Scuttlebutt Spring 2018 NORTH STRAND SAIL & POWER SQUADRON Chartered: 30 November 2000 Volume XVIII, No. 1 Editor: Doug Thomas District 26 , United States Power Squadrons® Web page: North Strand Squadron Commander Bonnie Kanoy, AP FROM THE COMMANDER’S HELM I am writing this from warm and sunny Orlando, Florida. Jake and I, as well as Barbara and Jack McKinnon, Marcia and Al Lehman and Kay and Frank Pope have been at the National US Power Squadron meeting. I hope every- one learned something new to bring back to our squadron. There is a big push to go forward with our new logo, America’s Boating Club. We are, and will remain, the US Power Squadron, just a different look. This marketing campaign has been adopted to help increase our mem- bership and our visibility to others in the boating commu- nity. Last year, USPS membership was 28,245 and this year is 26,665. Power Squadron membership has been dropping over the past 17 years. The boating community has changed with the economy. There are an average of 85 kayaks sold at Dick’s Sporting Goods every day. This number doesn’t include Wal-Mart and other Sporting goods stores. There are many other water sports such as canoeing and paddle boarding. Most of the on-the-water fatalities come from this group of new boaters. We plan to include them in safe boating and safe water activities edu- cation. There is now an America’s Boating Channel. This has short educational segments on man overboard, dock- ing, anchoring and much more helpful information at AmericasBoatingChannel.org. D26 received several awards including Honorable Men- tion for North Strand Sail and Power Squadron for the Boat/US Civic Service Award. I feel attendance at the National meeting was time well spent. We have a new Chief Commander, V/C Gary P Cheney, SN, who hails from Atlantic Beach, NC. You can find out more about him on the US Power Squadron web site. It is time for the boating season so get a Vessel Safety Check to prepare. If you haven’t looked to see if your fire extinguisher was on the recall list, please do. There have been many extinguishers added to the original November 2017 list. Use this web site to find out if yours is on the list. https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2017/kidde-recalls-fire- extinguishers-with-plastic-handles-due-to-failure-to- discharge , or you can call 855-271-0773. If your boat is at Lightkeepers Marina, the VSC committee has planned an event for boat inspections on March 31. Your fire extin- guisher, whether on the recall list or not, will be OK for the VSC; so don’t put off your VSC for that reason. You do not have to wait for a planned event, just call one of the VSC inspectors listed on our web site and set up a day and time. Remember, Safe Boating is planned, not an accident. Plans for the St Patrick’s Day Parade are in process. Call Caroline Sever (843) 280-4527 and volunteer to help. Many hands make light work. Check your calendar on the web site to see other upcoming events. Our next meeting will be the Famous or Infamous Chili Cook off. If you are planning on making chili please con- tact Marcia Lehman or Kay Pope. This is the same day as the ABC class and we plan to invite the students to our dinner and meeting, so we need to know there will be enough chili. United States Power Squadrons® Come for the Boating Education … Stay for the Friends℠ North Strand Sail & Power Squadron
Transcript
Scuttlebutt Spring 2018
NORTH STRAND SAIL & POWER SQUADRON Chartered: 30 November 2000 Volume XVIII, No. 1 Editor: Doug Thomas
District 26, United States Power Squadrons® Web page: North Strand Squadron
Commander Bonnie Kanoy, AP
FROM THE COMMANDER’S HELM I am writing this from warm and sunny Orlando, Florida. Jake and I, as well as Barbara and Jack McKinnon, Marcia and Al Lehman and Kay and Frank Pope have been at the National US Power Squadron meeting. I hope every-one learned something new to bring back to our squadron. There is a big push to go forward with our new logo,
America’s Boating Club. We are, and will remain, the US Power Squadron, just a different look. This marketing campaign has been adopted to help increase our mem-bership and our visibility to others in the boating commu-nity. Last year, USPS membership was 28,245 and this year is 26,665. Power Squadron membership has been dropping over the past 17 years. The boating community has changed with the economy. There are an average of 85 kayaks sold at Dick’s Sporting Goods every day. This number doesn’t include Wal-Mart and other Sporting goods stores. There are many other water sports such as canoeing and paddle boarding. Most of the on-the-water fatalities come from this group of new boaters. We plan to include them in safe boating and safe water activities edu-cation. There is now an America’s Boating Channel. This has short educational segments on man overboard, dock-ing, anchoring and much more helpful information at AmericasBoatingChannel.org.
