SPSA News – this is a long one

Hey Sailors,


If, at the current moment, you are already heading out to sail, leave reading this email to a later time – there’s nothing here important enough to delay a day on the bay.  Otherwise find a good chair and switch over to your tablet.  Even though the Grand Prix squished our February 26th race day, there are still many ways to get out on the bay.  
  • The NOODS, hosted by  the St Petersburg Yacht Club, are this weekend.  Sailing World is reporting this is the largest NOODs ever with 275 entries!  The SPSA will be well represented.  You can follow the event on this link.  https://www.sailingworld.com/regatta-series-st-petersburg/
  • SPSA Sailors was well represented and cleaned up at the 56th Gaspirilla Regatta hosted by the Tampa Sailing Squadron on February 5th.  
  • Cruising B 8 boats: 1st Cayennita III Tony Sanpere, 3rd Legacy Dave Roberts
  • Cruising A 8 boats: 1st Surge Charles Archer, 2nd Moonshine Sharon Grasmehr, 3rd Galene Gerard Gaudry, 7th Koinonia II Garth Reynolds
  • Here’s your link to the whole story  https://yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm 
  • Our January King of the Bay champion is Bumbugo.  Her corrected time of 44:24 ranked pretty high in top ten of all time, displacing Surge out of 5th best.  Don’t for a moment feel sorry for Surge, she still has 6 top ten times.  Get out of your slip and run the King of the Bay.  It’s a great way to tune up your sailing skills.
  • The SPYC Twilight Series begins on March 18th.  Every Friday night at 6:30 until the end of August.  What a great way to end your work week.  This is free, no need to join the yacht club.  Just show up.  However if you want to earn one of those beautiful trophy flags you need to register.  The registration cost is next to nothing – it works out to be close to 50 cents a race.  https://yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=14941 
  • Back on January 29th we held the Spring Season Races 3 and 4 originally scheduled for Feb 26th.  That was the Grand Prix Race conflict thing.  It was blowing and the seas were rough.  Thanks to Gimmi Shelter for going out in difficult conditions.  There were reports from the brave sailors that one gust was near 40!  Four boats from the cruising class ventured out on the bay that day.  These are the conditions when you really need to know your boat, your crew and your skills as a sailor and make the right call.  Do not expect somebody else to make that decision for you.  That said, we all need to admire the skills of the 4 boats that managed the conditions that day.
  • On February 6th we set up a pursuit race to introduce potential new members to the excitement of sailboat racing.  It was anointed the Off the Quay Wall Regatta as most of the interest in joining our racing was from boats slipped up against the wall on the north side of the pier approach.  We hosted 9 boats new to racing and 7 who entered as experienced sailors.  We all gathered at Courigans for post race camaraderie and awards for best of the day.  Thanks to Mike Reed, Penny Simone, Brian Conlin, Raul Calzada and Dan Dawson for the conception and execution of this outreach to our local sailors.
  • Our Race Committee on March 19th will be Hula Girl II, Steve Shortt’s Catalina 36.  Post race we will host a St Patrick Day part.  Watch for details.
  • Our Race Committee on April 2nd will be Amber Looe, Mike Reed’s Beneteau 23.5.  Post race will be a BYOE no frills event somewhere.  Watch for details.
  • On April 16th we are running our Full Moon Pursuit Race.  This is a great sail timed so we are out on the bay for both the sunset and the full moon rising through the water of the bay.  Bring your camera.
  • Where to expand your SPSA experience:
    • On our web site  www.spsa.us   We have both public pages and member only pages.  You need your email or member number plus your password to see the members stuff.
    • We have our public Face Book page.  Search for St Petersburg Sailing Association.  There are all kinds of SPSA acronyms dead ends on the world wide web.  Here’s a link web link to get you straight there https://www.facebook.com/StPetersburgSailingAssociation/  Better yet, use the Facebook app if you have one.  Bookmark us or click the Follow button.
    • We also have our SPSA Members Group on Facebook.  This is open only to SPSA Members and you must click request to join.  On the facebook app search for SPSA Members Group.  Raul is guarding this one from the Facebook trolls.  This is another good way to sell your skills in exchange for a deck under your feet or find some feet for your deck.  It’s easy to join, find the SPSA Members Group page, click the button to request admission to the group.
    • Instagram.  I’m out on a limb on this one.  https://www.instagram.com/spsasailing/   I’m 67, somebody needs to clue me in.
    • Share your pictures through spsapictures@gmail.com  Not all your pictures obviously.  Just good sailing pictures of your boat, from your boat of another SPSA boat or a shot nautical in nature or at one of our events.  The best of these pictures end up featured on SPSA sites.  Smile!
  • All of this media exposure has been a good thing.  It’s one thing to be a sailing organization on paper and in the digital world.  It is so much better to be a sailing organization seen out on the water.  This is giving us the best of all pains, growing pains.   That’s a good thing.  Believe it or not this creates opportunities for our membership to get more involved.  The up side, we now have enough boats racing that race committee duty need only be experienced once every two years.
  • One more thing.  Get your boat out on the water.  Those are magic hours.  Your troubles disappear out on the bay.  Your friends in the SPSA can make it happen.

  • Let’s Go Sailing!