Sailing the High Seas

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The Phuket Cruising Yacht Club (PCYC) captain and founder Brent McInnes says the club has been around for seven years now and is constantly evolving as it now includes brokerage & charter services and law office.

The PCYC has hassle-free motorcycle, car, bungalow, RIB, tender outboard engines and dingy rental. Your dingy will be safe on their flood-lit dingy lines in front of the clubhouse. The clubs’ showers are available to all, and there are plenty of outlets for charging phones or running your computers. The PCYC’s accredited AYS sailing school is underway training sailing & powerboat seaman ship skills.

The PCYC is an authorized port-entrance agent and Royal Thai Customs yacht visa extension service, so it can help with check-in/check-out at Immigration & take of your customs accreditation and extension for your boat. Brent says most boats get six months on arrival and they can extend that stay for another six months before having to leave the country.

The newly renovated club with new beach decks is open from 8am until late, happy hours (reduced prices on alcohol) run from 5-7pm and the full bar includes PCYC signature cocktail the Margarita made from scratch in the blender, Bloody Marys and a full range of local and imported, light and regular beers. The PCYC’s jet-setting bar manager Yai, a woman of the world is currently trekking in Tibet for a month possesses a wealth of information on many levels.

Brent offers Thai-and-Western style food specializing in Tex-Mex. Quesada’s, Nachos, Tacos, Mexican dips, etc. Eggs Benedict is one of the club’s morning specialities along with fresh ground coffee while world-class fish and chips & hamburgers are constantly ordered, and the usual Thai dishes are also available and all the food is MSG free. The PCYC also has a few waterfront bungalows for let and the club does have has good Wi-Fi signal. Phuket Tide Tables, local marine guides & magazines are available free of charge.

The club has a good PA system, a mixing board and a mike stands. Many yachties have musical talents, but while at sea they don’t have access to venue equipment or other musicians, the PCYC encourages use of its PA system & other equipment to get the jam happening. The great Gene Neilson entertains the crowd with his finely-tuned guitar playing skills when he in port. The PCYC clubhouse is also available free of charge for members or guests to use as a party venue; the club can cater or you can bring in your own food and the PCYC will supply the bar. During those nights the club has held up to 100 people and makes full use of its 2am closing licence.
There’s a VHF base station on standby, but it’s more for outgoing or emergencies, the best contact number for the club is Brent’s mobile at + 66 (0)86-269-7138.
The Ao Chalong Yacht Club (now the Phuket Yacht Club), of which Brent was a member for many years, had its home at PCYC’s current location for a number of years before moving up the beach a few hundred metres. When the ACYC moved out, Brent moved in and started using it as a waterfront bungalow. Soon afterwards, he asked his landlord, Thitti Mokapan, a retired Bangkok lawyer, if he wanted to start a yacht club. Thitti replied, “Sure, I’ve always wanted to be involved in a yacht club,” and a successful partnership was launched with a handshake.

Both members and non-members pay the same prices; Brent doesn’t believe in a two-tier pricing system. As a result, the PCYC has a large expat following who like hanging by the seashore and chumming with yachties. The club has well over 100 members and its members varying from oil tycoons & doctors to sea gypsies.
Khun Thitti is available for sound advice on many subjects; he speaks English well, and has assisted many in the past and can be found at the Clubhouse often.
The PCYC also does extended-period boat minding; the flat rate for this “basic care” is Bt2,000 a month, and this includes checking the mooring lines, the waterline, the companion way (done daily) and making sure things like the lazy Jack bag hasn’t blown open or tending to a loose halyard, etc. Brent calls it a “representation of the owner’s interests”. Many insurance companies endorse the PCYC boat care program & their policies are valid while in the PCYC care or on anchor in Chalong Bay.
The club also acts as a broker (http://phuketcruisingyachtclub.org/category/boats-for-sale/) and charters boats as well (http://phuketcruisingyachtclub.org/category/charter-boats/).

