Blog: What's New at Y-Knot Sailing

Accessible Sailing on Lake George and elsewhere...

"AssistiveTouch" Helps Disabled to Use iPhone

David Pogue in the NY Times takes a look at Apple's AssistiveTouch technology which helps make the iPhone more accessible to those with disabilities.

"One new feature, called AssistiveTouch, is Apple’s accessibility team at its most creative. When you turn on this feature in Settings >> General >> Accessibility, a new, white circle appears at the bottom of the screen. It stays there all the time. When you tap it, you get a floating on-screen palette. Its buttons trigger motions and gestures on the iPhone screen without requiring hand or multiple-finger movement. All you have to be able to do is tap with a single finger — even a stylus you’re holding in your teeth or fist."

Read the entire article

Apple's Accessbility page

posted by Spencer Raggio @ 11/14/2011 12:26:00 PM 0 comments

Y-Knot Sailors in Flight

A report from Steve Mintz on a recent adventure for some Y-Knot sailors:

"On Oct. 8, Fritz Smith, Dave Whalen, Mark Carnevale and myself took advantage of the opportunity to ride and, indeed, pilot a real SAILplane. This opportunity was made possible by an organization, Freedom's Wings International. The fact that all four of us are still alive speaks for itself! For me, and I assume for the other "pilots", it was an exhilarating experience, to say the least! There was no charge for the experience. The actual glider is pictured with Mark at the "stick" (helm). What struck me as absolutely amazing, a SAILplane is very happy in light or dead air. WOW! Something to do on calm days too. The organization might consider basing a sailplane here at the Saratoga County Airport. An expression of interest might help the cause. There was no problem boarding. A Hoyer Lift was available, but passengers were lifted aboard. Also, the glider was adapted for the disabled. An experienced instructor is aboard to handle any controls that might be difficult. It was a relaxing activity for me."

Mark Carnevale is pictured above, and you can check out additional photos on the Adirondack Soaring Site.

posted by Spencer Raggio @ 11/02/2011 03:25:00 PM 0 comments

Y-Knot Volunteer and Sailor Rex Moon has passed away

Rex Moon, a long time Y-Knot volunteer and board member, has passed away. His family has named the new Y-Knot dock for memorial gifts. Here's the obituary in the Glens Falls Post Star.

posted by Spencer Raggio @ 11/02/2011 03:17:00 PM 0 comments

Aug. 18, 2011, Board of Managers' Meeting

Minutes from the Aug. 18, 2011, -Knot Board of Managers’ meeting in Clifton Park are submitted for consideration as follows:

In attendance were Spencer Raggio, Don Miller (Vice President), Mark Carnevale (President), Steve Mintz, Rick Irvine (Treasurer), and Dan Byrnes (Secretary).

Regarding boat repairs and maintenance: Three of the six boats (Martins) we use for individual sailing now have tarps. We discussed getting three more, but took no action at this time.

Before it can be launched back into the water, Martin 51 will need a light gel coat repair after it returned from Montreal. Apparently during the trip it had slipped off of one of the supports.

Rick reported that the decals are on one boat and we're waiting to see how they hold up. We may need to laminate over a decal to make the artwork hold up. All the boats will have decals by the start of next season.

Mark brought up the new dock plans. The new dock will allow Y-Knot to schedule more racing days and have more sailors.

Regarding fund-raising, the Board discussed putting up something on the Web inviting people to purchase Y-Knot merchandise by calling the camp. Rick offered to mock up something for review at the next meeting.

The Board discussed the Martin 16 that is being offered for sale in Rochester for $16,995. The Board reached a consensus that while we'd like to have a seventh boat, we don't really need it at this time.

The Board made a unanimous decision to name Mike Hall volunteer of the year. He made every outing this year, including volunteer training day, and was often one of the first persons to show up. We are going to present him with a gift certificate to West Marine for $75.00. Dan volunteered to pick up the certificate for the Sailabration Banquet, Nov. 12.

