Saturday, August 10, 2019

The Value of a Sailing Club

What is the Value of a Sailing Club?

Our first boat was a Catalina 250 - Swing keel water ballast 25' Trailer Sailer. We kept her on the trailer at the side of the house (it's still visible on google maps) and dragged the boat behind our F150 the 90 minutes to Black Point Marina where we would spend 2 hours rigging the boat for launch. 

After 10 years, and lots of upgrades to the boat, and pushing it even to Bimini, we would take the boat out for up to 10 days at a time, just to get the value out of the work needed to launch and retrieve the boat. But we enjoyed that boat 'Joint Decision' every trip, even when the weather went south.


I wanted us to extend our cruising area, and the 25' boat didn't do it for us. I'm 6' and needed to wear knee pads to get around inside the boat, and approaching 65 I needed a bit more comfort. We needed a bigger boat! 

After a couple of years searching the Internet looking for a new (to us) boat, I had a pretty good idea of what type of boat 'I' wanted. Peggy's 'wants' were more pricey and I knew from our first boat, that upgrades / fixes take a bite out of the budget, so I felt the need to go with the older, proven, well supported boats. Catalina yachts were at the top of my list, but there were others.

So, if we wanted to get a bigger boat, I figured we needed to be around people that had bigger boats, it's probably catching!

We joined the Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club with the intention of moving up to a bigger boat. We got so much more!

The HISC is a dynamic club, they only meet monthly at a rented hall for Cocktails, General Meetings and a Sailing interests program. Typically there would be about 100 members turn up the monthly GM, and the cocktail chats often extended into the parking lots afterwards. They held a lot of events that interested both of us. Racing (not so much for us), Cruising, and Social events. 

Knowing that you only get out equal to what you put in, I jumped into the club and volunteered whenever the chance arose.

In 2015, I was assisting at the Strictly Sail Miami HISC Membership Booth with other members of the club. We had been to the SSM show for the past 10 years and knew the layout. So spending an additional day at the show was an easy decision. 

During the show, I met with another of our club's members - Tom - and he knew that I was in the market for a bigger boat. He mentioned that he had recently delivered a boat from the Bahamas to Port St Lucie that was for sale and was a great boat, a Catalina 34!

I didn't jump on it, it was not in the right price range for Peggy - too cheap - not that we had the budget for an expensive yacht, and I thought no more about it. Three months later, the owner called me and invited me to come and look at it, 'You would not be disappointed" he said. So I suggested to Peggy that we go to see the boat and make a nice weekend of it by visiting our dautghter as well. She agreed. 

We drove up to the boat and spent over an hour looking at her. 'ChrisDeek' a 1987 Catalina 34 Tall Rig Fin Keel. Then we drove to Loxahatchee, to see our daughter and grand-daughter. On the Way from the boat, I suggested that if we were to buy the boat, we should name it 'Special' but Peggy insisted that we were not going to sail around with the word 'Special' on the back of the boat - note! She did not say we were not going to buy the boat! It's a Winner!

Anyway, that's the long story about how we got our bigger boat, because we joined the sailing club and got so many points of view from other boat owners, the chance to visit their boats on the water during the many club cruises, and to confirm some of the things we needed to look for.

Joining the sailing club helped us reach our goal. But it has done so much more! Since we brought 'Eximius' (Latin for Special) home, we have really dug into our club membership. Because the club does not own a building, the fees are only $150 a year, compared to the thousands that some clubs have to charge. But the equivalent of just $3 a week it's incredible value for the money.

We participate in a sailing club event at least every month, additional socials, again at least every month, and more. The friendships we have formed over the past five years add a lot to our retirement living. When we go to the club, practically everybody knows us, primarily because we jumped into the club by volunteering. 

Now I'm the club's Rear Commodore - That's a higher rank than I had at the end of my 25 year Navy career, and that means we're on a four year commitment - Rear, Vice, Commodore, Past Commodore. But it's worth every effort. Now I'm in a position to encourage others to get more out of their sailing hobby, develop new friendships, and enjoy the camaraderie of like minded sailors.

So I suggest, if you want to really enjoy local sailing, and more, then Join a Sailing Club - and Jump In!

See you on the water. 

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