FYC is a co-operative, non-profit yacht club run by the members themselves. It offers a fleet of boats from both Channel Islands Harbor as well as Marina Del Rey at unbeliveably reasonable prices. Compared to other commercial charter businesses that charge you a membership fee plus hefty per use fees for their boats, Fairwind sustains itself by a nominal membership fee and the support and sweat of its own members. Each member is expected to volunteer in helping out with any and all aspects of the club. From changing engine oil to training new members on the use of their boats. Everyone chips in which allows the club to grow as a community. Using an online boat reservation system and each member’s honesty, everyone gets a fair share of use on their fleet of boats. As the memberships grow, a formula is used to determine whether or not new boats will be added to the fleet or if new memberships are to be capped.

It seem too good to be true at first when I looked into the price but after becoming a member, it makes a lot of sense the way the club operates. As an ex-member of a commercial charter club in the past where no one cared to put forth the extra effort in the boat upkeep since the company gouged you with exorbitant rates, FYC members have a particular kin-ship with each other as well as the fleet of boats that is similar to owning your own boat.

The club originated in the 1960’s out of a group of Hughes Aviation engineers in Marina Del Rey. It is now over 200 members strong in the MDR area and attempting to start a second chapter in the Oxnard, CA area based out of Channel Islands Harbor. There are no fancy club houses or six-digit salaries for the club officers but just a group of people who enjoy sailing and each others company.

If you are in the area looking to meet people who love to sail whether you own a boat or not, I’d highly recommend checking them out.

One of the fun things I start to do was to tie a double bowline with a dockline to make a leg harness. By clipping the other end of the dockline to the spinnaker halyard, I made a trapeze-like harness that we could use to hike out on the side of the sailboat.

Here is my friend Dan D. putting faith in the running rigging

Here I am giving it a little kick off of the side of the hull

While I was hanging out there, I took a little snapshot of the boat while Mike eats a sandwich with Melanie at the helm

Here is Mike getting in on the action

We passed the starting gate for the 2007 LA or Honolulu Transpac Race that was set to start the Monday after our trip

The water was amazingly warm since the air temp had been in the 80’s all week as well as the presence of a southern hemi ground swell pushing in a lot of warm water up to the California coast. We stopped the boat about 5 miles out of Avalon harbor and took a few dives in water nearly 3000 ft deep. It was a little unsettling not knowing what was beneath you but it was fun nonetheless.

When we got into the harbor it was buzzing with activity. We left Friday morning hoping that people wouldn’t have left until the weekend but apparently everyone had the same idea or people just spend the entire week there.

When we finally contacted a harbor patrol boat they guided us to our mooring buoy for the weekend. As we came around to the buoy just outside of the Hamilton Cove condos directly adjacent to a reef I began to make my move to position the boat ready for tie up. When I threw the gear into reverse I knew we had problems because no matter how much I throttled up there was no walking of the stern to kick me around. We began drifting towards the reef and luckily we had the Harbor Patrol escort and he rafted up next to use and positioned our boat for mooring. It was such an bummer for us since we had planned on sailing all day Saturday but now there is no way for us to do that without risking the same fate possibly without the Harbor Patrol escort.

The water visibility and temperature was perfect the entire weekend so we ended up doing a lot of snorkeling and swimming around the boat and close by beaches. Using the same dockline and spinnaker halyard, we swung from the port-side stern rail seats and periodically made it all the way around the bow to land in the water on the other side! It was a blast and there are videos and photos which I will post up here once I get them.

At mooring we didn’t have a real easy way of getting off of the boat with all of our gear since the inflatable did not come equipped with an outboard. The closest dinghy dock was too far away for us to shuttle back and forth using oars. There is a shoreboat (aka Water Tax) that will pick you up and drop you off for about 5 bucks a person. It wouldn’t be so bad to take them but the captains of the shoreboats at Avalon are just major a-holes. The are condescending and rude towards boaters that call for them on VHF channel 12 and the attitude they give you on the boat was plain unacceptable. For example, there were 4 of us during one of the trips and Mike had a $20 bill that he was going to pay for himself. Instead of making him change, the shoreboat captain just took his money and told him without any eye contact,

“Your friends will pay you back.”

