Our first Board Meeting of the year is now behind us. I am humbled by the amount of work that has been done to nurture the PTSA so far. Our past boards have left us with BIG shoes to fill. Some of the work was endemic to any organization and some was required by the City, State, Coast Guard, IRS, and U.S. Sailing. Much effort has been expended by creative people coming up with good ideas to promote sailing in Port Townsend. With four new members on the board, I assure you that the new board is making a huge effort to continue this tradition.

As your new Secretary, I am amazed by the numerous expenses to run this organization and the costs affiliated to “legally” run a race. We just paid our liability insurance for the year. I believe the premium was close to $950.00. I can not stress to you enough how important your membership dues will be in adequately funding our sport, so that we offer the best program ever. I am asking for your continued membership, $75.00 per boat owner, $20.00 per crew. I encourage boat owners to pay for their regular crew. This will allow your crew’s contact information to be in our e-mail system so that they will receive all notifications.Please remit your 2009 dues to:     Port Townsend Sailing Association

1044 Water Street,

Box 204

Port Townsend, WA 98368

Spring Race Series

Kris Nelson of Sirens has generously offered to continue her tradition of giving one FREE beer to each attendee at our Pre Season Meeting for skippers and their crews! Please join us: Thursday, April 2nd 6:00pm at Sirens of course…

There are 8 races in the Spring Series with 2 to be thrown out for scoring purposes, (unless there are weather cancellations?). More details about racing will come soon. In the meantime, please e-mail me ASAP at scharf@olympus.net, with a heads-up if you intend to race ALL of the races in the Spring Series!

Lastly, our goal is to get more boats out on the water, especially wooden boats! We want skippers and crews with ALL levels of experience. Of course our more serious racers will be well taken care of as well.

More details to follow, but for now, get your boats ready to go fast and have FUN!

Save March, 26 on your calendar.  Dick Rose is coming back to present another excellent class on racing rules.  There are a number of changes this year. There will be more announcements about this later.

Sincerely,  Steve Scharf