By Brad Kekst, Cruising Chair
Thanks everyone for completing the Cruising Survey, we had 36 responses! That’s a great number to gauge our overall interest in cruising and gain insight into what people want to do and what is logistically possible to do.
What kind of cruises do we want to do?
Clearly people want relatively easy cruises, day cruises and simple overnight cruises. There is still some interest in our longer ocean-going cruises so we’ll make sure to have at least one of those this year. An interesting idea came up in the write-in options — to do vacation charter cruises, such as in the Caribbean or Mediterranean. I’ll create a separate survey on that in the future.
Also it is great to learn we have lots of experienced captains! Over 70% have “some experience” or more. And now we know important captain preferences such as 70% prefer to be at a dock, while 60% are okay on a mooring ball or rafting up. About 70% of our captains have dinghies, of which over half are with a motor.
I Don’t Have a Cruising Boat, Can I Participate?
Of course! You’re not alone. 58.8% of our respondents said they would be interested in an internal “Crew List” to connect with others — either people without cruising boats looking for rides, or captains looking for crew. Another 41.2% are interested in crewing one-way on other's boats, and 23.5% are interested in the same for weekends.
I will be investigating technologies to use to create an internal BYC Crew List. Keep in mind each cruise includes a world of opportunity for helping out with tasks beyond captaining and crewing. People can help captains dock once we’ve arrived at the destination (20 said they were willing). We also need people who like to take pictures for Now Hear This! (18 people said they were willing), or write articles for NHT (11 people said they were willing). To keep our cruises as safe as possible it always helps to have more people involved in the planning of the routes and timetables to accommodate the tides and currents (11 said they’re willing). Just as it helps to have someone on point for first aid (4 said they’re willing).
If you’re interested in seeing more details of the survey come to our next Cruise Committee meeting on Thursday, March 23, at 7:00pm. We’ll meet in person at the clubhouse and we’ll have a Zoom link.
Proposed 2023 Cruising Schedule Here is our tentative line-up for our larger cruises. Stay tuned as there is also a desire to have more ad hoc, last minute, short cruises.
Next Cruise: Angel Island Our next cruise is to Angel Island April 29-30. You can do a day sail on Saturday, use the docks, and join the crowd for a picnic on shore and still have plenty of time to get home before nightfall. If you don’t have a boat, you can take the ferry from Tiburon, Pier 41 San Francisco, or the Ferry Building San Francisco.
If you want to stay overnight there is a nominal charge for using the mooring balls, and recent stories in Latitude 38 describe the latest issues with water depth. This weekend the tides will favor early birds.
Sunday is Opening Day on the Bay. AIl overnighters can take advantage of the early exit needed from the mooring balls. The parade is in front of Crissy Field from 8:00am to 2:00pm. We’ll decide whether we want to raft up near shore or just make it a rally.
If you are considering participating in any of the events above, please reach out to the event leader or to this year’s Cruise Chair Brad Kekst at bkekst@gmail.com or on Slack. Also if you are interested in helping out in other ways or would like to lead an event of your own, please reach out to me for that as well or type a message in the #cruising channel on Slack.