Season’s Greetings RHADC Members and Family:

With the Festive Season upon us this is my opportunity to write to you with my wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and also to update you on activities at our Club.

For the Christmas Boat Parade 35 Members and guests were aboard “Explorer” courtesy of Michael Hayward, entertaining us with a ringside seat and to cheer on our Race-Committee-boat-entrant. Our young sailors soon to be competing in our Orange Bowl Optimist Racing Team with coaches and family created our Santa in his sleigh being pulled by an Optimist sailboat and participated in the parade. Meanwhile our special Boat Parade dinner at the Club was enjoyed by a very large number of our Members. Most recently we have been treated to Thanksgiving and Bingo buffets and the Governor’s and Ladies Christmas lunches.

Presently, the Club is welcoming us with Christmas lights outside and decorations within courtesy of our staff and a team of volunteers; Paula Forbes, Jean Bird, Monica Patterson, Diane Skinner, Jenny Redburn and Pam Osborne. Decorations were completed in time for our annual Christmas Raffle, which tickets practically filled the large raffle drum ably turned by Club Secretary Kevin Blee. Thank you all for investing in raffle tickets! I hope that our many Members, guests and winners present had fun that evening!

Talking of Christmas, why don’t you join me in celebrating Christmas Brunch this Sunday and/or our New Year’s Eve dinner at the Club, enjoying the excellent treats that Chef Luca and his team will be creating for us?

Sunday 23rd. December … a full brunch buffet will be served upstairs from 12pm with lots of tasty goodies and home-made deserts. I will look forward to welcoming you all in between my own mouthfuls! Remember to book!

Monday 31st. December … New Years Eve will see our grand finale, The Great Gatsby 1920’s Celebration with a multi course, wine-paired dinner, party favours and live jazz music by the Atlantic Music Group Jazz Trio to see out 2018. I’ve booked a table for 10 and hope to see many of you filling our dining room!

CLUB HOUSE, GROUNDS & ACTIVITES

This has been an exciting year at the Club and never one of Post-America’s-Cup blues! Our house and grounds are looking better than ever. Our newly rebuilt Boat House is ready to greet our Marion Race visitors next June. Building on Neil Redburn’s previous leadership, we are progressively raising our game in our “second home” to attract you to spend more time with us and to enjoy greater value from your membership. Food and dining service have improved greatly under Luca Tomasi and our chefs! Our new F&B Manager is expected to start in late January to further enhance our dining experience. Your choice of breakfast or dinner is now served weekends from 9:30 am until 2:30 pm. It’s lovely to tuck into eggs and bacon or one of our flame-broiled Dinghy Burgers whilst relaxing in full view of the harbour! Many members fancy our Al Fresco lower lounge and patio dining but we are also happy to accommodate those of you that prefer to dine upstairs. Just specify where you want to sit when booking.

Jenny Redburn is now heading our new Activities Committee and will welcome all ideas for functions at the Club. Periodic Saturday evening, themed dinners and presentations for instance are being considered.

We are planning for our newly rebuilt Boat House deck to add more garden chairs, tables and facilities for your enjoyment. It is also available for member and outside functions. We are considering adding a new awning that we hope will reduce weather-concerns for when an event is planned on the Boat House Deck.

MARINA

Meanwhile RC Mark Henneberger and Jared Hollis continue to improve our marina and keep it in good repair. The intermediate dock arm will be re-anchored with 13 new piles to hold it much steadier than under its original mooring system. A new ramp and easy access will soon be constructed to help integrate our old tennis courts as a dry sailing extension of our marina. 10 dry berths are initially planned for boats up to 25’, with valet service. Call a day in advance and your boat will be launched and waiting for you and upon return to the dock will be hauled out, washed down with fresh water and returned to its dry berth. Anti fouling paint and storm concerns gone! Whether you have a swing mooring, wet marina or dry berth how about catering your boat outings through the Club? Catering from sandwiches and beer to main meals and Champagne will be offered. At last Sunday lunch on your boat without all the preparation and clean-up!

