High Tidings Winter 2023-2024
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Commodore Remarks
We had a good turnout for the club Annual Meeting in November. As usual, the appetizers brought by members for the after-meeting happy hour were superb. Congratulations to Elio Betty, recipient of the Commodore’s Trophy, for his meticulous work on our beautifully restored launch!
What fun to “Splice the Main Brace” with members at the post Old Saybrook Torch Light Parade event at Myrcene brewery. They were an excellent host with a great beer selection (and other beverages) to sample, plus they provided an area for NCYC to spread out with pizzas and appetizers to share. Keep your ears and emails open for a similar event after the holidays in the off-season.
At the waterfront, we have OS town floating docks secured between ours and the ice propellers deployed waiting for temperatures to drop. They are controlled using the breakers at the power pedestals. We shut them down when our infamous Bluetits swimmers arrive for a breathtaking plunge each week.
In case you’re wondering, the town sends a check to the club each year for winter storage of their docks.
some, but not all, of the bluetits enjoying a warming nosh after their latest plunge.
Our fall clean-up day was well attended completing all necessary activities to secure the club and small boats for the off-season. Rich Peters added a timber dinghy outboard storage rack along the south bulkhead so we can move the rack that was up against the deck and clear that area of engines and fuel tanks.
Soon you will be receiving your invoice for club dues along with a check list for activities you are willing to assist or participate in. Keep in mind that we are able to keep the rate of our dues down due to the volunteer efforts of the membership. Our committee chair persons use this list to reach out for support in each of their areas. There are many options to choose from: Activities committee and help with an event; Junior Sailing and help repair boats or fill a duty officer time slot during the sailing school; Grounds committee and help keep our landscape flower beds looking top notch or volunteer to be a weed whacker. Spring and Fall, we have the work parties to prepare the club for the boating season and to store things away for the off-season. These are all opportunities to get involved, meet other members, and be a part our NCYC crew! There is also the option to make a contribution in lieu of volunteer time. This is much appreciated and helps the NCYC stay on even keel.
Keep warm, read some good sailing stories and soon we will be back on the water!
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
- John Masefield
Lou Vinciguerra
Commodore, NCYC
Vice Commodore Remarks
Many thanks to all of the volunteers who did a thorough cleaning of the clubhouse. It will make light work in the spring.
As a Club, we are doing more local shopping and supporting our restaurants. Big box stores and online are great but local shopping helps the community. I heard that a brewery is coming to Main Street in Old Saybrook. Maybe it will be open by the spring.
It was good to see so many of you after the Old Saybrook Parade. Take a drive to Ivoryton to see the lights on the town green when you have a chance.
Just a note that the clubhouse is closed for the winter. Feel free to walk the grounds and see the change in seasons. It varies with the weather but always very pretty.
Wishing you an enjoyable holiday season and winter. And a Happy New Year!
Linda Tuzzio
Vice Commodore
Membership
Potential Members – Posted 12/12/2023
Nicole and David Pilon
Old Saybrook, CT
Nicole: Owner Bouvier Insurance
David: Sales Bouvier Insurance
Children: Bethany (1999), Adam (2003)
Proposed by: Caroline Miller
Support letters: Chan, Paulson, Pavlos
Boat: Owned 23’ Pearson and Beneteau 44’
Boating: They have owned several sailboats as well as chartered in the Abaco Islands, BVI and Thailand. They have had some racing experience out of the Thames YC.
Skills/interests: They are very excited to join to learn from our more experienced sailors. They look forward to helping around the Club.
Dave and Delores Taricani
Old Saybrook, CT
Delores: retired
Dave: Fraud Advisor
Proposed by: Tom Tydeman
Support letters: Miller, Peters, Tuzzio
Boating: David races on Airbus on Thursday evenings, they have experience sailing with friends and fishing.
