CALENDAR
- JUN 5 happy hour @ 6:30pm @ PYC
- JUN 6 Johanna Cup Race @ 10AM
- Jun 13 Commodor’s review/boat parade @ 11am
- Jun 13 General Membership mtg @ 2pm
- Jun 13 PICNIC After the Mtg @ 4pm
- Jun 13 Burning of socks bonfire @ 9pm
- check out club calendar…many more events in june
Signals from the Commodore | Kathy Fedick
We ended May with the Memorial Day Flag raising, thank you Paul Cannon and Bob Hamilton for doing the Flag raising ceremony. Thank you to all our Veterans for your service. Memorial Day started out with the lake completely fogged in and ended as a beautiful sunny day. The race boats motored out in the foggy morning for the Annual Bown Race. We have our second workday on May 30th, if you need to do your workday hours still, please reach out to rear Commodore Ben Yager for assignments or Vice Commodore Emily Wilczewski to help with Workdays, Haul/Lauch day or any of the social events.
Finally, June is here, the weather should be getting warmer. Hope to see you on June 5th for the First Friday Bonfire. Then on Saturday June 13th we have the Commodore’s Sail by @11am followed by the June General Meeting @2pm, the new Member reception and our first PYC Social event, with the evening ending with a bonfire @ the rock beach to celebrate our first “Burning of the Socks”-a unconventional maritime tradition primarily celebrated in spring. It symbolizes shedding the cold, restrictive days of winter and welcoming the freedom, warmth, and boating season by going sockless in boat shoes or flip flops.
Friday June 19th is the Commodore’s Summer Solstice Cocktail party, come out and celebrate the beginning of summer and welcome our GYC racers/visitors.
☀️ Sunday, June 21 at 424am EDT marks the first day of summer and is the longest day of the year
🌿You are invited to a Celebration of Life
Honoring Roland E Stevens III “Chip”
Saturday, June 27, 2026 • 2:00 PM
Pultneyville Yacht Club
Flares from the Vice Commodore | Emily Wilczewski
🍹⏰ First Friday Happy Hour is June 5 @ PYC— join us at 6:30pm 🍻🍷
June is a busy month with social events. Please check the calendar for the various events. Reminder, we will have a Picnic directly after the General Membership Mtg on Saturday, June 13.
I’ll send out an email reminder with more details and what you can bring! Come out and join the fun!
DOCKSIDE DISPATCHES from the Rear Commodore | BEN YAGER
Happy June, PYC Crew!
What a great start to the 2026 boating season! The boats are now in the water and Launch Day went very well. Things are going smoothly around the club as we settle into the new season.
We had a very successful Work Day #1 on May 26th–thank you to all the A-H members who came out and contributed so much. A tremendous amount of work was accomplished!
We still have quite a few tasks remaining, so we’re looking forward to another strong turnout for Work Day #2 this Saturday, May 30th (for members with last names starting I-Z). The WorkDay will run from 8:00AM to 4:00PM. Once of the bigger jobs we’ll tackle that day is filling the sinkholes—a problem many members have noticed.
🔔 8:00AM May 30 – Club Work Day #2 (Last names I–Z) 🛠️
Please feel free to reach out anytime with questions, suggestions, or concerns about the club grounds, docks, workdays, or any facilities issues.
WELCOME ABOARD WAVES FROM THE Membership CHAIR | Cathy MacDonald
I am pleased to announce that we have three new members this month!
The first to mention is for Daryl and Michelle Hunt, who will be bringing back their beautiful 42’cruising sailboat. The have had adventures along the East Coast, in the Bahamas, in the Caribbean, and are ready to come back to PYC. Please take the time to welcome them back; I’m sure we’ll all hear about their many adventures!
Also, please welcome Jesse Kanaley, a new social member who is looking forward to joining the PYC to be an active part of this part of the community.
Please welcome Kevin Barnes. Kevin recently acquired the 24′ Islander, Emma G. from Bradley Gillett. He has visited the Club over the past 2 years and is now has joined the PYC Crew.
I would definitely like to thank those that I’ve heard have taken the time to speak with folks who were visiting the Club and thinking of joining, and after talking with the members decided that is was a great place to be a part of. So, Thank you for taking the time! It does make a huge difference!
Once again, please note the flyer below and take the time to post it where you think it might be effective.
🌟📣 Click link to download flyer: PYC Membership Application Flyer 🌟
Marks on the Line from the Fleet Captain | Kevin Yager
Hello Fleet!