I guess it can be kind of annoying to deal with boaters who may or may not know what they are doing all day long but if you can’t be pleasant and polite, go get another freaking job! I don’t know if they are all like this a-hole but this guy certainly was not a friendly character.

On the way back on Sunday we started out with a good solid 15 knots of wind from the south so we were excited to get going. Once we got about a hour out however, the winds completely died down again. We ended up motorsailing again the rest of the way back. Still without a working reverse gear I had one try to get the boat into dock which wasn’t very difficult as I have know done it dozens of times.

No luck with the rod. Dinner will have to come from the store

Motoring pass the Queen Mary (Taken from ashore by families of the crew)

Still no reverse

Nice and slow is the key

Almost there!

Tying her back to the slip at Long Beach after a fun 3 day weekend

Crew is tan and glad to be home

Lance on the helm

Long Beach harbor is indeed very big. Just getting out of the harbor took over 30 minutes. There were 5 of us on the boat with 3 who had little to no sailing experience. That meant the first couple hours of the trip had to be a sailing 101 crash course. They caught on real quick and we were headed out to sea.

The LA Harbor receives 10% of all the freight traffic around the world and is responsible for most of the import/export of good in the West Coast. That meant we had to play frogger with the tankers all morning until we were clear of the shipping lanes. The shipping lanes merge at the harbor so in order to clear them we had to travel nearly 12 nautical miles out before we are safe. Luckily by the time the tankers are near LA Harbor, they are practically sitting still waiting for orders from the tugboats so the traffic was not overly dangerous.

Having checked out the boat and underway around 9:45AM, we had very little wind for a few hours. We had some relaxing time ghosting along in 5 knots of wind while listening to music and playing the guitar.

Typically the wind comes out of the west but this past Sunday, we had a south wind in the morning and a northwest in the afternoon so we had to sail upwind going in and out. When the wind picked up in the afternoon we had some exciting sailing going at hull speed with reefed main and jib.

On the way we saw a couple of schools of dolphins and a few curious ones came very close to us for a nice photo op. We also had a few gulls following us along on the way back ready to drop bombs on us.

On the way in, my buddy Dan D. was on the helm and we were cruising at an exciting 6 and a half knots in a close reach with 10 knots of wind.

Here is a little video I shot while standing on the foredeck. Note the shot of the GPS to show the speed of the boat.

We got back in the the slip at around 7pm. I felt pretty good about the trip and very much looking forward to the 3 day trip coming up in July to Catalina Island.

I have only met him once before I decided to join the club while looking at their fleet in Long Beach. I don’t even know his name because he doesn’t introduce himself when you meet him in person or when he answers the phone. Every time I talk to him on the phone he speaks in a very condescending tone regardless what we are talking about. He assumes that you don’t know shit and/or are lying unless proven otherwise. If I had not gone to the Channel Islands Office I probably have chosen another club to join because of this guy.

I sort of understand where he comes from since he is constantly dealing with people who are new to sailing. It can be frustrating to do day after day dealing with members and students who are difficult to teach. I have heard many, if not all, sailing instructors go into a rant or two about hard-headed sailing students and their frustrating failures. This guy however is clearly jaded in the business and thinks everyone is stupid and unteachable. He should not be the person in charge of the club in such a busy marina. Maybe that’s just it, he doesn’t have to treat people nicely since there are plenty of business there to go around.

You may now be wondering what exactly has this guy done for me to have such disdain for him. Well, let me tell you a couple things. First time I’ve ever met him, I was in the Long Beach club office inquiring about becoming a member. I wandered about and read literature for close to 10 minutes before he decided to drop what he’s doing to acknowledge my visit. He clearly did not think I fit into the primary club member demographic as I was dressed casually and probably 20 years younger than the average member age. He responded to my questions with just enough info and enthusiasm to where it felt like getting your teeth pulled stone cold sober.

After I joined the club I made numerous phone calls to his office inquiring about the ASA 104 class schedule and it was more of the same. He makes you feel like he’s always got something better he needs to be doing and you are just wasting his time. I am guessing that Marina Sailing would probably do quite a bit more business if this guy was not there. Are there anyone else that have felt this about this man? Does anyone know what his name is what why he is allowed to run this portion of Marina Sailing’s business? As an active member who plan on chartering boats out of the Long Beach area for trips to Catalina Island, it would certainly make my life a lot easier if someone more personable was left in charge instead.