Skills/interests: They have joined Julie and Tom for some Club events and have really appreciated how welcoming our members are. They were happy to see that the Club included a donation table for the local food bank. NCYC seems like a club they would like to be a part of. Dave has enjoyed racing with Tom on Thursday evenings. Dave and Delores hope to introduce their son to sailing through the Jr. Sailing Program.
Scott Richard and Maureen Auger
Old Saybrook, CT
Maureen: Social Worker/Trainer
Scott: Engineering Project Manager
Proposed by: Jean Golicz
Support letters: Miller, Reddington, Pavlos
Boating: Scott grew up on the Thames River and has had several fishing boats. They had a 25’ Owens Express Cabin Cruiser and five years ago bought a 28’ Southern Cross Cutter
Skills/interests: They now live in Old Saybrook and are available to help around the Club particular helping in technical capacity to utilize his engineering skills, help with the mooring fields, and assisting on race nights.
Jr. Sailing
Winter means planning for Summer 2024! From hiring instructors to opening registration, the Junior Sailing Committee is hard at work. As you start to think of ways to get involved at NCYC, the junior sailing committee is always happy to have new members. Join the fun!
Tuition for NCYC members is $548 (20% discount off of the non-member $685 fee) and registration for club members opens in January. Last summer we filled up by mid-March and we anticipate another full season.
2024 Sessions dates are:
· Session 1: June 24 – July 5 (no class July 4th)
· Session 2: July 8 – July 19
· Session 3: July 22 – August 2
Check out the junior sailing page on our club website for all the details. Questions? Email me using the button below.
Stay tuned for an email announcing that registration is open!
Melissa Mason
Junior Sailing Chair
Thursday Night Racing
The racing is over for this season, the results are tallied, and the trophies were awarded at the Fall Annual Meeting and Social. Congratulations to Osprey “smallest boat with the largest crew” for the overall win; to Shearwater for second place overall; and to Airbus, third place overall.
[Ed. note- Not to brag or anything, but my boat, Kewalo (aka Lil’ Pokey) finished a respectable sixth overall, thanks to Jr. Sailing instructors Amy V. and Alex B. who delivered Kewalo’s best results (third and second) when they were on board.] [And when you become newsletter editor, you can brag about your boat, too.]
Moby Dick’s Ishmael states, “Whenever I get grim and spleenful; Whenever I feel like knocking hats off people’s heads in the street; Whenever it is a damp and snowy December in my soul; I choose any path and ten to one it follows water. Water that flows down hills, in creeks, streams and rivers to the sea. The sea, where each man or woman as in a mirror finds themselves.”
The appearance and voice of the sea is a tangible heritage to all of us, weaving its mystifying way toward that original source of life, the great oceans of the earth. Some portion of the salt seas moves in the blood stream of us all, and although we may have been lulled into temporary apathy by a period of ancestral absence from the maritime scene, our sensatory faculties are aroused by the magic of an encounter with the sea, its ships, sailboats, and sailors.
Ships! Those mistresses of the sea which people have built and served since time immemorial. From the earliest coracle made of skins stretched on a wicker frame, or a crude hull hewn from a solid log, through the infinite transition of wooden vessels conceived and made in every shape, size and rig imaginable, and thence down to our own time of steam, steel, and fiberglass; the romance of ships and men and women who sail them is undiminished.
At North Cove Yacht Club, we are very fortunate to have both the Junior Sailing program and our Thursday Night Racing series.
One of the best things about junior sailing is the open-minded approach that young people have. Exposing them (and adults new to sailing) to competition teaches them more than any amount of instruction could. Such competition encourages a young person’s development, and coaches like Amy Vinciguerra, Alex Beauchene, and their team refine this development into valuable skills.
But perhaps the most important asset gained from being around the water at an early age is that, like Ishmael, children develop a love of the atmosphere of boats and the sea that will stay with them always. Most girls and boys are entranced by the water anyway, so it is not hard to channel this natural inclination. Investing time and money in teaching youngsters about yachting is not a one-sided proposition, for youngsters bring an immense amount of talent and enthusiasm to yachting. If we who love sailboat racing want to see it prosper, we simply have to take pains to interest young people in participation. Most of the sailboat racing champions in the United States and international competitions are the product of organized junior sailing programs such as ours.
