From the Commodore
By Dale Mack, C30, Celtic Myst
The first weekend in November, I and one of my Catalina 22 (Crocus) partners pulled our boat from the water so I could trailer it home to store under a tarp during the winter. I also pulled the sails and much of the canvas off my Catalina 30 last weekend with the help of my son Sean, so I guess I'm done sailing for the season. Aside from cleaning the sails and canvas and re-waterproofing the canvas, I don't have a long list of winter projects planned for Celtic Myst. Crocus, on the other hand, has a lengthy list of "opportunities" to help it race faster next year and to make it ready for some overnight cruising.
Racing, the other side of some CRACA members
While I might be among the minority in the club to be crazy enough to own two boats, I'm in good company when it comes to racing. While CRACA actively promotes cruising, we have a large number of members who race their boats or race on other boats like J/24's, Santana 20's, and Cal 20's just to name a few. Just this past year I raced my Catalina 30, raced as crew aboard my Catalina 22, and also raced as crew aboard Terry Annis' Catalina 25. While my racing was confined between the I-5 and I-205 bridges, we have other members in club like Gary Bruner, C25, Encore!, Gary Whitney, C28, Kasl, and Jim Himes, C28, R-Time, that also participated in downriver races to destinations like St. Helens, and Astoria.
Starting the Search for Officers in 2004
Come April 2004, we'll be voting for our new association officers. Although six months away, I'd like to form a nominating committee now to start considering candidates. Our current Secretary/Treasurer Kathleen Lewis, has expressed her desire that the club identifies someone new to assume the office at the end of her term. Kathleen will have graciously held the office for four years in April, so I'm looking for some assistance in finding candidates.
Another important office we need to fill is that of Vice Commodore. As stated in our bylaws, the Vice Commodore typically becomes the next Commodore. In CRACA's case, this normal order of succession got disrupted over the last two years, and I'd like to get it back on track. In fact, I might be talked into running again for Commodore if we can find someone to be Vice Commodore in 2004. Send me an email if you'd like to volunteer to be on the nominating committee, would like to volunteer yourself for an office, or would like to recommend someone for an office.
How about a party in February?
The boat shows will be a memory, but the weather will still be too nasty to going sailing, so how about a CRACA Boat Show Survivors Party in February in place of the general membership meeting?
I like to hear your thoughts on the idea. I'm hoping to kick off the discussion at this month's general membership meeting. You can email me to express your thoughts on the topic.
Portland Boat Show Booth
As you'll see later in the newsletter, one of the topics for this month's general membership meeting is planning the details for the booth. We'll also have at the meeting a sign-up sheet for staffing the booth.
Email me to volunteer to help with the booth
Boats For Sale
We have three boats listed in the For Sale section of the website just in case anyone is considering a move up or knows of someone looking for a Catalina.
- Catalina 36 mkII, 2000
- Catalina 30 mkII, 1988
- Catalina 27, 1977
CRACA Holiday Party
By Dale Mack, C30, Celtic Myst
As a part of our Holiday Party, we will be collecting non-perishable items for the Oregon Food Bank. Please consider bringing something to donate. We will also be collecting unwrapped toys for donation.
Potluck Dinner
We need you to check your last name and bring the following:
- A - G: Appetizer / salads
- H - M: Main course item
- N - Z: Dessert
- EVERYONE: Bring your our beverages
Please consider bringing a $10-$15 gift for the optional gift exchange. This is NOT a white elephant gift exchange, so please bring gifts others would value. Everyone brings a gift will go home with a gift. One gift per boat.
How to Dress for the Evening
Expect to see Northwest casual. For some gentlemen that will mean a sports coat, for others, it will mean a sweater and slacks, and some will show up in jeans. For the ladies, the spectrum will run from skirts, and slacks, to jeans.
What
Potluck Dinner and Gift ExchangeWhere
Rose City Yacht ClubWhen
www.RoseCityYachtClub.org
3737 NE Marine Drive
Portland, OR 97211
503-282-2049
- Saturday, December 13, 2003
- 4:00 - 7:00 pm
RSVP
- Please respond by December 12th
- Coming
- Not Coming
Secretary/Treasurer
By Kathleen Lewis, C42, Wind Raven
The Halloween cruise was great. I have no new member info. The November issue of the Mainsheet magazine will be coming soon to all CRACA members that have subscribed.
Past Commodore
On the Lighter Side
By Michael Lewis, C42, Wind RavenHere is a humorous email thread I recently had with Stu McNaughton, C36, Tranquility.
From: Stu McNaughton
To: Michael Lewis
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 10:25 AM
Subject: Re: Repowering for sailboats
Hi Mike,
The website [for repowering your boat] is at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/. It would be quite a change from the usual little Universal. The fuel tank would need to be enlarged also.
