Summer, 2024 Newsletter

Englewood Sailing Association

Building Confidence, Character and Community through Sailing

#20 Summer 2024

LOTS TO SEE IN THIS NEWSLETTER

Summer Camp

Fall Youth Sailing

Safety Boat Refresher Class

Adult Coastal Cruising Class

Annual Lemon Drop Regatta

Membership and Sailing Activities

Volunteer Feature: Pat. Beffel,jr.

Cardboard Boat Races

2024 Year at a Glance

Englewood Learning Process

Quarterly Review

Summer Camp 2024

by Cathy Cross

Summer Camp was a huge success this year. We had a record number of campers: 93 for the summer! About 20 youth coaches and 25 adult volunteers helped during the three weeks of camp.

Campers started on Day one with a swim test and capsize drill. By the end of day one, beginning sailors could race to the bridge: a long sail about a mile down Lemon Bay.

They honed their skills during the week with drills like "through the gate" and the "tennis ball game". One day there was absolutely no wind: the safety boats towed campers over to Blind Pass Beach for lunch and a swim. At the end of each day campers were awarded "fabulous prizes", a compass, sea life tattoos, or a sunglasses keeper. A favorite activity during the week was the seagrass adventure. The adventure is coordinated by Bobbi Rodriguez, a Florida Naturalist. Students use nets and viewers to catch and examine specimens before returning them to their environment. Adults helped during the week with instruction, organization, and safety boats. Three safety boats, each with skipper and crew accompanied the sailors at all times. Most of the instruction was done by our outstanding youth coaches. In the survey after camp, most campers mentioned their strong connection with their youth coach. These young leaders are making a lasting impact. On the last day of camp, we held a graduation and shared a delicious hot dog lunch.

By the end of the week, campers had enough skills to take their parent out for a sail. Campers exuded confidence and glowed with pride as they captained their own boat for a spin around Lemon Bay.

Lemon Drop Regatta

Sailing in a regatta is a fun and exciting time for our young sailors. It gives those who desire to compete and learn some of the more intricate skills in sailing.

When CH Ritt became president he vowed to get more children interested in learning to race. And he's done it.

2023 marked the third year of the program which has been very successful, with each year increasing the number of participants (33 entries in 2023).

The 2024 Lemon Drop Regatta will be held on December 14. And this regatta will also have 420s racing.

To learn more and register for this year's Lemon Drop Regatta, click below.

Lemon Drop Regatta

Volunteer Profile Pat. Beffel, jr.

by Marie Naisby

Pat Beffel is our volunteer we are highlighting for this issue of the ESA Newsletter.

Pat grew up in Jackson, Michigan and began sailing at a young age. Her Dad started the junior sailing program at Clark Lake Yacht Club and at 8 years of age she was racing on an Interlake - a one design sailboat about the size of our Quests. One of her early memories sailing was with her two older brothers when she was ordered to drop the center board(she did so, literally) and her oldest brother got mad and told her to jump overboard. She didn't but was sorely tempted to abandon ship.

Her Dad opened a Hobi Cat dealership when she was 13. Pat sailed all the Hobi Cats manufactured at that time - from the 16 to the 10. A selling strategy that her Dad used to sell boats to people who didn't know how to sail was to tell them that his daughter would show them. At age 13, Pat was taking prospective buyers (old guys to a 13-year-old) out on a Hobi 16 teaching them how to sail the boat.

She attended the University of Michigan and graduated with a B.A.Ed. with a propensity for teaching mathematics. During her college summers she taught sailing at Camp Walden in Cheboygan, MI, and became Sailing Director the summer after graduating from U-M. She was hired at the National Bank of Detroit, Ann Arbor, and enjoyed being credit analyst. Her "fun" job at that time was teaching sailing on weekends on Lake St. Clair for Jack Leverenz' Sailing School. She subsequently taught high school algebra before joining the family business, Beffel Lighting, from where she retired as President.

Pat joined ESA in August 2022 and jumbed right in as a volunteer. She and Bob Childers run the Family and Adult Sailing which meets on Saturdays. They are busy with communication with members, helping people with boats as needed, and making sure a safety boat is on the water so that sailors with weekday jobs have the opportunity to sail on Lemon Bay.

She is one of our Volunteers for the Summer Camps - helping teach the students how to rig boats, working with student coaches and helping out to fill in as needed. Pat enjoys being an instructor for the adult sailing classes and keeps in touch with her students. The photo shown is Pat with one of her students, Dmitiry Kaskov. "Dmitiry learned so quickly that I called the safety boat over during his third lesson. I smiled at him during the middle of the lesson and stepped off the boat so that he could sail solo. He was definitely up to the challenge."

