As the Nation deals with COVID-19, the post is thankful for the great events held during the off season and to those that contributed to their success. The following are some highlights.
The BBP in coordination with the Boston Station hosted the Spring Gam in Vineyard Haven at Gannon and Benjamin. Larry Hall, assisted by Dan Crete, handled keg duties and served up a “Gunsmoke clam rolls.”
Dan Crete With Post Captain , Larry Hall
In June the rum keg was relocated to The Spirit of Bermuda in New Bedford Harbor. The Crew provided tours of the ship amd Contributions to the rum keg were donated to the Bermuda Sloop Foundation. Thank you Wendy Cullum for coordinating this event.
RC Cunningham With Post Captain , Larry Hall
Wendy Cullum with Post Secretary, Paul Bushueff
We convened our first fall luncheon on Friday, November 1, at the Beverly Yacht and enjoyed our usual fair of excellent clam chowder and chicken Caesar salad followed by a great presentation of personal safety devices and their use given by Mark Lenci.
This was followed by an animated and informative discussion on provisioning for long voyages delivered by Skip Garfield. Thank you, Mark and Skip, for two excellent presentations! The discussion on provisioning spawned the idea of a post cook and provisioning guide. Please send in a couple of your most imaginative offshore recipes and let’s see what we get. Rusty Kellogg showed up with a Tupperware container full of samples!
On Dec 6, CCA member and Blue Water Medal Award winner, Rich Wilson. Rich was introduced by Past Boston Station Rear Commodore and CCA National Awards Chair, Bill Cook. Bill explained that since the Club awarded Rich the Blue Water Medal in 2004 for a series of passages in his 53’ trimaran, Great American II, to equal or beat the record passages of famous 19th century clipper ships, including San Francisco to Boston (1993), New York to Melbourne (2001) and Hong Kong to New York (2003) and since you can only be “Knighted” once, the Club had to create a special award for Rich when he went on to complete two Around the World Nonstop Singled-Handed Vendee Globe Races, the second at the age of 66!
Rich talked about his most recent project which is the creation of the Collegiate Offshore Sailing Circuit (COSC) that features the deployment of 10 Beneteau 33’s, the Figaro 2’s, to 10 US universities that have offshore sailing programs. These capable boats will allow collegiate sailors to train and compete on the same sailing circuit in level platforms. The presentation included some exciting video of the Figaro 2’s sailing in heavy air in the Bay of Biscay. Eventually Rich hopes to grow the fleet to 20 boats. More information can be found at https://www.cosc-usa.org/
In February we met in Hyannis, starting at the Cape Cod Maritime Museum with lunch and a tour of the Museum. Then we went on to the Boatbuilders Show at the Convention Center. Thank you, Bill Cook, Liz Rabideau , Director, Don Stucke, Curator, and the great staff at CCMM. for arranging this event. The day was enjoyed by all.
Our March event was held at the New Bedford Yacht Club. Our Guest speaker was Dan Crete, Saltworks Marine, talking about the care and maintenance of small diesel engines. Dan hilited things to watch on popular Yanmar diesels and best maintenance practices. Judging by the questions and interest, this session could have lasted all afternoon. Dan, thank you for a great job.
April, will take us back to the Beverly Yacht club, on Thurday the 23d. This will be a safety meeting with Brian Flowers from Life Raft and Survival Equipment talking and demonstrating the latest offshore safety gear. While the event is currently on the schedule, there is a high likelihood it will need to be cancelled.
Due the potential for cancelling the last post lunch of the season. Tim O'keefe, chairman of the Post nominating Committee, announced the changes to the Post organization. Paul Bushueff will assume Post Captain duties and Jeff Gonsalves will become Post Secretary.
Larry, I thank you for your excellent stewardship over the last two years. It was a pleasure to work with you, Paul.
Paul Bushueff Jeff Gonsalves
Post Captain Post Secretary/Treasurer
