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I’ve spent 20 yrs Active and 18 yrs as a Contractor with the Navy. I’ve been using FCM since 1981 as an experienced boater having earned both the highest Red Cross Sail Cert, & highest RC Sail Instructor Cert, then earned up to Naval Sailing Assoc Skipper D Senior Skipper, Racing & Night Nav Certs with San Diego Navy Sailing Club.
One can always complain about, well, anything but FCM is the largest most successful MWR Facility in the Navy and I’ve used NTC G’lakes, Hawaii, Yokosuka, Sasebo, & Subic Bay marinas, to compare it with.
Recently I stayed at FCM RV Park, tried to rent a sailboat but despite a sea wall project being complete a few days before arriving, the boat rental fleet was sitting in the water unused, “due to construction,” which did not affect the live-aboards, or the other 90% of boat owners. The rental staff was let go during the construction, which I’m sure they really appreciated, and now they have to hire new people. I’m still not clear on how 274 Slips & 80 Moorings can operate during the seawall construction but the rental fleet had to be shut down and the rental staff left with no income? It was during the COVID Shutdown but have you ever known a period in boating that boats don’t need upkeep or improvements?
Point Loma Marina’s rentals has been going for a couple of months or more. The rental ops might be ‘under utilized’ but MWR seems to have a disconnect between training and rental ops which intrinsically feed on each other. In the 1980s SDNSC (now Navy Yacht Club San Diego) taught sailing and the program was was huge. Every small boat and most of the Catalina 22s and 27s were used for training on training weekends and the rental program was robust. Now the MWR Sail Training program has mistakenly been turned into a revenue source, is a shadow of the previous training program, and the rental fleet use has dwindled as a result. MWR seems to miss the goal of serving the sailors by encouraging to learn sailing and boating skills; in a program that is inexpensive and lots of fun. They discourage racing, they have two WETAs polyethylene roto-molded trimarans that are designed for beginners to sail, which have sat idle for two decades because of the requirement of having an additional training cert at, I believe $265, to be able to sail them. I have been turned down to rent one despite my many decades of sailing experience and my Navy Skipper D (awarded by Cmdr Metcalf, younger brother of Adm Metcalf who ran the Grenada Ops) and have sailed every boat in the MWR inventory for the last 40 years, plus several catamarans(e.g., Hobie 14, 16, 18, & G-Cat 16).
And, despite the fact that two junior SEABEE officers created FCM and it was run by them and SDNSC into a successful marina before MWR took it over; MWR has tried to eliminate Navy YC SD (Fmly SDNSC) completely missing the benefits of the synergy that takes place between a marina and the club(s) that resides there.
Football and baseball may further teamwork, and golf improves patience, but the pursuit of sailing and the resulting seamanship skills plus crewing experience are essential to the US Navy isn’t it?
Let’s get someone onboard NRSW MWR/FCM who understands that, please. W!k!pita1! (talk) 19:00, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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