Regarding Regatta favors, on the last two outings we've run out of bottled water. In Toronto at the 2009 Mobility Cup, they gave out water bottles and had jugs to fill them up. Rick offered to make arrangements to engrave water bottles to be handed out as

Y-Knot has heard several requests from people to move its Regatta back by a week or so in September so it doesn't compete with other events in the disabled sailing calendar, such as the Mobility Cup at the end of August and a disabled bike race in Vermont usually the first week after Labor Day. The question was raised of whether we would actually consider doing it later next year, in 2012. No decision was made to make a change at this time.

We discussed repairs that are needed to one sail. Volunteer Bob Flanagan has told us that he has an industrial strength sewing machine and would be able to work on Dacron sails. We're going to coordinate whether the sail is Dacron and we can get some patch material for Bob to effect repairs.

We have a windlass for automatically trimming sails using a servo control, but we are not sure that anyone knows how to hook it up. Spencer is going to contact Steve Albee in Canada about getting a second autohelm into our inventory.

Our next meeting will be Nov. 12, 3:00 p.m., with the Sailabration Banquet to follow at 5:00.

Submitted by Dan Byrnes, November 12, 2011.

Labels: Y-Knot Board Minutes

posted by Friends of the Penguin @ 8/18/2011 04:51:00 PM 0 comments

June 14, 2011, Board of Managers' Meeting

Minutes from the June 14, 2011, Y-Knot Board of Managers’ meeting minutes in Clifton Park are submitted for consideration as follows:

In attendance were Scott Stewart (Vice President), Spencer Raggio, Don Miller (Vice President), Mark Carnevale (President), Keith Edwards (YMCA Camp Chingachgook liaison), Trish McCluskey, Dave Whalen (via Skype), Steve Mintz, and Dan Byrnes (Secretary).

Don moved to accept the April 19 and May 17 minutes. Scott seconded and the motion passed.

Keith had the budget report, and he said we had about $525 of new donations in the last month. Don told us that Eric Rose said he would inquire about a grant from Vermont Country Stores and Keith said we’ve received some donations from that company before.

Regarding boat maintenance, Keith said the tarps are finished. Mark said he’s seen them and they look great. Graphics have been put on some of the boats and will be applied this year, but the ones for the transom need to be tweaked a bit. Rick Irvine will be working on the new dimensions for that. Our goal is to get one more done by the time AQVA happens in July.

Regarding the new waterfront plans, Keith says he now has dredging permits from the Lake George Park Association.

The Americaid raffles went pretty well, Keith said. We participated in three days of raffles and look forward to receiving a check for about $3,000.

At the Americaid rally, Keith said he spoke with Joan Faron who publishes Lake George Guide. She offered to list Y-Knot activities in their online information resource: http://www.LakeGeorgeGuide.com/ and in the magazine.

Keith said we’ll be testing out the new deck mounted compass on Saturday.

Regarding plans for the Y-Knot Regatta in September, Don said we won’t be able to attract a critical mass of 2.4 meter boats to our Regatta because of a class nationals conflict that weekend. We decided we may put a 2.4 meter event on the schedule for next year.

While attending one of our sail days, Karen Malcolm proposed that we should have the slings washed. Karen offered to do that, but she wasn’t sure what kind of turn around she could deliver. Keith said the slings can be washed at camp and he’ll do that. Thank you, Karen, for letting us know they could be washed.

We have 3 people confirmed for the Ti Race this weekend. Steve will call Kyle Lavoy to make sure the race committee knows there are at least 3 Martin 16s coming over from the Camp.

The Board all agreed that Billy Rankin’s regular Monday morning recaps of what happened the previous sailing day has been a great addition to the communications program for Y-Knot.

Our next meeting will be August 16, at the Clifton Park YMCA.

Submitted by Dan Byrnes, November 12, 2011.

