Fishing Bay Yacht Club is excited to announce its 2016 professional coaching staff! Once again, we will have world-class coaches with a breadth of experience as both racers and coaches. They have over 40 years of combined coaching experience. Four are returning, with our Head Coach, Tomas ("Tommy") Dietrich, in his third season at FBYC! Three of our coaches grew up in the Junior program. They will be led by Head Coach Tommy, who is himself a National and South American Champion!
SUMMER COACHES
TOMAS DIETRICH - HEAD COACH & OPTIMIST RACE TEAM COACH
We are extremely excited to welcome Tommy back for his third year at FBYC! In 2016 he will serve as both Head Coach and Opti Race Team Coach.
The use of Club member emails for business use is against Club policy. Please keep this in mind when sending out any communications. Group email addresses are for Club use only and are not to be used to generate mailing lists or email notices about subjects not connected to Club business or activities. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and helping us to respect fellow member’s privacy. More details may be found under the Rules section of our website at:
We have finished our winter long website upgrade project. We continue to transition our website https://www.fbyc.net/ where we continue to have our Home Page, all event listing pages, event pages, and most webpages, to our new more modern Django website https://new.fbyc.net/ where we post news, edit web pages, keep our member database, and, new in 2016 keep all account creation and editing pages and the resetting of password pages. About a month ago we finished the project and have had a soft opening all January.
Users may notice some differences.
The New Website probably works better on mobiles devices - at least the navigation links appear differently on a small device.
A feature on FBYC sailor Gannon Troutman and his Pied Piper Crew at Quantum Key West Race week:
Gannon Troutman was one of the biggest stories of Quantum Key West 2015. The 12-year-old skipper of the J/70 Pied Piper captured the imaginations of fellow competitors and spectators alike.
A feature story about Troutman that appeared on the event website received thousands of views and the youngster became an instant folk hero. Making the story even more remarkable was the fact Troutman and the Pied Piper team finished fifth in a talent-laden 56-boat fleet. The youngest skipper in Key West Race Week history won a race and also had a second and third.
This fall and winter the event scheduling committee consisting of our fleet and division leaders led by incoming vice commodore David Lennarz have been hard at work creating the 2016 Events Schedule. They took a close look at our events over the past year and have hopefully created a schedule that does more of what we like and less of what we don't like from previous years. They've also done their best to coordinate with other local and regional sailing and non-sailing events to reduce conflicts where possible.
A couple noteworthy changes for this year:
The format for Opening Day is unchanged, but the next day on Sunday has been designated for recuperation, training by teams …
The Laser Fleet finished their racing with the Frostbite Regatta as the 4th and final event in the 2015 Laser Series. With the fall event having been cancelled due to extreme weather 3 events stood with 16 sailors competing in 17 races. 8 sailors competed in enough events to qualify for the series and 5 of them participated in every race of the series.
We are excited about the 2016 Junior sailing season at Fishing Bay Yacht Club, and looking forward to another great year of FUN! No matter your sailor's age, experience, and sailing goals, we have an event to excite them and get them out on the water with their friends. Our philosophy is that if kids have fun sailing with their friends, they will come back for more.
And remember, parents and grandparents are always welcome to join in the fun!
The Dry Sail Hoist will be taken out of use from Wednesday the 9th of December to do needed maintenance work. Because of the nature of this work it maybe out of use till February as the parts that are to be replaced need to be fabricated.
Fishing Bay Yacht Club held its Annual Meeting and Awards Party on Saturday at the Commonwealth Club in Richmond, VA. The following is a list of all of the 2015 recipients of the club's perpetual trophies.
HENRY E. HUTCHESON, JR. MEMORIAL TROPHY – awarded to the Optimist skipper with the highest standing in Sanctioned Regattas and intra-club races. Benton Amthor
JUNIOR COMPETITION TROPHY – awarded to the Junior skipper (or skippers) who has most successfully represented FBYC in sailboat racing events conducted by other yacht clubs or associations during the Regular Racing Season. Benton Amthor
L. WOOD BEDELL TROPHY – awarded to the FBYC sailor under the age of 14 who is the highest finisher in FBYC races during …
During the 2015 FBYC Annual meeting, a quorum of our membership elected a new slate of Officers and Board Members to serve in 2015. Please join me, your Nominating Committee Chairman, in welcoming these dedicated volunteers who have committed to serving our Club in the up coming year; and mark their names, because in their vigilance they need and welcome your input, your ideas for how we can improve, and your gratitude. They are as follows:
Last Thursday I presented the FBYC board with a plan to make some behind-the-scenes changes to the FBYC website in late November and December. Now that the sailing season is over, we have the opportunity to cure a simple database design issue.
Everybody who uses the website has a user account, which knows your contact information. The member database also keeps your contact information, in a separate table. Our goal is to "normalize" the database, meaning both sets of data will be kept in one place. A small web site committee approved the plan last night. In preparing for the change, we have found and adjusted about 200 user records where there was an inconsistency with the user and member …
Everyone has seen the emails and announcements, but if you haven't...This Saturday is our Annual Meeting and Commodore's Ball. Dinner tickets are available for a limited time so register quickly. If you are unable to come for dinner, then pick up Dessert and Dancing tickets - there are multiple options available for everyone. Check out the event page for more information.
For anybody with Children (12 and under) the menu will consist of Chicken Tenders. Teens and Aduls will be served Lobster Risotto & Prime Filet Mignon. If you have special dietary restrictions, you must contact Paul or Julie Ann to make prior arrangements. We will be selling bar tickets for the CASH BAR at the event, so …
The Fall Opti Race Team has won the inaugural South Carolina Yacht Club Invitational Optimist Team Race Regatta! The regatta was sailed last weekend, November 7th-8th, in Calibogue Sound, near the entrance to Windmill Harbour, at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Our team was made up of Benton Amthor, Nathan Smith, Guthrie Braun and Reed McAllister; and was coached by our Spring/Fall Opti Coach, Bob Lippincott.
FBYC received the invitation to sail in the regatta last spring, along with Opti teams from the Chicago Yacht Club, the Edgewater Yacht Club, the Florida Yacht Club and the Royal Canadian Yacht Club of Ontario. The host club, SouthCarolina Yacht Club, also competed. The regatta consisted of a round-robin and …
2015 has been a banner year for FBYC’s junior race teams! We had 3 race team members sail in international events in 2015; and 3 of our sailors have already committed to represent the United States in Optis in 2016! The United States Optimist Dinghy Association holds two qualifying regattas yearly to set the teams which will represent the United States in upcoming international competitions. It is the ultimate for an Opti sailor to be invited to be a member of “Team USA”! We sent our FBYC Opti Race Team to the qualifying regattas, along with our coaches, when these sailors qualified. In addition, in 2015, we had a race team member helm a J70 in 2 international events!
The purpose of awarding Life Member status is to recognize a member whose contributions are distinguished by their depth, breadth, superior quality and lasting impact. It needs to be stated, this is a “you know it when you see it” intangible. The compelling rationale for the nomination should be self-evident. Any Club member may nominate another member for Life Member status.
The following is an initial filter for identifying possible candidates:
>75 years of age
>20 years as a Club member
>3 major leadership roles
A history of significant contributions to the Club (such as, fund raising, community service, national sailing organization roles, continuous service, etc.)
Leadership that produced new programs & services or took existing programs & services to …
