Recent News: Eblade December 2018

Commodore’s Report

Things remain busy in the off-season, planning for the next season! As of this writing, our 2019 billing cycle is almost closed out and our renewals are up by more than $7,000. That’s a testament to the membership and orientation volunteers and Quick Start instructors who welcome our new members so graciously (approximately thirty new members this year). It’s also a tribute to all the committee chairs, trip leaders and planners and instructors who have kept our calendar full of activities and gotten people out on the water in kayaks, canoes, sailboats and sculls, both at Jamaica Bay and at the lake. And we wouldn’t have collected any money without the efforts of those who generated and tracked invoices, reviewed work hours and helped to resolve any open invoices. So, thank you all – I am looking forward to finalizing budgets and planning our next on-water season over the next few months.

Vice Commodore’s Report December 2018

2018 has largely been a year of maintenance, which seems sometimes to be never ending. We made substantial progress on the painting of our storage sheds, finishing all but one on the path side, and many on the driveway side. We had good, dedicated crews on the prep and paint detail, spread over the year’s warm months. Both the CCNY and NYU concrete canoe teams came out on separate weekends to prep and paint containers in canoe alley, and to help out with other tasks as well. Thanks everyone! We’ll do our best to finish up the painting next spring.

Sea Kayak Committee Report – Fall, 2018

A Short Story in Pictures:
Believe it or not, the pictures here were taken by James Chang on his iPhone 10 during our, Autumn Leaves Paddle to Four Sparrows Marsh. (Apparently salt water actually improves picture quality on an iPhone 🙂 It was a gray, rainy, 54˚ morning when we launched at 10 am, and at least one of the Co-Kayak Chairs would have preferred to have rolled over for another ten winks. But the water was warm, the tide was high at the marsh, and the lighting was obviously perfect for picture taking.

Annual Sail Report 2018

Another fabulous sailing season at Sebago has passed. We finished the year with close racing in our annual Fall Series, the Eoin Delap Cup, with multiple ties and places often separated by less than one tenth of a point! Here is the final tally for the series (link – https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N128mXxL9Cbbk9AKP7yaceIqCtOJjN9q2qvTM8Mn4Bo/edit#gid=0). We had over twenty participants throughout the series with twelve qualifiers (those participating in at least three races, and helping with RC for one of those) spanning six race days and 38 races. Congratulations to the top placers. In the Laser class Tracy Kornrich won 1st, Holly Sears 2nd, and David Cripton 3rd. In the Sunfish class, Patrick Daniels won 1st, Dino Ness 2nd, and Boris Mezhibovskiy 3rd. Winners Tracy and Patrick share the Eoin Delap Cup!

Kids and Kayaks

You know you’ve done something right when your seven-year-old granddaughter comes home from school and, mystified, says to her mother, “None of my friends have a kayak”.

Bending the Bow: Meditations on Craft Journeys with Sticks and Skin

As I was preparing these materials, Steve Heinzerling wrote that the December SCC movie night feature would be Keepers of the Game, a documentary by Judd Ehrlich about the efforts of a Native American Mohawk group of high school girls to form a lacrosse team, a game traditionally played only by men. As of now, I have seen only the trailer, but I believe you will find correspondences between the film and this article.

Sebago: The Musical

We are not quite Rollin’ on the River just yet. But we are Rockin’ near the Basin. Sebago has a rock/folk/new age (old age) group of the musically inclined. We get together to play, mostly various guitar types, but random drum, tambourine, cymbal, or whatever. Thanks to Howie Alfred for initiating this fun gathering…