Tag Archives: Yacht club

Boating On The California Delta

San Joaquin Yacht Club at Bethel Island
San Joaquin Yacht Club at Bethel Island Photo Credit: Bill Wells

By Bill Wells

Every year in the spring when the weather turns warmer and the rains subside, thoughts turn to boating in the Delta. Certainly there are many diehard boaters about in the winter months too, but the advent of spring brings them out in force. Most resorts and restaurants that close for a winter vacation reopen in mid – April and opening day of yachting parades are scheduled all around the Delta and San Francisco Bay area.

The term “opening day” was coined in 1903 when the drawbridge in Belvedere was opened to let the “arcs” or houseboats travel from Belvedere Lagoon to their summer location in Belvedere Cove. Since then the various yacht clubs have called the beginning of yachting season in the area “opening day.”

Korths Pirates Lair & Delta Loop
Korths Pirates Lair & Delta Loop Photo Credit: Bill Wells

Opening day parades are held all over the Delta during April with major parades sponsored by the Stockton Yacht Club, Sacramento Yacht Club and the San Joaquin Yacht Club. You don?t need to be a club member to participate in a parade with your boat. You contact the sponsoring club to register beforehand and generally there is a small fee to cover administrative expenses.

No boat? No problem! There are many shore side venues where you can watch the parades as they pass by.After the opening day celebrations, boating season begins in earnest. By mid-May the weather is generally consistently warm and there are parties and events all over the Delta every weekend from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

Barron Hilton has been sponsoring a fireworks display at Venice Island on the San Joaquin River for more than 50 years. Hilton explains that he originally started setting off fireworks for his children at his duck club. “I began shooting rockets and fountains on the levee for the benefit of my eight children,” he said. “I noticed that four or five boats stopped by to watch, then a dozen the next year, and about three times that number the third year. From there, it just seemed to grow like an amoeba.”

Today, Hilton produces a 30 minute show, choreographed to patriotic music, and fired by professional technicians from Pyro Spectaculars.

Bill Dutra of the Dutra Group provides a barge that serves as a floating launching pad for the fireworks. Even though the fireworks show itself only lasts a half hour, the boats start arriving for the event weeks beforehand. Many people anchor their yacht near the island and use their shore boats to commute to work at their area jobs. The thousands of boats are grouped so that there are pathways to travel between boats and many groups secure the same space year after year.

Later in July local folk head to Village West Marina in Stockton for the annual “Taste of the Delta” event. This is a strolling wine and food tasting showcasing Delta area wineries and restaurants. It is accessible by boat (or car) and is a very popular event, one of the many available to boaters in the Delta. With almost 60,000 acres of water and 1,000 miles of waterways, the Delta fun never ends.

Written by Bill Wells, Executive Director,
California Delta Chambers & Visitor’s Bureau

 

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Rambling around the California Delta

By Bill Wells
Reprinted at the request of Bill, first published in Bay & Delta Yachtsman Magazine

Doug with a nice striper caught at Snug Harbor
Doug with a nice striper caught at Snug Harbor

Fishing is Great

I have to tell you the fishing in the Delta lately has been great.  I think it is because of all the rain this year keeping the rivers full.  I met Dillon Pitts, Alex Chatoian, and Andrew Chatoian at Vieira’s Resort.  They had just finished a day of fishing downstream on the Sacramento River.  They had four nice striped bass to show for their efforts.

The folks at Snug Harbor have likewise been seeing some large stripers caught just offshore from the resort on Steamboat Slough.  My man in Oakley, Chris Lauritzen of Lauritzen Yacht Harbor reports excellent fishing down that way too.

Diablo Sail & Power Squadron

Ox Bow Marina in Isleton was the destination for the Diablo Sail and Power Squadron on the weekend of May 14 & 15.  I had been emailing back and forth with member Geoff Goselin for a while and he invited Sue and I to join them.  Eight boats including a Hunter 340 sailboat made the trek from the Bethel Island area to enjoy the guest docks at Ox Bow.  On Saturday the 14th they held a barbecue and games on the marina grassy area near the office.  Sue and I arrived in the area just as things were winding down.  Yacht broker Nina Ankele attended the lunch and told us that we missed a great meal.

The Diablo Sail & Power Squadron is one of 450 local squadrons of the United States Power Squadron (USPS).  The organization started as a power boat squadron at the Boston Yacht Club about 1913.  Later the USPS split off as a separate organization and today has about 45,000 members nationwide.  Active members may fly the USPS flag in lieu of the yacht ensign or the U.S. flag in U.S. waters.  The flag has 13 alternating vertical blue and white stripes with a red canton containing a circle of 13 stars surrounding a fouled anchor.

We took a walk out on the dock and met several of the members and got to look at some of their boats as well as talk to the crews.  We met Ralph Price, Gary Smith, Pepper Wardle, and Les Johnson all Diablo members and former district officers of the USPS organization.  Later, at 1800 hours we were invited to join the club for dinner at the Ox Bow clubhouse.  After cocktails we enjoyed an excellent dinner prepared by squadron chef Mark Galbraith and his lovely wife Brenda.  They cooked a large amount of mouth watering ribs and chicken as well as salad, rolls, and potatoes.  For dessert we had cake and coffee.

We met Guy Schwartz the commander of the club.  I inquired and they said the power squadrons have commanders instead of commodores as most yacht clubs.  The Power Squadron is heavily involved in boater education and has many courses ranging from basic boat familiarity all the way to advanced navigation.  The Diablo Sail & Power Squadron has been around since 1958 and invites all sailors and power boaters in the San Francisco Bay and Delta areas to join and participate in their activities.

Many people believe as I do that you can never have enough education and are constantly honing their skills as mariners.  The USPS has courses and seminars covering almost every aspect of boating from reading a chart to weather forecasting and everything in between.  Here is a way to get more education and hang out with some great folks at the same time.    You can check out their website at: www.diablosquadron.org

Headed to Franks tract for the high speed run
Headed to Franks tract for the high speed run

A View to a Thrill

Hydro Dave Hernandez invited me to take a ride on his race boat.  Hydro is one of the coolest people in the Delta, just having a name like Hydro Dave makes you stand out from the crowd.  He was in Bethel Island for a few days helping his lady friend Cathy Whitlock do some work on her boat collection.  It had been fairly windy for a few days but when I met Dave on a Friday at noon there was just a light breeze that barely stirred the water surface in Frank’s Tract.

I walked down to the dock and Dave and Cathy had just returned from a ride.  I heard them coming from several hundred yards away thanks to the over the transom exhaust on Dave’s boat.  He pulled close to the dock and killed the engine a few feet away and coasted right up to the pier.  The boat has a Casile V-drive with a crash box type of transmission with forward and neutral and no clutch or reverse gear.  In a race the engine is revved up to a few thousand rpm in neutral and then shoved into gear, naturally this causes a lot of wear on the moving parts.  Dave leaves it in gear when he is not actually racing to save wear and tear on the unit.  Dave said he had originally built the boat from a Brendella hull in 1979 and built the motor in 1989.  The boat looks brand new and had a beautiful custom paint job that Dave created himself.  If you have seen a few of Dave’s paint jobs you will recognize his distinctive style with scallops and symbols that are meaningful to him.  Looking at one of Dave’s boats is like looking at a Van Gogh or Picasso painting.  They are all different but you instantly recognize the artist by the style of the work.

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