Brent says that since the new concrete storm-water culverts in Chalong that flow into the Bay near our club have sped up the water flow washing the mud away & replacing it with sand so the PCYC now has sand out about 100m from the high-tide line, which is great for beaching catamarans & powerboats for periodic maintenance.
The club is also home a black poodle named Teddy, who is in charge of reception along with three other soi dogs patrol the premises with waging tails, there is also a large boat cat named meow yai (big cat) that hangs out with the dogs. The cat jumped ship and swam ashore from a cruising yacht a few years ago and made her new home at the PCYC, eventually her owner came by and said she looked happy here and the truth be known she didn’t think much of being a boat cat, the owner is now a PCYC member and calls in for beer and to visit his cat.

The annual membership fee is still only Bt3,000, which starts from the day you sign up. You are given a photo ID membership card, club t-shirt, club sticker—no joiner’s fee. The PCYC gives you full-yacht service, and using the club’s extensive local knowledge, tradesmen & techs you can get the inside track on cruising grounds & maintaining your yacht here in paradise.

The PCYC has twilight race series on the drawing board—stay tuned for updates. If you are interested in yacht racing the Phuket Yacht Club (PYC) also runs a race series and PCYC members are welcome to join in.

Request to join the PCYC’s Facebook group is the best way to stay up to speed & informed on all aspects of the local marine scene; its open for input & comments - here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/187918071231247/

How Brent Got Here

Brent was raised on the waterfront in East Gosford between Sydney and Newcastle, on the central coast of New South Wales, growing up with tinnies, and sailing dinghies and surf. “We sailed when it blew,” he says. “If it was blowing 20 knots, out came the sailing boats just because it was fun to do, we didn’t do any official racing, I worked on offshore fishing boats, learning ocean skills, primarily how to make it home alive at night in a black nor easterly on a well-loaded boat.”

His neighbour had a 45ft ketch, and that’s how he developed an interest in blue water cruising. He learnt early through observation, for example, car engine blocks, a series of train wheels or a couple of tons of concrete don’t work as moorings when a southerly buster hits, the boats they are attached to usually end up mired in mangrove swamps. The boats that remained secured were those with a descent anchor, plenty of heavy chain and few metres of nylon line. Brent says growing up in that neck of the woods was a good kindergarten for seamanship with no shortage of tutors, good and bad alike.

Brent travelled to Vancouver for Expo 1986 and he worked there as a waiter at the Munich Festhaus, but on a visit down to the docks he discovered a ship named Golden Eagle III a 56ft motor sailor looking for a captain. He flashed his NSW boat driver’s license and got the job, sailing the boat down to Cabos San Lucas, Mexico, with a retired German sea captain named Karl Bolland who imparted a wealth of knowledge to him on the way. It was far from a routine delivery as everything that could go wrong did and Old Karl was on top of it all. After returning the boat to San Francisco, Brent took a job as project manager for a commercial real estate developer and worked at that that for seven years. He spent many hours in the left seat of a 414 twin engine Cessna Chancellor flying between the company’s many projects around the USA.

In 1993, he speculated on low-ground pressure tractors (snow-grooming machines to Canadians) for use in tailing pond maintenance in the Australia mining industry and his company Alpine Venture was founded. These LGPTs can go where others can’t, they use hydraulic power, can easily be modified and are environmentally friendly. Rob Kneller, Brent’s partner in Australia, has a civil plumbing company, which has 20 employees. It’s based in the Snowy Mountains of NSW and oversees Alpine Venture.
Brent first came to Phuket in 2001 to buy a catamaran called No Fixed Address off of Stafford Steer with every intention of taking the boat back to Australia. But while he was refurbishing the boat at the Latitude 8 boat yard with lots of help from Mark Horwood & Mark Pescott, he took a liking to Phuket and decided to stay.
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Web: www.phuketcruisingyachtclub.org
LAT N 07.49.463 LONG E 098.20.758

PCYC Perks

Discounts include 15 % off from Rolly Tasker (only club offering this promotion), then Ratanachai shipyard gives 20% on haul outs and work on the hard, and a PCYC member can also get a 20 % discount on marina berths and F & B at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club (this deal is reciprocated by the PCYC). Major Phuket chandleries like AME Marine, Tops Marine and Surapol all give discounts and Chao Fa East Auto Parts gives up to 20% on oil-belts, filters, tools, and diesel algae killer to PCYC card-carrying members. Aqua Master Chalong offers 15 percent off, and the list goes on and is growing. Check out the PCYC web page for full details.