Stu
Historian
Looking for Photos
By Walt and Marilyn Wittke, C27, Senior MomentsWe need pictures of any CRACA events or even just you or other CRACA members sailing. We're looking for pictures as far back as 1-1-2002. To encourage you to look through your old show boxes of photos, or dig through your computer folders of digital images, we are going to offer three great prizes for the best three pictures submitted.
Send all digital pictures to Dale Mack since I only have dial-up. If you have printed photos and a scanner, then scan the images and send them to Dale, otherwise you can mail the prints to me (Walt) with a note if you want them returned. We need these ASAP so we can have the scrap book completed at the CRACA Holiday Party on Saturday December 13th.
FAQ's about emailing digital images
Q: If I'm scanning a 4x6 print, want resolution should I use?
A: A resolution of 200-300 dpi should capture enough detail to allow reprinting.Q: What is the preferred file format for digital photos?
A: JPEG (.jpg or .jpeg)Q: What quality level should I use when saving a digital photo as a jpeg?
A: High to Maximum or 6 to 10 depending on the program you are using. There is going to be a tradeoff between the image quality of the photo and its file size. More quality means larger files. You're going to have to decide how big a file you can afford to send. File sizes of 300 Kbytes to 500 Kbytes is not uncommon for higher quality images.
October's Presentation a Hit
By Walt and Marilyn Wittke, C27, Senior MomentsI want to take this opportunity to especially thank Dale Mack, our Commodore, for his excellent presentation on Digital Photography 101 at our last meeting. If you missed it, it was one of our best educational meetings we have had. I am sure many of you realized how much time Dale took to produce this first-rate PowerPoint presentation, complete with side-by-side pictures explaining pixels, optical and digital zoom, various camera batteries used, and many other high tech concepts. How can one compete with his wonderful mounted photo display of our club and the C22 club's activities? Dale, thanks so much. Maybe we can talk you into doing it again?
One of the benefits of belonging to a club such as ours is to exchange boating and other related knowledge. The October meeting alone provided knowledge that by it itself is worth far more than the $30/year we pay to keep the club active! In our club one of your fellow boaters probably has experienced the same repair or navigational experience, so we can all learn from each other. Plus you can not beat the camaraderie gained. If you are a Catalina owner and not a member yet, please join us soon. If you missed this excellent educational meeting, hopefully we will see you next time.
Plans for November's Meeting
What- CRACA General Membership Meeting & Dinner
- I hope you'll plan to attend and lend your ideas to what the Holiday Party should be and what our presence at the Portland Boat Show will look like.
Mar's Meadows Chinese Restaurant
9620 N Whitaker Rd
Portland, OR 97217
(503) 286-8888
We have reserved the room in the back NW corner of the restaurant from 6 pm - 8:30 pm. For those who have attended a SYSCO meeting, it is the same restaurant.When
- Wednesday, November 19
- 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm, have dinner and socialize
- 7:00 pm - 7:15 pm, a short business meeting
- 7:15 pm - 8:30 pm, CRACA Planning
- Holiday Party @ RCYC
- Portland Boat Show
- Nominating Committee for next year's officers
- Boat Show Survivors Party in February
Plans for January's Meeting
WhatCRACA General Membership MeetingWhere
TBDWhen
Wednesday, January 28Program
- Reflections on a Cruise North
- Bob Gales and Gail O'Neill, C30, Imagine, will present a 30 to 45 minute multimedia presentation of their cruise north in the summer of 2003.
Cruising
Some Good Fortune Experienced at Coon Island
By Jim Elieff, C30, FortuneWell the Halloween Cruise was a success, as far as Marilyn and I are concerned. The weather was perfect. Friday afternoon we cruised to McCuddy's Landing where we had dinner at Mark's on the Channel. We were also joined by the Simons and the Macks. Saturday started with breakfast at Mark's and then onto Coon Island. We arrived at Coon Island about noon to find Michael and Kathleen Lewis had arrived Friday night . The temperature was in mid 70's all three days. Shorts and t-shirt weather for sure.
 |
| Jim Elieff, Dave Thomas, Marilyn, Michael Lewis, and Dave Peoples |
Fall Colors on the Coon Island Cruise
By Walt and Marilyn Wittke, C27, Senior MomentsThe Wittkes had a wonderful trip on the club cruise this mouth down Multnomah Channel to Coon Island as well as I assume the other ten member boats. We loved looking at boat houses, the trees of various shade of yellow greens and the other fall foliage. Initially we were going to leave our home dock on Friday but we were delayed until Saturday morning because the bilge pump installation took longer than expected---still not done fully because float switch is not reliable. But worse was one of my stern scuppers is the real culprit. Someone replaced the hose with a thin walled hose which is hard to see and had collapsed so no water could go through. It has been this way ever since I owned the boat! When the other working scupper got plugged at Cascade Locks the bilge filled up. Fortunately we caught it before it overflowed into the cabin.
