A HUGE THANK YOU to our bingo and fund raising volunteers this past year! Peter Brown, Kevin Anseeuw, Tom Saunders, Rob Davidson, Brian Byczkowsky & Paul Krestanowich. Our club should be able to land another couple of bingos this year to add one more Optimist to our kid's sailing fleet (5 total) as well as start the ball rolling on fundraising for a 24' x 30' storage garage for our growing fleet, marks, parts, etc.  We've also begun applying for various grants to help us offset some of the costs of our storage facility. Over the past few years we've had huge support from many families at West Hawk and surrounding lakes in the way of donations of sail boats and the lodging of our Sailing Manitoba coaches when they come from the city to help us run our Learn to Sail classes.  A huge thank you to these families! Marty Halprin - for allowing us the use of his beach & dock to run most of our programs for 6 straight years! Tom Saunders - coaching our advanced classes every year Paul & Sue Cunningham - bunking & feeding our MSA coaches Bob & Nancy Hayden - bunking & feeding our MSA coaches 2010 provided some excellent weather through most of July, August & September, it seemed like almost every day provided for some wind to throw up the sails and hit the lake.  Below is a link to the "Stealth Pig", Derek Hayden's Albacore on full broil with winds gusting 40-60 kph, with Tom Saunders at the helm and Derek crewing they show the true exhilaration of dinghy sailing at West Hawk Lake! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZjpriLX9as 2010 was the 5th full summer since the West Hawk Lake Yacht Club was resurrected and because of the hard work of the club’s volunteers the sailing activity on West Hawk was again incredible this year.  The number of boats out sailing this year reflected this; Optimists, Albacores, Cadet, Enterprise, Lasers, Laser II, Fireballs, Y-Flyer, Tumbleweed, Code 40, Kolibri, Lazy E, Osprey, & an assortment of Hobie’s and wind surfers. For the first time the Learn to Sail classes were run using exclusively our own club boats as well as 4 loaners from our friends at Falcon Yacht Club (thank you Jean Trottier!).  Zig Zag Yacht Club in Clearwater Bay, Ontario also lent us a hand with the use of three of their certified instructors (thank you Garry Smith!) as we completely filled every LTS class (beginner, advanced & adult).  Max Hall, Steve Penman, & Jack Wiebe provided excellent fun coaching.  Even our Club Commodore Tom Saunders, not an easy man to please when it come to instructors, wholeheartedly invited these 3 guys back to help us with the LTS classes in 2011!  We ran a full beginners kids class in the morning & afternoon, a full adult class in the afternoon and an all day advanced class for the older kids.   2010 was also the first time races were run for the LTS class participants with the results below: Eastman Opti Championships:  1st-Nathan Agar-WHLYC, 2nd-Joey Raymond-Barren Lake, 3rd-Michael Balshaw-WHLYC, 4th-Matthew Watt-Barren Lake, 5th-Jillian Hayden-WHLYC, 6th-Brennan Agar-WHLYC, 7th-Adam Krestanowich-WHLYC, 8th-Mary Balshaw-WHLYC, 9th-Samantha Hayden-WHLYC WHLYC Open Opti Championships:  1st-Edward Parkhill-RLWYC, 2nd-Jonathon Gurvey-WHLYC, 3rd-Chris Dyker-Caddy Lake, 4th-Ayden McPhail-Caddy Lake, 5th-Joshua Gurvey/Henry Gold-WHLYC/Caddy Lake, 6th-Kelsey Coopland-Star Lake, 7th-William Gold-Caddy Lake, 8th-Breanne Coopland-Star Lake     Participation numbers were up for the 5th straight year and plans for 2011 are already underway.  Weekday classes being offered in July 2011 are almost sold out and it's only June as I type this!  New for 2011 the club is hosting BOOT Camp (Basic Olympic Optimist Training) and Provincial Optimist Championships July 21-24/11 for the best U15, U13, & U10 youth sailors from across Manitoba and Northwest Ontario.  We are also hosting the Eastman Qualifier (Optimists) July 24/11 for the best U12 sailors for the right to sail at the Manitoba Games in 2012.  As well, for the 1st time in over 25 years the WHLYC will be having their own club races on Aug.13/11.  Handicapping will be in affect so sailboats of all sizes, class, etc. can compete fairly, so get your boats ready there is some hardware to be won! Finally, the club is always on the lookout to add a few more boats for the kids sailing program so please call Paul Krestanowich at 774-0967 or 349-2072 if you would like to donate to the program.  Please check out the rest of the website for 2011’s events, scheduled sailing classes, races, pictures, etc.   Here's to a fun sailing summer in 2011!