In our Thursday Night Racing sailing boats, there is a high degree of sophistication. There are fantastic sail developments, modern winches, slotted head stays, sophisticated travelers, deck sweeper jibs, spinnakers of every shape and material weight, rod rigging and a plethora of gadgets to help sailing boats go fast. Necessity is still the mother of inventions, however, and good ideas for making a boat sail faster are often pioneered by the ordinary sailor out on the racecourse. Thursday night racing is a great way to improve your sailing skills and we embrace all new participants in a non-judgmental, helpful way.
It has been another great year at NCYC, and for me, I hope that next year will be even greater with my newly rebuilt hips.
May all of you have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, fair winds, following seas, and a favorable tide.
Joe Carroll
Activities
Happy Holidays everyone!
Just wanted to say thanks again for a great first year of events planning! As you know, Lucy Armstrong is moving on to be a very busy grandmother and LOVING every minute! But this leaves an opening for an Events Co-leader. If you are interested I’m looking for two people to co and co-co lead! This also means we will be asking for more volunteers. Think about it, and we will revisit at the March Events Meeting brunch! As you can tell, I have already been working on a calendar of events for next year!! But, I would like the whole club membership’s feedback. I have created a brief ten question survey to get your opinions. PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO REPLY!! Comments are in encouraged and welcome. Here is the link.
I wish everyone the Happiest of Holidays and a safe and healthy New Year!!
Melissa Clark, Activities Chair
From the Chaplain’s Quiet Corner of the Cove
At The End Of The Year
By John O’Donohue
As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.
The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.
Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.
The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.
The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.
We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
May the memories of the past year gently wash over you like an incoming tide and the promises of a new year be moored in your heart...
Peace, Jean
Plum Island : The Lab
This piece is excerpted from a Bloomberg News article and used with permission. To read the entire article, follow the link at the end of the article. Many thanks to Chris Bazinet and John Waanders for their invaluable assistance in getting this article to the Club.
A Mysterious Lab is Shutting Down. It’s the End of an Era for Biosecurity.
by Madison Muller
About a mile off the tip of Long Island’s North Fork, past a patch of rough sea and a long, sharp reef, there’s a wild, sequestered place known as Plum Island. Some may have heard of it: It’s been rumored to be the origin point of Lyme disease and the Montauk Monster, and made a cameo in The Silence of the Lambs. Some call it the Area 51 of the East Coast.
That’s because on Plum Island, scientists study some of the most infectious pathogens known to man—rinderpest and the foot-and-mouth disease virus, two of the most feared animal contagions of all time. A single detection of foot-and-mouth disease in the wild could wipe out entire herds of livestock and completely halt international agricultural trade. It’s the reason why travelers must declare if they’ve been on a farm, ranch, or pasture when entering the United States. Plum Island is currently the only place in the country where the live virus can even be studied.
Plum Island Animal Disease Center will soon be decommissioned, to be replaced by a new, billion-dollar facility in the middle of the country. As Plum Island’s facilities have aged, battered by time and the salty sea air, we’ve developed things like HEPA filters, airlocks, and moonsuits that allow us to build these labs anywhere. That’s made it hard to justify the exorbitant expenses of an island operation that requires its own power grid, fire department and over a million gallons of diesel every year. Government officials have decided that it’d be easier, cheaper, and more efficient to do this work elsewhere. Somewhere less remote.
The new facility will open in the next couple of years in Manhattan, Kansas-a small city of about 50,000. It is one of 69 so-called Biosafety Level 4, or BSL-4 facilities in operation, under construction, or planned worldwide. Increasingly, like Plum Island’s replacement, they are located in places where if a pathogen escaped, it could spread quickly with catastrophic results. It’s a trade-off between cost and safety. Because there will always be risks. No matter how safe and secure a lab is.