D26 received several awards including Honorable Men-tion for North Strand Sail and Power Squadron for the Boat/US Civic Service Award. I feel attendance at the National meeting was time well spent. We have a new Chief Commander, V/C Gary P Cheney, SN, who hails
from Atlantic Beach, NC. You can find out more about him on the US Power Squadron web site.
It is time for the boating season so get a Vessel Safety Check to prepare. If you haven’t looked to see if your fire extinguisher was on the recall list, please do. There have been many extinguishers added to the original November 2017 list. Use this web site to find out if yours is on the list. https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2017/kidde-recalls-fire-extinguishers-with-plastic-handles-due-to-failure-to-discharge, or you can call 855-271-0773. If your boat is at Lightkeepers Marina, the VSC committee has planned an event for boat inspections on March 31. Your fire extin-guisher, whether on the recall list or not, will be OK for the VSC; so don’t put off your VSC for that reason. You do not have to wait for a planned event, just call one of the VSC inspectors listed on our web site and set up a day and time. Remember, Safe Boating is planned, not an accident.
Plans for the St Patrick’s Day Parade are in process. Call Caroline Sever (843) 280-4527 and volunteer to help. Many hands make light work. Check your calendar on the web site to see other upcoming events.
Our next meeting will be the Famous or Infamous Chili Cook off. If you are planning on making chili please con-tact Marcia Lehman or Kay Pope. This is the same day as the ABC class and we plan to invite the students to our dinner and meeting, so we need to know there will be enough chili.
United States Power Squadrons®
Come for the Boating Education … Stay for the Friends℠
It looks like spring has blessed us with an early arrival. I’d say we deserve it after this past January. After all, averages are averages and the average Jan/Feb temp for the North Strand is 57 degrees. So, every day in the 40s should
earn us one in the 70s, right?
So like daffodils signal the onset of spring, cruise director Ed’s cruise schedule coming out this week must signal the start of the new boating season. And a great cruise schedule it is! (A little bird has it that there may be more to come, but you didn’t hear that from me.) So check out the schedule later in this publication and sign up now to hold your spot.
The St. Patrick’s Day parade committee headed by Caroline Sever has been hard at work. They’ve got a great entry planned around the theme “Birds of a feather boat together”. Every squadron member is invited to join us in the parade. We can never have too many walkers to hand out candy to the kids. We can also never have too much candy! We humbly
request that our members help out by donating a bag or two of candy for the parade. It will help us very much as we have a tight squadron budget to which we must adhere. Also, everyone is invited to attend the boat decoration the day before the pa-rade. A drop-dead gorgeous dinner is always laid out by Caroline. What a culinary artiste! See the announcement later in this newsletter.
If you hate seeing litter in our parks as much as I hate seeing litter in our parks, come on out to our Heritage Shores park cleanup event held the third Wednesday of the month at 4:00 PM. We meet in the smaller parking lot to the right of the launch ramp. The park is located at the west end of 53rd Ave. N in Cherry Grove. C’mon out and give us a hand. And, of course, everyone is invited to attend the Happy Hour that always follows, despite the weather. Check the squadron calendar for upcom-ing Happy Hour locations.
MARCH BIRTHDAYS Greg Kervill 1
Pamela Messer 4
Cathy Sabo 4
John Lyon 9
Robert Terrell 13
Barbara Lyon 14
Warren Swartz 18
Jack McKinnon 20
Ellen Simpson 23
Lynda Kaufman 27
Jeanne Millar 29
Please let Bonnie Williams know if we’ve missed your birthday, so we can update our records.
