Bill van Ravenswaay The Houston Yacht Club 3620 Miramar Drive

Brazos Pilots Association
PO Box 2246
Freeport, TX 77542
Dear Captain Teeter;
Bill van Ravenswaay
The Houston Yacht Club
3620 Miramar Drive
Shoreacres, TX 77571
20 February 2015
I am this year’s Chairman of the Houston Yacht Club Offshore Regatta. This race traditionally runs
between Freeport and Galveston; the winner receives the Carroll Blanchard
Trophy. May 09 this year marks the 50th anniversary of the event and we
anticipate slightly larger registration numbers – perhaps around 20 boats.
In the past, your team of channel pilots has been very helpful in giving us
pointers on ways to improve safety and establish best practices to help avoid “incidents”. We think we
have come up with a workable scheme based on the way it ran last year; we’d like to run it past you all
for your input (drawing attached).
We plan on instructing our competitors to berth at the Freeport Municipal Marina up the Old Brazos
River. We will ask them to be underway by 07:30 Saturday May 09 and proceed to Berth 7 off the
container docks where they are to await further instructions. At 07:45 the race officer (me) will hail Pilot
One on VHF channel 14. We will wait for Pilot One’s signal to proceed. We will need thirty minutes for
all 20 boats to clear the jetties.
We plan to set our start line between 1.5 and 3 nautical miles offshore somewhere North and East of
the Freeport channel. We should be clear of the area by 09:00.
Does this scheme meet with your approval? Please advise…
Bill van Ravenswaay
2015 Fleet Captain
The Houston Yacht Club
5/1/2015
RE: Sailboat Race next Saturday
RE: Sailboat Race next Saturday
From:
"James A. Teeter" <teeter@brazospilots.com>
To:
'William van Ravenswaay'
Cc:
office@brazospilots.com
Subject:
RE: Sailboat Race next Saturday
Date:
Apr 30, 2015 7:26 PM
Hello Bill,
We look forward to the return of the HYC to Freeport and thanks for touching base.
There have been some changes since last year’s event.
1) The channel widening project is almost complete and the dredge and associated equipment may well be
gone by the time your group arrives. If not, your Captains need to be aware that a great many vessels are
working between the jetties on the red side.
2) A temporary buoy is in place until Marker #10 is reestablished.
3) The completed channel will be 600’ instead of 400’ up to the Freeport intersection, giving more room for all.
4) There is construction going on at the Phillip’ docks just above “Big Bend”.
5) There has been an increase in Tug/Barge traffic both in number and size of tows since last year.
6) The area off the container dock is a good place to gather, but everything depends on ship and tug/barge
traffic The Kirby Fleeting area is just above the container dock on the west side.
It is way too early to give you an idea of ship traffic for the anticipated transit times for your vessels but you may
want to contact Tammy at our office on Thursday afternoon/Friday morning to see what is expected. There may
be many or no ships moving during your transit time.
Port Freeport is an unmanned Pilot Station and unless vessels are moving there will not be anyone to answer the
VHF radio. When working vessels,
we standby on Ch 16 and 14. Channel 14 is the channel we use in Freeport to work tugs and communicate with
docks. So monitoring Ch 14 is a good way to monitor ship movements.
Thanks again for reaching out to us and have a great trip down the coast. If any questions or problems come up
let us know.
James A. Teeter
President
Brazos Pilots Association
From: William van Ravenswaay [mailto:billvanrav@earthlink.net] Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2015 12:16 PM
To: teeter@brazospilots.com
Cc: office@brazospilots.com
Subject: Sailboat Race next Saturday
Hi Captain Teeter ­ as instructed I am contacting you one week before our annual race to Freeport to a) remind you
that we are coming, and b) to get your input on any final changes to our staging plan (attached).
http://webmail.earthlink.net/wam/printable.jsp?msgid=79626&x=­1017757356
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5/1/2015
RE: Sailboat Race next Saturday
We'll be sailing in Friday afternoon May 07 and leaving Saturday morning May 08.
Please advise!
Bill van R.
Bill van Ravenswaay
832.428.0785 http://webmail.earthlink.net/wam/printable.jsp?msgid=79626&x=­1017757356
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