 |
| Walt and Marilyn in her Halloween mask enjoy the campfire. |
Monday morning we awoke to cold, and foggy weather where the warmth of the heater was greatly appreciated. We waited around until the flood tide and sunny weather before leaving. Our only problem on the trip was when we topped off the tank. After leaving the fuel dock Marilyn wondered why the cost of fuel was so high. We motored back and found the attendant had put gasoline instead of diesel in our tank. [To avoid further confusion of the correct hose & nozzle, wouldn't it be a great idea, if they spray painted the nozzle florescent red for diesel?] Fortunately we only took on two gallons or so. They claimed it will not hurt anything so we motored home and arrived at the RR bridge just before dark. I'm glad we didn't have any fog or arrive after dark because there was a lot of big ships that also came in on the flood.
Here is Jerry & Karen's story. Love the picture Jerry took of the Lewis' dog.
To: Walt and Marilyn Wittke
Subject: The Cruise
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003
Well, we finally made it home. The fog was kind of there, wasn't it?
 |
| Karen |
 |
| Jerry |
We got an e-mail from the Thomas' and they said they went down to their boat Monday afternoon and you were not back yet. It took us six hours getting back. We left Hadley's Landing on Monday at about 9:30 am after the fog started to lift. When we got to the Willamette River, we had zero visibility. We ran a compass course for a bit, but the river twists and turns so a compass is not much good. When a tug gave us the starboard to starboard signal and we could not see him we searched for the island side of the river and anchored for a hour. The fog lifted some but just as we were getting to Kelley Point it closed down again and we spent another hour on the anchor. Kind of an interesting trip but rather long. We got home about 3:30 pm.
Jerry
Here is a picture of an interesting dude that we ran into on the docks at Coon Island.
 |
| Michael and Kathleen Lewis' dog Bear |
Report from the Coon Island Cruise
By Dale Mack, C30, Celtic MystYou schedule a cruise in October knowing that you are taking your chances. This was Laura and my second year leading the Halloween Cruise to Coon Island, and the weather was absolutely outstanding.
Our tradition aboard Celtic Myst with this cruise is to leave Friday evening and spend the night at McCuddy's Landing, where we can enjoy dinner at Mark's on the Channel, and the warmth of our electric heater plugged into the marina's shore power.
 |
| Bob Gales and Gail O'Neill's C30 Imagine decked out for Halloween. |
We slept in on Saturday and woke to bright sunny skies. After showers ashore, we browsed the gift shop and marine exchange while others took advantage of brunch at Mark's.
The trip from McCuddy's to Coon Island took about thirty minutes. We arrived at noon and found a swift current running past the east docks. Normally we would approach a dock by heading into the current, but since there was lots of empty dock space, we decided to have Laura practice approaching the dock going with the current. The first thing you notice is that you are coming into the dock very fast. Slowing down helps but once your boat's speed matches the current's velocity you lose steerage. Once you lose steerage the current starts to pivot the boat if the rudder and keel aren't parallel to the current. Attempt after attempt, we slowly learned how the various elements of current, boat speed, prop walk, rudder, and the angle of attack affected the results. It was a great learning experience.
 |
| Coon Island, East Dock |
GPS Trek
While Laura hung out on the docks socializing, I picked up the instructions for the GPS course Michael Lewis had set up on the island. Armed with my handheld GPS I decoded the clues to find the checkpoints for each leg of the course. My first mistake on the course was not discovering sooner that my GPS was configured for hundredths of a minute instead of standard seconds. This mistake caused me to explore parts of the southern end of the island not even on the course;-)) My second mistake was thinking the Commodore's boat was 42 feet long (clues at the first checkpoint required that you add the length of the Commodore's boat to the given coordinated to find the next checkpoint). As a result of thinking Michael instead of me was the commodore, I got to explore the northern end of the island which just so happened didn't contain any of the checkpoints. Once Jim Elieff reminded me that the commodore's boat is 30 feet long, I was off to the next checkpoint. I want to thank Michael for suggesting the idea for the GPS course, and actually putting it together. It was a lot of fun, and I got to learn my GPS a little better.