Those days of warm weather we had made it feel like the season was finally off to a start. The slips are filling in, and the gin poles have been busy. I was frustrated last week to learn about a boat that suffered a lot of damage in our harbor because the owner was unable to check in on it as often as they wanted to. I’m frustrated because I know that many of us would have gladly helped if we had known. If you need an extra hand, please ask me or some other member.
The racing season started off with a slow Thursday night race on a surprisingly flat lake, and then on Saturday a fun, cold, and then warm Bowersox race, to Ginna and back.
We’ve been having a little trouble with our race marks. The zero mark and the number 4 mark both went missing and are now or will soon be replaced.
The committee boat was repaired and relaunched with a new set of bellows and other new parts installed in the drive.
🗓️ Upcoming race events include:
Johanna Cup is Saturday, June 6th (not Sunday)🚤
Commodores’ Review Boat Parade, PYC General Meeting & “burning of the Socks” Bonfire Saturday, June 13th
See you on the lake!—Kevin
the bottom line from the Dredging Master | EARL CHAPMAN
The Bottom Line – Dredging 2026
As everyone is well aware of by now, we have a lot of water this year.💧 The current lake level is 247.4 ft — about 13 inches higher than this time last year.📏
With a few exceptions, we currently have 7–8 feet of depth throughout the harbor. A few observations stand out:
- The south fairway is plenty deep. The real issue there is weeds, and this area’s attempt to become a salad bowl is well underway. Before long, it’s going to feel shallower than it actually is. Dredging doesn’t solve this problem. The weeds just wrap around the dredge head and clog it. We’ll need to get after removing them soon.
- While it’s deep around the gin poles, you don’t have to go far south or east before depths fall off quickly.
- The shallowest part of the harbor is the west end of the north fairway near the boat ramp and floating docks. It’s also where the bottom rose the fastest — nearly 2 feet of accumulation since we dredged last season.
- The corner where the harbor opens into the lake channel remains the deepest area, with several spots well over 10 feet deep.
- The bump we usually see in the channel to the lake (around #4 on the breakwall) is still there. It’s less noticeable with the higher lake level, but the bottom is actually within a couple of inches of where it was last May, before we dredged. Like potholes and taxes, some things keep coming back year after year.
The official “50/50” forecast says we’re at peak water, although I can’t remember many years when the lake actually stopped rising in May. We’ll see. The long-range forecast around haul-out season has the lake dropping about two feet, but even then, we’d still be near a foot above our normal levels.
So — are we dredging? Absolutely.
As we’ve said before, what matters relative to dredging is where the bottom is, not where the top is (Get it? “The Bottom Line” 😊). At this time last year, the average harbor bottom was 239.3 ft. We took soundings this week, and the average bottom is… wait for it… 239.3 ft. In other words, the winter essentially replaced everything we removed during last year’s dredging operation — and we removed a lot. Roughly 14 inches of accumulated muck came out last season, and one winter later we’re right back where we started. Nature apparently looked at all our hard work and said, “That’s cute.” Fourteen inches is more than we had expected. Maybe there’s a correlation with all the rain bringing in more accumulation. We don’t really know. All we really know is that the bottom is back at 239.3 ft.
I won’t lie — seeing that was a little demoralizing. But I learned a long time ago not to ignore numbers simply because they don’t tell you what you want to hear. That’s why dredging has to be viewed as an annual maintenance activity, regardless of lake level. We’re in a constant battle with the harbor as it relentlessly tries to turn itself back into a swamp. It highlights how universal this issue is, regardless of boat draft. Deep-draft boats feel the effects first, but at a foot per year, eventually everyone gets affected if we don’t stay ahead of it. It also reinforces what decades of experience taught us when Rolf was dredging the harbor. His machine was two to three times the size of ours, so he removed far more material than we do with each event — and he still came back every two or three years.
As we improve our efficiency, we hope to gradually work closer to our permitted depth of 237 ft. But skipping a year and allowing another season of accumulation could make 2027 a very difficult year. Our constraint isn’t our permit, our equipment, or even our limited expertise. It’s getting enough labor together so skipping a year and then doubling up on it feels pretty close to undoable.
What the higher lake levels do give us is a little flexibility on timing. The past two years, we anxiously waited for permit dates to open (July 1) so we could attack the pinch points as quickly as possible. This year, we have the luxury of waiting a bit longer and will most likely dredge in August rather than the week after July 4th.
We’ll communicate dates once they’re finalized, but yes — even with the high water, we will be dredging this summer. You can count on it.
PYC PICTURES | FROM KATHY FEDICK
Bouy Notes from the Editor
June is here, and so is the prime boating season! Longer days, steady breezes, and warm water make this the perfect month to get out on the water. —Garland