Arizona Yacht Club Lake Pleasant Committee Boat
From Arizona Yacht Club
AYC Lake Captain David Newland completed a major re-do of our 30-foot purpose-built Lake Pleasant Committee Boat. Working with Eric Smaltz at Truck Signz, Inc., Dave developed a fresh new design to replace the 14-year old original graphics, which were badly deteriorated and unreadable after so many years in the Arizona sun and heat. Following approval by AYC’s Board of Directors, Dave mustered a work party to prepare for the replacement of the graphics.
The weather was perfect on a Saturday morning in December for the tedious job of manually scraping-off the old appliqués and preparing the surface for the new skins. Lured to the parking lot at Lake Pleasant with the promise of free donuts and coffee, eight (8) volunteers were on-hand to start work by 9 a.m. David wasted no time in showing them the business end of a scraper, and after about four hours, the old skins were gone and the boat was ready for the new ones.
Working with razor-sharp tools is not without inherent risks, and there was one casualty — David suffered a nasty cut to his finger, which in true Lake Captain fashion, he “repaired” with marine-grade Crazy Glue. Unfortunately, within the highly competitive Laser Fleet, that particular finger is frequently used for boat-to-boat signaling, putting David at a slight disadvantage the next afternoon at TTL.
The new skins look great — a far cry from the old, faded, graphics. They’re crisp, clean, highly readable, and will undoubtedly increase AYC’s “brand awareness” on the water and within the Lake Pleasant boating community, starting with our first race of the Spring Series coming up quickly on Saturday, Jan-8. The next major upgrade to the Committee Boat is the replacement of our ancient and troubled outboard motor. Hampered by global supply chain issues, procurement of the new engine has hit some headwinds; but, the effort continues and a new motor is expected in the near future.
We wish to thank David for both his outstanding leadership and hard work. We also thank the many volunteers who gave up their Saturday morning to work together and prepare the boat for the new graphics — great job!
- Robbye Langenfeld
- Martin Lorch
- Bob Naylor
- David Newland
- Will Nowak
- Nelson Passos
- Peter Schweizer
- Mark Trainor