Who Was There
Boats continued to arrive during the course of the afternoon. In addition to several SYSCO boats that joined us for the cruise, we had eleven CRACA boats participating:
- David Keller, C27, River Rose
- Jerry Sampson & Karen Clouse, C27, Sydera
- Walt & Marilyn Wittke, C27, Senior Moments
- Bill & Marla Simon, C270, Windswept
- Jim Elieff & Marilyn, C30, Fortune
- Bob Gales & Gail O'Neill, C30, Imagine
- Dale & Laura Mack, C30, Celtic Myst (cruise host)
- Dave & Julie Thomas, C30, SunChaser
- Don & Pamela Evens, C320, Dream Catcher
- Michael & Kathleen Lewis, C42, Wind Raven
- Dave & Helen Peoples, C42, Jammin
 |
| Gail O'Neill and Bob Gales |
With a drink in one hand and a plate of appetizers in the other, we wandered between the boats restocking our plates and enjoying the camaraderie of our fellow CRACA and SYSCO boating enthusiasts.
The Costumes
I always get a kick out of seeing who shows up to the potluck appetizers in costume. We have and imaginative group in CRACA, and they never fail to surprise.
The Boats
From the Bob and Gail's "Ahoy-lloween" banner to Jerry and Karen's fiber-optic pumpkin that changed colors, it was fun checking out the boat decorations. As dusk turned into evening, on came the strings of Halloween lights strung on several of the boats. Several of the boats also had lit pumpkins and various candle decorations.
 |
| Smores at the campfire. |
I want to thank everyone who attended the 2003 Halloween Cruise. Laura and I enjoyed meeting you and sharing an appetizer or two. My special thanks goes to Michael Lewis for setting up the GPS course.
While I can't guarantee the same weather next year, I can highly recommend this cruise. The fall colors along the Multnomah Channel are beautiful. See you next year.
Sunset
By Michael Lewis, C42, Wind RavenEditor's Note: Have you got a photo you'd like to share? If so, send it to me.Picture of Dave Peoples on his Catalina 42, Jammin at sunset off Cape Flattery this year returning to Portland.
 |
| Photo submitted by Michael Lewis. |
Cruising Schedule Submitted for 2004
By Dale Mack, C30, Celtic MystWe've submitted our proposed cruising schedule for the 2004 season to the Columbia River Yachting Association (CRYA). We should hear back in December or January if any adjustments are needed. I want to thank Jim Elieff for continuing to be our representative to the CRYA monthly meetings.
Assuming our schedule works out with CRYA, the 2004 Rendezvous will be at Coon Island. For those looking for a great sail to the rendezvous, consider sailing to St. Helens and then traveling up Multnomah Channel to Coon Island.
| January | 3 - 11 | Portland Boat Show |
| 16 - 25 | Seattle Boat Show & Lake Union Boats Afloat Show | |
| 28 (we) | Meeting | |
| February | 21 (sa) | Party: Boat Show Survivors |
| March | 24 (we) | Meeting |
| April | 17 (sa) | West Marine Swap Meet |
| 17 | Daysail: After swap meet | |
| 24 - 25 | Cruise: Gilbert River | |
| 24 - 25 | Race: SYSCO Spring Regatta | |
| 28 (we) | Meeting at West Marine (Election of new officers) | |
| May | 15 (sa) | Tomahawk Bay YC Swap Meet |
| 15 | Daysail: After swap meet | |
| 21 - 23 | Ladies Cruise: Coon Island - East Dock | |
| 26 (we) | Meeting | |
| 28 - 31 | Cruise: Martin Island | |
| June | 19 - 20 | Government Island - East Dock |
| 23 (we) | Meeting | |
| July | 17 - 18 | Cruise: Sand Island, St. Helens, Upper Dock |
| 31 - Aug 8 | Cruise: Cathlamet | |
| August | 14 - 15 | Race: SYSCO One-Design |
| 20 (fr) - 24 (we) | Cruise: Beacon Rock | |
| 25 | Meeting | |
| September | 11 - 12 | Race: SYSCO St. Helens |
| 17 (fr) - 19 (su) | Cruise: Catalina Rendezvous, Coon Island | |
| 25 | Daysail: Sail for the Cure | |
| October | 23 - 24 | Cruise: Coon Island - East Dock |
| 27 (we) | Meeting | |
| November | 17 (we) | Meeting |
| December | 11 | Party: Rose City Yacht Club |
*Note: We are still guessing on the dates for many of the area's events since they haven't been published yet.
Local Sailing Associations
- SailPDX (hosted by Oregon Corinthian Sailing Association, OCSA)
- Small Yacht Sailing Club of Oregon (SYSCO)
- Oregon Women’s Sailing Association (OWSA)
- Portland Yacht Club (PYC)
- Rose City Yacht Club (RCYC)
The Columbia River All Catalina Association newsletter is published online once a month. Articles are the opinions of the authors and don’t necessarily represent the consensus of the Association.
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