4
Lt/C Al Lehman, AP
From The AO’s Wheelhouse We ended the 2017 year with our annual Christmas Party with an abundance of tasty food and the music of Rick and Lesa that had folks shagging, electric sliding, and slow danc-ing. The January meeting fea-tured a new tailgating theme.
Judging from the food and the attendance it was a hit. February hosted Valentine’s Day and a catered lasagna dinner from Pizelli’s. Comments that the social committee co-chairs and I received were positive. The USPS National Meeting was in Or-lando Feb 18th through the 25th with members of the North Strand squadron and bridge attending. As I announced in February, the chili cook-off has been moved up to the March meeting. We are call-ing all chili chefs! We currently have nine chefs signed up for the cook-off. Last year’s winner, Dan Hafner, is looking to defend his title of Chilimaster, so the challenge is on! This year the cook-off coin-cides with the first ABC course on March 10th. Our SEO, Frank Pope, will invite the class to stay for the cook-off and meeting afterwards. Please keep that in mind as you put together your masterpieces.
March 17th is the St Patrick’s Day parade. That weekend is also the weekend of the District 26 Spring Conference. Some of our members and bridge will be attending that event, so Doug Thomas
is stepping up to coordinate the parade activities. Jim and Caroline Sever have graciously agreed to host the event again this year. ‘Birds of a Feather Float Together’ is the theme and the boat decorat-ing event is March 16th beginning at 4:30 PM.
April’s member meeting is “Step into Spring” with a picnic theme. Burgers and dogs on the grill at the Elks will be the main course along with the usual side dishes.
Heritage park cleanup will be on March 21st with the Happy Hour afterward at Overtime’s. Everyone is welcome at both events.
There’s an old adage that starts “Spring has sprung…”. While not officially here yet, the days are growing warmer and our cruise director Ed has already been hard at work. To begin our cruising season in April, we have the annual Bird Island Po-lar Bear Cruise on April 7th, the Grand Dunes Cruise April 20th and 21st, and the April 28th Big ‘M’ casino cruise. May has the Southport Cruise the 18th through the 20th. In June, the Wacca Wache cruise and in July, the cruise to Bald Head. Watch for Ed’s emails and keep checking the Scuttlebutt and Way-points for dates and times of all the boating events.
NORTH STRAND SQUADRON VESSEL SAFETY EXAMINERS
Call for your FREE Vessel Safety Check today (843.399.1342). All it costs is a few minutes of your time. You’ll be glad you did and so will your crew and guests.
Check out http://www.usps.org/national/vsc/ to learn all about everything in the VSC program.
Maybe you’ll even be interested in becoming an examiner??
Jane Bonner Eric Coates Jake Kanoy John Schwab
Roger Bonner Ken Delson Al Lehman George Theriault
Bob Candiano Dan Hafner Jack McKinnon Marc Theriault
Roger Clark Bonnie Kanoy Bob Mills
D/Lt/C George Theriault, AP and D/Lt Eric Coates, AP, Co-Chairmen
5
Posters and signage is out for our ABC class on Saturday, March 10, and we have a good number of students already registered. Since the ABC class and our monthly meeting are both on the 10th, we will be inviting all students from the class to join us for the chili cook-off and to stay for the meeting.
The Piloting class is scheduled to start on Wednesday, March 7, and will run each Wednesday night for 6 to 8 weeks. We currently have 5 students signed up. That class will be taught by Roger Bonner.
Check out the calendar as we are starting to put new dates for a couple of seminars. We have a Marlinespike class on April 25 taught by David Canty. This will be a great class and we will cover all of the basic terms and the major knots and bends used in and around boats.
May 16 we have an Emergencies on Board seminar and then on Sat Sept 8 will be offering Partner in Com-mand. We are working on plans to have both an in-class and on the water section.
We will have been at the National Meeting before you read this and will hopefully come back with new ideas and updates on USPS education and classes.
Remember, you can sign up online for any of our classes. If you have any problems or questions, feel free to call me or grab me at the next meeting.