SAILING

Our adult and youth sailing programmes are flourishing under Nico and Maria’s stewardship. It’s a pleasure to see their interaction with our young sailors at our sailing events and presentations! After a successful year winning many of the top places in local youth racing, next up for some of our young sailors will be the Orange Bowl Championships in Miami, immediately after Christmas. We wish them the best of luck! Our new Race Committee boat has permitted us to raise our game in hosting races especially since we took over the very popular Wednesday Night, Keelboat Series from the Bermuda Yacht Racing Association this year. My thanks to all the Race participants that make it so successful and to Patrice Horner for her steady hand every week leading our Race Committee.

RC John Nicholls and Roger Beach manage and operate our very successful Elizabeth II Fitted Dinghy programme together with Race Committee Charles Tatem, Bill McNiven, Ross Spurling, windward mark PC Ed Faries and Penny Carruthers’ team of Committee Boat volunteers. Our dinghy crew skippered by Jason Saints have won the Jubilee Cub and the great majority of all the silverware on offer this year for the fourth year in a row. Our Prize Giving for them will be Saturday 5th. January. All Members are invited! I enjoy Sunday afternoon’s during the season in the boat watching the fitted dinghy racing, munching on my packed lunch from the kitchen! Why not join me this coming year on the water, its a great excuse to use our boats and support our dinghy sailors!

We will particularly miss Charles Tatem’s help on the water with Elizabeth II next year and if anyone would like to learn how to run the dinghy races with Race Officers Bill McNiven and Ross Spurling, we would love to hear from you!

MARION BERMUDA RACE

This coming year will see us hosting our bi-ennial favourite Marion Bermuda Yacht Race for the 22nd. time. At a recent ceremony at the Club, the skipper of “Spirit Of Bermuda” ceremoniously threw down the gauntlet and the skipper of Marion based “Tabor Boy” grabbed it up thereby accepting the challenge of a “hook with “Spirit” to Bermuda! “Spirit” needs to sell her berths to cover her costs however. If you wish to take part in either the cruise to the start or the race itself or if you would be willing to sponsor a berth for a young Bermudian sailor please contact Wendy in our office. We are as always in need of volunteers to assist with hosting this event. Kate Clarke has kindly agreed to manage our Duty Desk for the Race in June. She will need lots of help to complete a roster of volunteers, so if you can take a shift we can sure use you during the period 17th – 23rd. June, training will be provided, please contact Wendy in our office. We are hoping for a 50 yacht fleet including at least two Bermuda entrants plus “Spirit” and “Tabor Boy”.

The next activity we want to rebuild will be Snooker. We have a wonderful snooker room and table! There are 8 other Clubs with Snooker syndicates that want to take us on. If you are interested in playing snooker come any time, to be part of a RHADC team please contact Wendy.

We have lost several members and friends this year: AJ “Sandy” Mitchell, Diana Hyde, Edward “Teddy” Chapman, William Fergusson, most recently my mentors Past Commodore Clarence Tessie Terceira and a good friend to our Club, Charles Tatem. Rest in peace my friends!

This is the time of the year that we thank our professional staff under our GM Allen Walker, for looking after us all through the year. We have set up a Christmas Fund for our staff to which I hope that you will want to contribute. If so please email to Anita or Tara in accounts (accounts@rhadc.bm) indicating your desired sum to be debited to your Club account or stop by the office and complete an authorisation form.

There are so many people I wish to thank but space limits me: In summary therefore to our Members, Flag Officers, Elspeth, Mark and John, Club Officers Paul, Colin and Kevin, Members of all our Committees and our many Volunteers, to our Staff of professionals Allen, Wendy, Luca and his chefs and kitchen team, Accounting Team of James, Tara and Anita, our marina and sailing professionals Jared, Niko, Maria, Jason, Jordan and Curtis, to Remy, Kovell, Dawn and all our waiters and waitresses, Phil, Robert and all our bar tenders, Lovelle, Winslow, Maceo and Heather of our house and grounds staff, to our sponsors of so many events and to all the many people that contribute to the joy of our wonderful Club, thank you!

I look forward to welcoming you, our valued members and your guests at the Club over Christmas and the New Year and throughout 2019 and in the meantime wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! And to Her Majesty, our Queen Elizabeth II whose Royal Warrant we enjoy, a Loyal Toast “The Queen!” and best wishes from all of us.

Willie Forbes