Immediate Past Commodore Rick would like to thank all the members who joined the Club Night Zoom Meeting last night to assist with planning the Regatta and MacRendezvous. Thanks also to the many members who volunteered to help with the many duties at these events. The 2022-05-13 Minutes of the meeting are online. The cruise pages for Regatta and MacRendezvous have been updated as well.

Are you getting ready for sailing season? Are you forgetting one of the most important tasks to prepare for on-the-water events?

You do not know what that is? It is passage planning or sometimes called sail planning.This planning is a critical safety task that every boater should undertake. This applies to coastal cruisers, lake boaters, and river travellers and includes everybody from day sailors to the more adventurous that will take weeks for a long distance cruise.

Failure to plan is planning for failure.While one type of plan does not fit well for every boating scenario, each boater should develop a plan to suit their needs.The highly detailed planning required for a long distance coastal cruise on the ocean may be overkill and not apply to a quick day sail in the harbour, or day on the lake. Unfortunate circumstances can occur in the time it takes to blink your eyes. A proper plan could help you avoid those situations or mitigate the consequences that they create. Plan to be safe.

A few of the items that the plan should cover are expected water conditions, (tides, currents, water hazards), weather conditions, (wind speed, wind gusts, wind direction, rain, fog, temperature), special boat traffic requirements, safe harbours, how to access emergency medical aid, fuelling stations, resupply depots and anything else that may be needed in an instant. And the list goes on.

To encourage and support the use of proper passage planning, the Club awards $10.00 to the first ten members that post a proper passage plan in the comments section of the Club Cruise event pages.

For more on passage planning refer to our MacLearning tab for past presentations made by our members on this topic.

The April Club Night was well attended with 28 member boats represented.

Meeting minutes can be viewed by clicking on this link that will take you to the Club Night page in the MacEvents Calendar.

Attending members were treated to an informative presentation on Passage Planning. For those that could not make the meeting and would like to see the presentation, please click on the link, (the presentation title labelled Passage Planning), in the April Club Night Page.

:

While daydreaming and looking forward to our first on-the-water event an error was made in the Club Night Schedule.

The email sent to members and the notification posted on Facebook incorrectly indicated that our last Club Night before the start of our on-the-water was the April Club Night. The last Club Night before the on-the-water events is actually May 13, 2022 at 7:00 PM (PDT).

We are trying to keep the business side of the meeting very short to leave as much time as possible for our Club Night presentation. The Club Night presentation is Part One of a two part introduction to sailing with foresails, (jibs, genoas, and spinnakers). The second part will be an on-the-water demonstration that will be held during our Regatta (May 21^st to 23^rd).

We hope that you can join us!

Canadian Federal Government COVID-19 regulations are still  adding difficulty to cross the border. Being prepared and being fully vaccinated will make your crossing easier. (Note: The bolded red text below contains links that reference Government web pages on the subject).

Be sure to fill out the ArriveCan app BEFORE getting to the border. Failure to do so can significantly complicate your crossing.

Starting April 1, 2022, pre-entry tests are no longer required for fully vaccinated travellers entering Canada by land, air or water. To qualify as fully vaccinated the traveller must have had  Government accepted vaccines. Be sure you with all of the requirements in the pre-entry checklist.

Unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children 5 years of age or older must provide a valid pre-entry test result, even if they are accompanying a fully vaccinated adult. Children who are less than 5 years old are not required to test, regardless of their vaccination status.

Unvaccinated travellers must have an Canadian Government approved pre-entry test and may be subject to quarantine requirements. Foreign nationals may be denied entry without providing the results of an approved pre-entry test.

eVDSDs can now be used in lieu of approved rocket parachute flares, multi-star flares, hand flares or a watertight flashlight on pleasure boats >6M and <9M in length (MacGregors).

Transport Canada (TC) approved smoke signal still needs to be carried with the eVDSD for daytime alerting.

The eVDSD carried on board must:

• be labelled with the statement, “Complies with RTCM Standard 13200.0 for an eVDSD”.
• be an accredited product certification body, or the United States Coast Guard (USCG), stating that it has been tested to and meets the requirements of the RTCM standard 13200.0.
• all crew and passengers are trained in their operation.

The bad news; the cost for one device is around $400.00.