Westlake Yacht Club in the News

Conejo Valley Life, Feb 11, 2005 Westlake Yacht Club Hosts Sailing Seminar On January 30, Westlake Yacht Club welcomed local sailing enthusiasts to its Mid-Winter Seminar. Attendees included Club members and not-yet-members, beginners and experienced sailors, young sailors and some who fondly remember being young once. Sailing guru Lyle Schyler explained sailing's "rules of the road" and shared some of his secrets to winning races. After the chalk talk, Lyle lead the group out onto the lake to try out their newly-learned skills. Sailing rules specify which boat has the right of way in any particular circumstance. By adhering to these rules, sailors minimize the risk of collisions and ensure a fair contest. Sailing's equivalent of the DMV Handbook is U.S. Sailing's The Rules of Racing of Sailing. As Lyle explained, rule #1 is that boats on a starboard tack have the right of way over boats on port tack. So if you're at a regatta and you hear sailors yelling "STARBOARD!!!!", they're not cheering for the leader, they're forcefully asserting their right of way. (A boat is on starboard tack when the wind is coming from its starboard side - the right side as you face the bow). After "starboard", Lyle's students learned a whole vocabulary of mostly appropriate yells. Lyle's was a multi-media presentation, complete a laptop with Power Point, a white board, three model boats named Homer, Bart, and Krusty, a blow drier and a ping pong ball. The highlight (to a physicist) was Lyle's demonstration of the Bernoulli principle. With the blow drier pointed straight up, Lyle suspended the ping pong ball in midair in the air stream. "That's not a great surprise" he said, "but watch this". He then turned the blow drier so that the air stream was tilted from the vertical. The ball remained suspended in midair. "Why doesn't the ball fall now?" Lyle continued, "because the air is flowing faster over the top of the ball, lowering the pressure there, and creating LIFT!" Lyle then explained how this same effect allows airplanes to fly and sailboats to go upwind. By then, class work was over and everyone eagerly headed for the dock, rigged their boats, and put Bernoulli to work. Lyle may have forgotten to explain "jibe", as one student got an intimate introduction to the lake. Oh well, that's what hot showers are for. Thanks to Patrick Shaw for helping to right a capsized boat. If you missed this seminar, there'll be another on May 1st, so keep checking your Conejo Valley Life. -- Robert Piccioni, Rear Commodore