I am currently planning a trip to Catalina out of Long Beach so I have to continue to deal with this A-hole. We’ll see if he eventually warms up or if he just stays a douche bag forever…

This is what I saw this afternoon

We picked a 2006 Catalina 28MKII which was a beautiful boat. Only a year old with roller furling main and jib as well as all the canvas one can mount in the cockpit. Dodger, bimini cover, the whole kit and kaboodle. We were getting excited about the day as I quickly familiarized myself with this new boat. It has been awhile since I piloted an inboard diesel but it came to me fairly quickly. I quickly gave Mike a brief overview of the boat and we were off. The winds started out being about 15 knots even inside the main channel of the harbor so we only unfurled part of the main and the jib to be safe. As we were moving towards the mouth of the harbor everyone is on their way in. They were probably laughing at us but we didn’t care. We were determined to make it a day even if it meant white knuckling it all afternoon. Although winds were fairly strong but not too many white caps were visible in the area.

It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. We sailed towards Anacapa Island with the intention of making it out as far as we can before having to turn back around. Fury (The name of the boat) actually took us almost to the middle of the channel averaging about 5 1/2 knots before we turned around and sailed downwind almost all the way back to the harbor entrance. Not too many sea life were visible today but Mike did see a sea lion jump out of the water a couple of times which is pretty rare. Fury is the newest boat I have probably ever sailed and it was nice to be equipped with the latest of sailing technology. It made everything a little easier to handle especially sail handing but deep down inside I still like the look and feel of the older boats.

Steering with my toes under perfectly trimmed sails

Sailing downwind on the way home

On the way back we shook out the reef and even sailed Wing-On-Wing for awhile before making it back to the harbor. Since we technically had the boat until 8AM the next day, I called up the family and some friends to have dinner onboard before turning it back in. It was a beautiful day but unfortunately since we weren’t sure at first that we would go out we forgot to bring any cameras. The only evidence we had were pictures I took using my cell phone.

Mike’s ’soon to be’ MySpace profile photo

Nice coverage under dodger and bimini

In two weeks I will be going out for an overnight trip to get my ASA certification from the same marina so this was a great refresher sail before the class. Expect to get a complete run down of that trip in a couple of weeks.

Here is my 4-month-old baby girl Ava getting ready to be a the next Ellen MacArthur

Marina sailing is less like a club and more like a charter company. There are 6 locations all up and down the coast from Oxnard down to San Diego. There are over 20 additional sister companies that offer reciprocal memberships across the country which makes it even nicer. Most if not all of their boats are owned by individuals who chose to place their vessel with them to reduce the cost of ownership. It’s a pretty standard practice with chartering companies who do not wish to own their fleet so they can bring new boats into service without breaking their bank.

The upfront fee for becoming a member is 295 bucks plus a refundable $100 deposit. Monthly fees are 29 bucks and you pay for 3 months in advance. So that’s almost 500 bucks to get in before you even set foot on any of their boats. On the other hand, it is much cheaper when compared to owning your own yacht. Especially if you don’t go out every weekend.

Their fleet range anywhere from 25 ft all the way up to 50+ foot sailboats. Between all the locations I think there is only 1 powerboat but it might be an area they are trying to grow into. Daily rentals are from 8am to 8am with prices ranging from 150 bucks all the way up to 600 bucks a day for the big ones. During the week they will allow people to take the boat out for half or quarter days at pretty reasonable rates. Being in Ventura, I can take a boat out in the summer time after work out of the Channel Islands Harbor location and come back before sunset for a nice little BBQ on the boat before heading home.

I just joined last weekend and hopefully will get a chance to take one of the yachts out in the next couple of weeks to see how the processes works. Booking is done via a Web scheduling tool. Although not very aesthetically pleasing, it seems to be functional. If anyone in the Ventura/Oxnard area is interested in splitting the charter fee to go sailing just shoot me an email. I’m looking forward to getting out on the water this spring…