bay
September 13 Half Moon Bay
October 11-12 Vallejo 1-2
Last
Best wishes in this holiday season and hope you have a great new year (on the water of course)!
And don’t be bashful if you have any questions on any of the above (or anything else about shorthanded sailing). Reach out to me. I love talking to fellow shorthanded sailors!
Cheers,
Jim Quanci
Commodore
Singlehanded Sailing Society