Saturday November 5, 2016

You are invited to take a pleasure sail south along the eastern edge of San Francisco to the Sequoia Yacht Club, located in the balmy locale of Redwood Shores. This is not a race.

A Cruise is your chance to show the people you love the kinder gentler sailor within. This is your chance to show friends and loved ones that sailing is about more than:

• expensive hardware and technology
• difficult race strategy and a deep understanding of wind, currents and their unique implications for winning races on the San Francisco Bay and the Gulf of the Farallones

Who do you invite? You invite people who:

• don’t like racing
• won’t sail with you during the summer when the wind is howling
• think your boat is a big fat waste of time and money
• think sailing is what someone else does while they lay around in the sun drinking wine and beer and fruity liquor drinks

SSS members, disprove the notion that singlehanders have no friends. Plan ahead and cultivate friendships wherever possible: at the grocery store, at traffic stops, with your car mechanic. Introduce yourself to waiters and waitresses in restaurants. Donut shops and pet stores are also excellent points of interaction.

What can you expect? Burgers and dogs, something for vegetarians, and much much more. The Sequoia Yacht Club has promised an open bar and open hearts.

The Friends and Family Award. Not just something to be proud of, but an Actual and Tangible Prize. You get to take it home forever. No more huge impressive trophies that you have to return the next year. How do you win this Award? By arriving at the dock with more friends and family members aboard than anyone else; Contestants must arrive with people aboard: Crew cannot drive down to the Yacht Club and jump on your boat just before people are counted (no no no).

The Oldest Tshirt Award. Borrowing someone else’s Tshirt is discouraged but not prohibited.

Disclaimer: the Singlehanded Sailing Society is Not a Yacht Club.

The book you always knew you needed, without somehow realizing it — Not A Yacht Club by our own Jackie Philpott, being the mostly oral history of the SSS from its very earliest days through the present.   Jackie was relentless in tracking down the founders and early members of the club and relating the history in a very humorous and warm style.  A lot has changed over the years, and a lot hasn’t.   To tell which is which, you must buy a copy for yourself on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Not-Yacht-Club-Singlehanded-Sailing/dp/1533175217/

Wow, summer’s here.