Jan, 2018 The Favored End

BLACK BEAR YACHT RACING ASSOCIATION
WHITE BEAR LAKE, MINNESOTA

BBYRA Newsletter

The favored end

Commodore’s Log January 2018 for the club was a great factor in development of the or-
ganiza on and its sailors.
By Paul Moyer
The award goes to a tenacious sailor who displays
Before we launch off into the 2018 season we should integrity and drive in the pursuit of sailboat racing.
review the highlights of 2017. The November 4 annual
mee ng and awards dinner at Indian Hill Club culminated Ron Nelson passed away but
another great year on White Bear Lake. The recovering his spirit is carried on and
water level was a bonus, but don’t ask me to explain why it advanced by many.
is up.

To acknowledge the racing aspects of the club, Tim and
Linda Reiner have been awarded the PHRF Fleet Trophy for
2017. Lisa Mathewson and alternates skippered ECHO TOO
to capture the Capri 22 Fleet trophy. Congratula ons to
these skippers for applying the art, discipline and team-
work of sailing to achieve top performance!

I also want to recognize some of the special awards that Louis Newell is recog-
took place. nized by his peers as
mee ng and surpassing the
The Nelson Cup was awarded to Lewis Newell criteria of the Nelson
The Steadfast Sailor was awarded to Don and Cory Award. Louis brings a
Hankings broad range of sailing ex-
The Brisson Cup was awarded to Eric Hegland per se to the club and he is generous in sharing his expe-
The Sportsman Trophy was awarded to Paul rience. It is people like Louis who make BBYRA successful
Moyer in accomplishing its mission of promo ng the art and skill
of sailboat racing.
This edi on of the Favored End will focus on the Nelson
Cup. This award was created to honor one of the early
BBYRA members, Ron Nelson. Ron’s passion for sailing and

Please visit the BBYRA Website!
On the website you will find up to date lis ngs of our race schedules, socials and other events. Be sure
to bookmark www.bbyra.com!

BBYRA Google Groups
As many of you know, a broadcast email from the BBYRA Google Group is one way to make sure infor-
ma on is distributed to BBYRA members. As racing season approaches please be sure to check your
email on race days for any last minutes news or updates.

Commodores’ Log (Continued) Page 2

BBYRA 2018 Board of Directors

The following have been named Officers and
Social Chairs for the 2018 Race season:

Paul Moyer Commodore

Jochen Koening
Bursar/Race Chair

Steve Loomis Scoring

Nelson Cup succession: Paul Peloquin Secretary/
Communica on
2012 Craig Wi<haus
2013 Ernie Eisenberg Tim Reiner Race Co-Chair
2014 Lisa Mathewson
2015 Craig Wi<haus

2016 Paul Moyer

2017 Louis Newell

The board is already making prepara ons for the 2018 sea-
son, standby as things develop.

Peggy Wi<haus
Social Chair

Don & Cory Hankins
Social Co-Chairs

Page 3

“A Sailor’s “Mini-Sabbatical” Polynesia is
Bread Fruit
by Jochen Koenig which grows
on trees but
Pondering with the idea of taking some me off from otherwise
work in my early 50s I was originally dreaming of buying my can be used
own boat and set on a pacific circle for a year, some me just like po-
with and some me without crew. As it is however, life hap- tatoes.
pens and being essen ally a social person I was not really
sure if a somewhat “solo” journey with long passages would AOer a roughly 500 nm passage the next group of is-
really be it for me. lands to the west are the Tuamotos, a group of coral at-
olls reaching for about 800nm in a roughly north-west to
So I stumbled across an opportunity to join a profession-
ally run boat, the Skylark of London (www.skye51.com) for south-east orienta on. The atolls are completely differ-
10 weeks in the South Pacific as part of her circumnaviga- ent as they consist essen ally of a ring of coral islands
(motus) around a central, shallow lagoon with the actual
on with the WorldARC. Being in a flo lla on the open island long sunken below sea level. The shallow water
ocean passages and equipped with satellite tracking for the makes for excellent snorkeling and diving as well as swim-
loved ones at home to see our progress, this also made ming/ snorkeling/diving with hundreds of reef sharks that
most likely for the safest way to par cipate in an ocean gather at the entrance to the lagoon close to slack tide. The
adventure. main economy in the Tuamotos, beside a bit of tourism is
primarily copra, which is dried coconut mark used to ex-
The WorldARC is sec oned into legs of about 1 month tract coconut oil for cosmetics. There is also pearl farm-
length each with a week between legs. I joined Skylark in ing, albeit most of the farming in the Tuamotos is to raise
the Marquesas in late March for the leg to Tahi and then young oysters to a certain size which are then sent to the
for the following leg from Tahi to Tonga, a total of just Society Islands to implant a seed to grow the pearls.
Today, as in all Polynesian islands, the popula on is pri-
under 3000 nm of island-hopping and passages. marily Chris an. Catholic for the most part, but one finds
French Polynesia consists of 3 groups of Islands. We Protestant, Mormon and Jehovah’s Witnesses even on
very small islands. We were on Fakurava in the Tuamotos
called first on the easternmost group, the Marquesas. On on Easter where a tra-
this group of islands their volcanic origin is very apparent. di onal Easter proces-
Being geologically rela vely young, there are no reefs or sion was accompanied
lagoons. They are also one of the last of the pacific island by the wonderful poly-
groups se<led by Polynesians around 1050-1150 AD bring- phonic chorals Polyne-
ing with them an already developed poli cal system of pol- sian music is known for.
ytheis c religion with a hierarchy of leader “affiliated” with
the gods .