Educational Officer’s Briefing
Lt/C Frank Pope, AP
Cruise news for March As our cruise schedule does not begin until April , I am giving you the latest up to date schedule for all cruise's I have arranged to date , with added comments as to the availability for all.
April 20-21 Grande Dunes Marina – Myrtle Beach – slips still available
April 28TH Big "M" Casino Crusie - Little River - slips still available
May 18-19-20 Southport Marina - Southport/Downtown – cruise is filled
June 22-23 Wacca Wache Marina – Murrell’s Inlet - cruise is filled
July 7-8-9-10 Balk Head Island Marina - BHI , NC - slips still available
August cruise in planning stage
Sept 1-2-3 Port City Marina - Wilmington, NC - slips still available
October 18 Wacca Wache Marina – enroute to Georgetown - filled
October 19-20-21 Dry Stack Marina - Georgetown - cruise is filled
NOTE: Two other marinas close by - contact Hazzard Marina (843) 527-3625 or Harbortown Marina (843) 546-4250 for possible reservations – but do it now as all space during the Wooden Boat Show weekend will get scooped up real soon!!
All dock parties will be at Dry Stack Marina – a 5 minute walk away from both marinas mentioned above.
That’s it folks! Stay tuned for the August plans ASAP.
Cruise Director ...... Ed
6
Spring Safety Message
P/C Doug Thomas, SN (mmsi: 367624380)
In today’s boating environment, every marine VHF radio manufactured since 1999 comes equipped with a feature called DSC (Digitial Selective Service), which enhances and automates a mayday call. Connected to your GPS, directly or through your chart plotter, DSC will transmit your important vessel information and location automatically and con-tinuously by the press of a single button on your radio.
To fully implement the capabilities of DSC, you should apply for and receive a free MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity) number identifying your vessel. If you’re only traveling within domestic wa-ters, several agencies are authorized to issue this number. USPS is one of those organizations. Go to http://www.usps.org/php/mmsi_new/index.php to create an account and receive your MMSI num-ber. If you are traveling internationally, you must go through the FCC. Remember, it’s FREE!
Why DSC/MMSI?
1. As mentioned, it automatically transmits critical mayday information about you, your boat and your location. This frees you up to attend to the emergencies on your vessel that required the call in the first place.
2. It will cause your boat location to be displayed on the chart plotter screen of nearby vessels similarly equipped with DSC/MMSI. They may be able to render assistance more quickly than the Coast Guard.
3. You can also request the location of any vessel equipped with an MMSI number. Great for “forming up” prior to a cruise.
4. It allows you to create a telephone directory of your friends with MMSI numbers. Now, you don’t have to remember their boat name or call sign to contact them. Bring up the directory on your radio and select them from the list.
5. It allows a multi-vessel conversation to take place. Along with individual entries, you can create group entries. A great way to stay in contact during a cruise with other vessels. Further, these transmis-sions are only received by radios within the group. (Hey, Ed. Whaddya think?)
For safety and convenience, MMSI can’t be beat. Get yours TODAY! (Did I mention, it’s free!)
MMSI—The New Mayday Call
Editor’s note
THANK YOU to the many members who provide the terrific photos you see in our North Strand Squadron publications. Your contributions are greatly appreciated!!
7
8
Join the Fun: St. Patrick’s Day Parade Decorating and Dinner: Friday, March 16, 2018
St. Patrick’s Day Parade: Saturday, March 17, 2018
NSSPS is in North Myrtle Beach’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, our 11th year. The parade helps get our message of boating safety and fun to the 25,000 people at the parade and watching the televised event. If you’d like to help, a million thanks! Everyone is welcome. Please sign up by March 10th.
