Mayor in Motion oe . ' Victoria to Maui international Yacht Race AFTER A little more than two days at sea in the Vic- toria to Maui International Yacht Race, the crew of Passing Cloud, which in- cludes West Vancouver Mayor Mark Sager,’ have experienced “unaccustomed | stomach problems’? and a huge rip in their main sail. By Anna Marie D’Angelo News Reporter “This is for the record: the mayor lost his cookies,”’ said crew member Ian Shipley Monday from the 70-foot schooner near Cape Flattery at the northern tip of Washington State. Sager said there was a light wind blowing at the start of the race just off Victoria harbor on. Saturday, which was not exactly ideal for a heavily displaced vessel like the Passing Cloud. The group subsequently experi- enced seas of four-foot waves with whitecaps in a 35-knot wind. While the crew was reefing down the main sail in heavy winds, the sail tore approximately 15 feet. “They are saying it is more Wednesday, July 8, 1992 - North Shore News - 13 PR snes Eis aoe NEWS photo Paul McGrath THUMBS UP and smiles everywhere in West Vancouver on July 1 as the crew of the Passing Cloud (vessel at anchor in background) tock forward te the Victoria to Maui International Yacht Race. Mayor Mark Sager (left) CEO Bob Holt, Simon Fawkes and ian Shipley took part in a send-off party at Peppi’s Reetaurant. than 15 feet, but then they are sewing it now,’’ said Sager from the vessel on Monday. The crew has broken up into three shifts of four hours with a four-hour standby period. The seas continued to be rough Monday, but morale was good, said Sager. “Right now, we are in a rolling sea. We feel much like a toy being tossed around in a child’s bath tub,”’ said Sager, who managed to start the day with apple juice sup- plied by sponsor Sun-Rype. . The News is a Passing Cloud sponsor and will feature regular reports from the vessel as it trav- els to Maui in an estimated 10 days. Sager, his brother Greg (who is , Wayne Walker, Greg Sager, Sun-Rype juices Passing Cloud’s owner), and six other men are competing in the gruelling race which covers more than 2,310 nautical miles. : Race pledges, with proceeds go- ing to Canuck Place, will continue to be accepted at 683-1024. Bad luck raining on Canadians’ cable TV deal FOR A guy who once put his fist through a wall at the KVOS television studios in Bellingham, producer Eric Stansfield has remained remarkably calm through a distorted start to his latest venture of telecasting Vancouver Canadians’ baseball games from Nat Bailey Stadium. Prior to the opening of the 1992 Pacific Coast League season, Stansfield contracted his own production company to telecast nine games on the Rogers Com- munity 4 cable network. “So far we’re only batting .500 and that sucks!"’ he was saying in acontrolled rage Sunday at the ball yard. . . {As he spoke, he stared at the Nat Bailey walls in the corridor but never struck them. The man’s no fool, In Bellingham it was wood panelling; at Nat Bailey we're talking concrete.) By now, Stansfield should have had six telecasts completed. But two — including Sunday — have been rained out and a third went into the ditch because of technical problems, which can be translated into a chyron unit suddenly being unavailable. What really irks Stansfield is that two of the three cancellations have fallen on days when Rogers Community 4 had agreed to go “live” as opposed to the custom- ary two-hour tape delay. Greg Douglas GOAL LINES The immediate response when you hear the very phrase ‘‘com- munity cablevision’’ can invite the picture of a young couple sitting in front of one camera taking phone calls and sipping coffee ... a combination they try so desper- ately to make look exciting. In the case of triple-A baseball from Nat Bailey Stadium on Rogers Community 4, try a total crew of 14 that includes a pro- ducer, director, technical director, production assistant, an on-air host and five —- count ’em, five — cameras. ‘*We have cameramen on the roof alongside the press box above home plate, along the first and third base lines at the end of each. dugout, at centre field by the scoreboard and high in the stands behind first base,’’ Stansfield says with a certain amount of pride. ‘We telecast the home opener April 18 to a potential 600,000 homes from Victoria to West and North Vancouver to the Lower Mainlanc and Burnaby right out to the Fraser Valley. And judging by the reaction, we’ve surprised a lot of people with the quality of our production,” he said. The televised games are actually simulcasts with the Canadians’ radio station, CFVR that origi- nates from Abbotsford. Brook Ward and Steve Snelgrove work the broadcast booth for both the radio and tele- vision outlets while Wayne Cox does the opening and closing seg- ments as well as cut-ins in his ca- pacity as Rogers Community 4 baseball television host. It’s the first time in the local 44 We telecast the home opener’ April 18 to a potential 600,000 homes ...95 ball club’s history that a television deal has been struck and the only reason it happened was because of the foresight of Canadians’ gener- al manager Brent Imlach. “*He’s thinking down the road when pay-per-view television will be the big thing in professional sports,’” Stansfield suggests. “When Brent showed some in- terest in local television, I met with Rogers’ programming man- ager Martin Truax. His ears perk- ” ed and his eyes twinkled and within a matter of weeks the whole package was put together and we were on the air,’’ he said. It wouldn’t have happened without the Canadian Radio and Television (CRTC) loosening up and allowing community cable networks to run sponsorship billboards, No regular 30-second spots, mind you, but mentions and logos when the announcer says: ‘‘this program has been brought to you — Producer Eric Stansfield in part by ...’’ . Don Fraser,-sponsorship coor- dinator for Rogers Vancouver, worked with Imlach to come up with more than 30 clients willing to go along with the CRTC’s ar- chaic — but improving — stance. The next scheduled telecast on Rogers Community 4 from Nat Bailey Stadium is Thursday, July - 23 ... delayed two hours, not live. That’s also the night The Famous Chicken makes his annual visit to the ball park and it never, ever rains when he brings his act to town, right? “It better not,’’ Stansfield snaps. ‘*I don’t think my nerves could take another rainout.’’ To which a bystander com- mented: ‘‘Hey, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the chicken!”’ When last spotted, Stansfield was staring at the concrete walls again. No, he didn’t ...