Labels: Y-Knot Board Minutes

posted by Friends of the Penguin @ 6/15/2011 04:47:00 PM 0 comments

May 17, 2011, Board of Managers' Meeting Minutes

Y-Knot Board of Managers’ meeting minutes in Clifton Park are submitted for consideration as follows:

In attendance were Scott Stewart (Vice President), Spencer Raggio, Don Miller (Vice President), Mark Carnevale (President), Steve Mintz, Rick Irvine (Treasurer), Keith Edwards (YMCA Camp Chingachgook liaison), Billy Rankin (YMCA Chinghachook Director), Trish McCluskey, Dave Whalen (via Skype), and Dan Byrnes (Secretary).

Rick reported that there is $9,500 in the bank. Donations include $1,000 from Stewart’s Shops and $2,000 from Powermat for a matching grant. In addition, we received $1,720 from the Pauline Whalen Memorial Fund. Don mentioned that the Rainbows used in the spring Learn to Sail community sailing classes looked great and we thanked Keith for his work in boat repair.

We have been invited to attend Nyack this Friday, but no one from this group is able to attend.

Regarding boat repairs, Pathfinder backed into the port side of No Limit during the spring sailing class two Sundays ago. A patch from a repair some years ago popped off and it will need repairs subsequently this fall.

Tarps are being built with a lot of extra space for signage which could be used to tell visitors to the camp about Y-Knot. Tarp costs will be $230/each, for a total of about $1,500. Our canvas maker Bill Weatherbee has done a great job with the tarps.

Rick Irvine showed a printed banner that can be used as a table runner. It says Welcome Y-Knot Sailors and Volunteers to Camp Chingachgook on Lake George.

Rick and Keith showed pictures of artwork for graphics that are going to be applied to the hull's freeboard and transoms of the Martins. They look great.

We plan to acquire the hyphenated URL Y-KnotSailing.org, but Spencer wanted to remind everyone whenever we write down or print our URL, it is best to be consistent and use YKnotSailing.org without the hyphen.

Keith reported that he bought a Ritchie Navigation sailing compass to try out to see if it’s going to work for us. Keith plans to Velcro it just behind the mast and in front of the splash board. They are $58/each, from Port Supply (West Marine).

Regarding the DisAboom.com Web site directory listing, Spencer contacted them about listing Y-Knot Sailing. He never heard back. Spencer also contacted U.S. Sailing, who got back right away with a positive letter and Y-Knot is now listed in the directory there.

Don said that when he was at Havastraw, NY, a few weeks ago, someone there offered to bring a 2.4 meter boat up for our Regatta in September. Spencer said we could put the word out and see if anyone else would like to bring other boats in so we could get a racing quorum of at least 4 boats. Don said he would get in touch with his contact with the 2.4 meter boat to see if he’d like to put something together.

The Americade Raffle is coming up and the sponsors have asked us to fill some spots for the raffle on June 7-11, 11-2 and 2-5 PM. He’d like us to have 8 people to fill these slots. One or two people need to go to the training session on the 6th and Keith will represent us at the training session.

No Limit’s furling jib is starting to wear out, Keith said. Spencer suggested at least a 100% jib to replace it. Our sailmaker Ed Trombley asked for $550 including the cover. The Board told Keith, go ahead.

Keith asked if people can register to volunteer earlier using the web site. We decided to try to make a greater effort to use the email addresses to gather reservations and that Billy was going to step forward and make that happen in conjunction with the weekly email updates he promised to send out.

Eight volunteers showed up for volunteer training day. Six were new.

Don brought up the idea of member dues which have been a source of income in the past. Spencer suggested, pay so much get a membership, a little more, get a membership and a hat. Rick agreed to make up a sign that would be used to remind people to support Y-Knot Sailing by becoming a member and buying our merchandise.

Submitted by Dan Byrnes June 14, 2011.

posted by Friends of the Penguin @ 6/14/2011 04:05:00 PM 0 comments

Previous Posts

Archives