Decorators and Walkers Needed: This year’s entry features a boat load of birds that would “rather boat than fly.” Hilarious. Friday night, we need members to decorate the boat, help build the nest, divide candy, encourage the crew, socialize and share a meal. On Saturday, we need members to walk the 1.5 mile parade route alongside the boat. Safety is our first concern. Think large crowds, lots of kids, candy, a boat on a trailer….you get the picture. And, four seats are up for grabs in the van—sign up to re-serve a van seat. Friday, March 16th, 4:30 pm decorating and social hour; 6 pm dinner rain or shine: Jim and Caroline Sever’s. Dinner, an Irish Pub supper, is compliments of Jim and Caroline. Be sure to tell them you’re com-ing by March 10. Parade, 8 am Saturday morning, rain or shine: Meet at Sever’s, ready to leave by 8 am. Wear your green NSSPS shirt or any Irish green. Add an Irish hat, wig, beads, buttons, or your St. Patrick’s Day rega-lia. If you plan to meet at the NSSPS boat on parade day, you can park at Lowe’s Home Improvement (Route 17). Parade entry location numbers are assigned shortly before March 17—call Severs for info.
Directions and Phone Numbers: Jim and Caroline Sever, 1503 Hillside Drive North, North Myrtle Beach SC 29582. E-mail: [email protected]. Home phone: (843) 280-4527 Mobile for calls and text: (518) 281-3985 From the north, take SC-9/Sea Mountain Highway to Ocean Drive, right on Ocean Drive, go less than half a mile and turn right on 16th Avenue North, go one block to Hillside Drive, turn left on Hillside. Second house on the right, white house with pillars and rocking chairs on the porch. From the south, take Route 17 North to 11th Avenue North, North Myrtle Beach. Turn right on 11th, go to Hillside Drive, turn left on Hillside to 15th Avenue.
9
NSSPS Winter Activities
As you can see, we were quite active during the winter season. Who says boaters just hunker down during the winter months? Not North Strand Sail & Power Squadron!
10
Editor’s Note: Some firms or companies offer discounts and others do not. While we cannot endorse any product, service, or company, we do advise members to check first to ask if the vendor you patronize offers any discounts for either a BoatUS membership or a United States Power Squadrons® membership. That includes any marinas you may visit. Disclaimer: Articles and opinions contained herein do not necessarily reflect any endorsement or policy from either United States Power Squadrons® or North Strand Sail & Power Squadron unless so stated.
NORTH STRAND SAIL & POWER SQUADRON Upcoming Events
MARCH
5 Executive Committee Meeting — 5:45 PM @ Little River Elks Lodge 10 ABC Class — 8:00 AM — 5:00 PM @ Little River Elks Lodge 10 Membership Meeting and Chili Cook-off — 5:00 PM @ Little River Elks Lodge 16-18 D/26 Spring Conference — Columbia, SC 16 St. Patrick’s Day Parade Boat Decorating and Dinner — 4:30 PM @ Sever’s Home 17 St. Patrick’s Day Parade — 8:00 PM 21 Heritage Shores Nature Preserve Cleanup — 4:00 PM @ Cherry Grove 21 Happy Hour — 5:30 PM @ Overtime Sports Grill APRIL
7 Annual Polar Bear Cruise — 12:00 PM @ Bird Island 9 Executive Committee Meeting — 5:45 PM @ Little River Elks Lodge 14 Membership Meeting — 5:00 PM @ Little River Elks Lodge 18 Heritage Shores Nature Preserve Cleanup — 4:00 PM @ Cherry Grove 18 Happy Hour — 5:30 PM @ Boardwalk Billy’s 20-22 Grand Dunes Cruise — 12:00 PM @ Grand Dunes Marina, Myrtle Beach 26 Game Night — 5:30 PM @ Farris’ Home 28 Big ‘M’ Casino Cruise — Email flyer will be sent MAY
7 Executive Committee Meeting — 5:45 PM @ Little River Elks Lodge 12 Membership Meeting — 5:00 PM @ Little River Elks Lodge 16 Heritage Shores Nature Preserve Cleanup — 4:00 PM @ Cherry Grove 16 Happy Hour — 5:30 PM @ Patio’s Tiki Bar & Grill, Little River Waterfront 18-21 Southport Cruise —12:00 PM @ Southport Marina Downtown, Southport, NC 26 Annual Member Picnic — 4:00 PM @ Cricket Cove Marina — picnic area