Getting to Plum Island is only possible via ferry, after an extensive background check by the US Department of Homeland Security, which owns and operates the facility. Aged blue school buses transport the some 400 island employees, while ospreys keep watch of their comings and goings from nests atop retired power lines. Curious locals have tried, and failed, to sneak onto Plum Island’s pristine beaches over the past, lured by myths about its checkered past, like a rumor that scientists at Plum Island created Lyme disease as a biological weapon. (The first cases of the tick-borne illness were identified just 17 miles northwest of the island in Lyme, Connecticut. There is no evidence Lyme was created in a lab.)
There’s been some trial-and-error [in lab biocontainment] over the years – the fact that it was on an island was always a good buffer. In 1978, for example, foot-and-mouth disease accidentally escaped from the lab. Fortunately, it never left the island. In an investigative report following the incident, Plum Island’s director at the time said that the water barrier was instrumental in containing the spread of the disease, according to a Congressional hearing. When Plum Island lost power for three hours in 2002, there were fears that containment could have been compromised. Inspectors said at the time that here was no breach and no animals showed any signs of illness.
Nowadays, all the research at Plum Island happens in newer labs where ultra-contagious pathogens are kept behind strict lock-and-key. The high-containment labs, known as BSL-3-Ag are only accessible via floor-to-ceiling turnstiles manned by guards at all times. Scientists working in those labs must swap their street clothes – including earrings, watches, and even wedding rings – for scrubs and cotton socks. Full-body white Tyvek suits are worn when studying the most infectious pathogens. To go to the cafeteria or even other labs, scientists have to take a five minute shower. Nothing is allowed to be taken out of containment. If scientists worked with infected animals, they must quarantine themselves from livestock for a minimum of five days.
High-containment labs have layers upon layers of protection for scientists, the environment and the public. Machinery inside the labs keeps tainted air from being recirculated and thermal waste decontamination systems ensure that there’s no pathogens lurking in scientists’ trash. And though it may sound more like one of the Plum Island myths, it’s true that wild animals found on the island – such as the deer that sometimes swim there – are killed on-site by a sharp-shooter employee that some call Grandma Deadeye.
But while Plum Island’s location gives it an advantage by keeping it far away from people and animals, it’s also become an increasingly burdensome and some say unnecessary way to conduct this research. Upkeep alone costs the government $50 to $60 million per year.
“With the advent of new containment technologies, it is now safe to build high containment facilities on the mainland,” said Chris Schutta, the head of biorisk management at Plum Island.
Most of the staff at Plum Island will not be moving to Kansas. Those who do plan to move are mostly USDA scientists. A public sale of Plum Island was supposed to help blunt the costs of building [the Kansas facility.] But those plans were scrapped in 2020, after years of advocacy from environmental groups and some local lawmakers, who wanted to protect the island’s thriving ecological diversity and unique history.
[Tod] Companion, Plum Island’s director, doesn’t want it to be forgotten once it shutters. “I’m really hoping we can capture the legacy,” he said from his office overlooking the Long Island Sound.
one of the fresh water ponds on plum island
-Our NCYC Club Stewards / Launch Captains-
Tatiana Anderson
32 River Road
Old Saybrook, CT. 06475
Stefan Golicz
536 Main Street
Old Saybrook, CT. 06457
Steven Lee
2 Maynard Circle
Old Saybrook, CT. 06475
Jack Cardello
2 Deerfield Road
Old Saybrook, CT. 06475
From the Editor
A big thank you to everyone who contributed to this Winter Issue! Photos by: Eddie Addeo, Chris Bazinet, Elio Betty, Ann Chan, Dan Ferrier, Avy Kaufman, Jon Mason, Caroline Miller, Deb Paulson, Lauren Peters, Kathy Reddington, Pete Stump, Amy Vinciguerra.
The next issue will be March 2024. Enjoy the winter and Happy Holidays!