In addition to being a Volunteer for ESA, Pat is active in other organizations. She is Treasurer of the Board of Directors of the Youth Musical Arts Academy of North Port. She is very interested in helping to provide musical education and fulfillment which is not provided in the schools. She is a member of the Leadership Class of 2024 with the North Port Area Chamber of Commerce. The class project in which she is involved is providing playground equipment for the Salvation Army of Venice which serves both Venice and North Port. Their playground was destroyed in Hurricane Ian.

ESA is fortunate to have Pat. Beffel, jr., as a volunteer who gives much of her time. She feels fortunate that she found ESA on Google Maps while surfing the web and decided to 'check them out'. "ESA is my happy place. Everyone is there because they want to be there.

Pat and her husband, Al Meusel, have been married 35 years and moved to North Port in 2020 (to avoid both the leaf and mud seasons up north) where they reside with their two small dogs - Sophie and LIZA!

Fall Youth Sailing Season

Fall Youth Sailing begins in September and meets Saturdays through early November.

There will be about 35 young sailors in the program this fall. The beginners are coming after their week in summer camp where they were introduced to sailing.

The intermediate students will be sailing on Quests with two students on each boat. Learning to rig and handle the boat together.

And improving their sailing skills.

The advanced students will be learning to race. This means understanding the start signals, strategy for the starting line and rounding the buoys and the rules of the road. Some of these students may want to race in the Lemon Bay Regatta coming up on December 14.

Adult Coastal Cruising Class

ESA is offering an Adult Coastal Cruising Class this fall. Marie Naisby will be lead Instructor for the course which will be held on Slow Flight, a Catalina 27 donated to ESA.

Topics covered will be rigging, docking, coastal navigation, anchoring, sailing and holding a course.

Our sailing area will be in the Gulf.

In the Spring there will be a three day graduation cruise on a larger charter boat out of St Pete.

Safety Boat Refresher Class

John Riehl will conduct a Safety Boat Refresher Class on September 21 from 8-11 am. This session is for all volunteers who Captain or Crew the

Safety Boats. There will be instruction on land as well as on water practice and rescues. Which lucky ESA members will volunteer to play the role of the capsized sailors needing rescue? In our February class, John Riehl and CH Ritt capsized repeatedly in 70 degree water. John and CH kept throwing themselves overboard to allow all the candidates to practice a rescue. Hoping the waters of Lemon Bay will be a little warmer in September.

Cardboard Boat Races

by Cathy Cross

The Englewood Pioneer Days has had cardboard boat races since the 1960s. In recent years with Covid and construction on Dearborn, the Pioneer Day Celebration has suffered. Well, the Cardboard Boat Races are back at the Sailing Center at Indian Mound Park! ESA hosted the races on Saturday, August 31. We had four ESA families racing cardboard boats, out of 8 boats competing: the Vega-Moons, the Clarks, the Yandas, and the Muzychenkos. ESA sailing skills must cross-over to being an excellent captain of a cardboard boat!

About 175 spectators cheered on the winners. ESA was proudly represented by both our youth and adult volunteers, with about 25 members stepping up to help. Our own Mark Bowen was the MC for the races, and John Bass came as a real live pirate. ESA helped with a safety boat, registration, life jackets and water shoes, setting the course, and cleaning up the wet cardboard after the race. We had two food trucks: Shaz Shack kept everyone cool with ice cream treats, and Outside the Lunchbox even created a special boat race themed menu for us.

The races were a collaboration between many groups: The Englewood Chamber of Commerce, Lasbury Tracy Realty, Englewood Fishing Club, Lemon Bay High School, the Jubilee Center at St. Davids, and Stumpy's Shuttle Service. The organizations worked together seamlessly to bring this fun community event back to Indian Mound Park.

The Englewood Sailing Model

by Mike Basch

ESA has a great model. Kids spend a week in Summer Camp. They learn enough to know if they like it and want to learn more.

If he or she does, they enroll in the Fall Youth Program as Beginners. Then the Spring Program. At the end of the Spring Program, they can opt to go to a coaching clinic and coach at the next year's Summer Camps.

They continue on this upward cycle and can opt in to become a Jr. Instructor, sign up for our Coastal Cruising program, get into racing or just continue to learn.

Sailing is one of those sports that can be quickly learned, but take a lifetime to master.

There is no better way to learn than to teach others. There is no better way to become a leader than get some leadership experience as part of the child's development.