Prominent are the Tikis, wooden or stone statutes that
provide protec on. Before the arrival of European
“Explorers” the Marquesas were home to a popula on of
about 100,000, of which over 90% succumbed to imported
infec ous disease brought along with the Europeans. To-
day there are only about 10,000 Marquesans. The Marque-
sas are also know for their Ta<oos which are not a fashion
statement but originally symbolized social status and tribal
membership, somewhat like uniforms permiNng fighters to
tell friend from foe. The main starch staple in

Page 4

“A Sailor’s “Mini-Sabbatical” From Bora Bora we set off to the uninhabited atoll of
Suwarrow, about 650nm NW of the Socie es. At last, the
(continued) passage brought us some luck fishing, a large Wahoo and
a large Tuna fed the eight of us for many a meal with
The next group of islands to the west are the Society Is- spare to share the bounty with other boats.
lands, with Tahi being the main island and Pape’ete the
capital of French Polynesia. While the boat received some As we pull into the
R&R for a week we explored Moorea, the island next to anchorage we are
Tahi . Besides Bora Bora, Moorea is the most “touristy” greeted by about 20
island in French Polynesia. Generally the Society Island are reef sharks circling the
geologically somewhat between the Tuamotos and the boat. Suwarrow is the
Marquesas. They are volcanic islands nestled within a la- quintessen al “Island
goon surrounded by a large ring reef which is s ll mostly to Oneself” as Tom
submerged so naviga ng in and out the lagoon needs to be Neale describes it in
done very careful. The most memorable island in the Socie- his Book of the same

es was Tahaa’a. A “Coral River” allow you to snorkel-driO tle. The New Zealan-
for about 10 min through a canyon with corals and reef fish der spent sixteen years in three stays on the island from
abound. The lagoons are also home to the s lt-huts, which the 1950s to the 70s, literally cut
one is so familiar from tourist brochures, as resorts on off the rest of the world. Today
Moorea, Tahhaa’a Suwarrow is a na onal park of the
and Bora Bora fea- Cook Islands open during the sum-
ture these accom- mer with temporary wardens pre-
moda ons at a heOy sent. Even though a ny spot in
price tag. the middle of a vast ocean it is
shocking as to the amount of pri-
Besides farm- marily plas c garbage that washes
grown Tahi an ashore. The WorldARC fleet of 25
(black) pearls, the boats removed a lot of large bags of garbage from the
Socie es also grow a island in an effort to keep this atoll as pris ne as posible
very fragrant variety
of vanilla. However With an originally 72h planned stay in Suwarrow we
recent epidemic dis- waited another day for an appropriate weather window
ease has decimated as the remains of a large tropical depression off Fiji would
most of the vanilla have made landfall at our next des na on, the island of
farms and the fact Niue, 500nm SW from Suwarrow a bit uncomfortable.
that they need to be Niue is a coral limestone plateau perched on an ancient
pollinated by hand submerged volcano. There are no protected bays at all
(the bees usually
doing this are not and neither are
there beaches suit-
indigenous to Polynesia) makes it very expensive. able to land a din-
ghy. Our dinghy
needed to be
hauled onto the
pier with a crane.
The na on of Niue
is one of the small-
est in the world

Page 5

A Sailor’s “Mini-Sabbatical” 10 weeks, nearly
3000 nm, about as
(continued) many photos, lots
of new friends from
with a popula on of all over the globe
roughly 1,600 on 100 sqm and a new perspec-
of island. The cliffs sur- tive on life in gen-
rounding the island are eral have made this
typically about 70-100 O the proverbial “trip
high and feature large of a lifetime”….until the next adventure.
caves, washed out by the
sea. Millennia of typhoons
have sculpted the south
coat into a rugged coast full of razor-sharp limestone
spikes.

On to the last and easy 250nm passage to my final des- Farewell to the 2017 Season
na on, the Vava’u group of the Kingdom of Tonga.
Again, somewhat different yet similar to Niue because The Fall Banquet
there are actually sand beaches as the limestone had
more me to erode. Jochen Koenig
For the comple on of this leg the WoldARC had organized a receives the
visit to Vava’u’s botanical garden with a demonstra on of editor’s award
Tongan craO such as the making of bark-cloth/paper used for the best
for the tradi onal Tongan skirts. A Tongan feast concluded smile!
the journey with roasted piglet and corned-beef wrapped in
taro leafs, which is a Tongan staple. Corned beef must be for
Tongans what Spam is for Hawaiians.

Brian Mathewson final-
ly sees the light! He
appreciates the gift of
lightening proof cabin illumination.

Page 6

Reflec ng on the Good Fellows
2017 season or
scheming for BBYRA received a report regarding the rescue of the
2018? sailboat “BonnyBoat” that had lost auxiliary power

Brain’s note to self; don’t give aOer the wind
Tom the microphone again. died.
Several boats
Door prizes!! Everyone loves had passed by
Peggy when she is handing out before
door prizes. “Tomfoolery”
approached
to render as-
sistance.
Bonny (the
skipper of
“Bonny Boat”) asked that Eric Hegland and Tom
LeVere be recognized for their kind act. We also need
to have a Gaelic language lesson; bonny means
“pre<y” and Slainte means “thank you”. Bonny in her
50 year old bonny boat “BonnyBoat” says Slainte!!!

The “no dancing on tables’ rule was strictly enforced and Life is a dangerous - ultimately fatal - endeavor,
almost everyone brought their best behavior. so you may as well live it full out.
Chart your course, cast off the lines,
and boldly sail the seas of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

BBYRA IF YOU HAVE NEWS OF A SAILING VARIETY you’d like to share with
Commodore: Paul Moyer
P.O. Box 10802 our members and friends, please send it to
White Bear Lake, MN 55110 [email protected]
[email protected]
All submissions are welcomed!
WWW.BBYRA.COM
Website Editor: Larry Sagstetter TO:

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Newsletter Editor:
Paul Peloquin

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