Good Old Boat Regatta

[BubbleheadMd]

I know that there are several of you who own older boats that are in between Baltimore and say, Herring Bay, so this may be of interest to you.

I attended my first Good Old Boat Regatta, which was hosted in Mill Creek, right near the old radio towers by Greenbury Point. The event was well attended by around 60 boats, maybe more. The criteria is that your boat must be in a fleet where the first hull was built no later than 1975. So if your boat was built in 1979, but the first hull was built in 1975, you're ok to attend.

The event was well managed. The race committe did an excellent job of picking courses, scoring, etc. The real trick was explaining racing, and starting sequences to a bunch of cruisers and day-sailors who never race, and keeping things safe.

There were Alberg, Cal, Tartan, Pearson, PHRF divisions and a few others. A wide variety of classic boats. There was food, music and trophies. Anchorage was free and plentiful.

If I have anything negative to say about the event at all, it would be that many of the participants were clique-ish, and no one really even acknowledged my existence (except for the event staff) until Sunday afternoon.

This was only my second time racing my own boat, and I managed to correct over a Columbia 35 which was an accomplishment for me.

The event usually has almost 100 openings, and is very inexpensive and very low-intensity so I encourage any locals with older boats to consider attending next year. The Shearwater Sailing Club puts on the event, so you can check their website for information.

[blt2ski]

Dang it, not close enough for me to attend...........

may have to orginize one of these things in puget sound, IIRC there are about a dozen or so boats that have been reviewed around here.

marty

[T37SOLARE]

Was planning on attending, but for the first time they didn't get the required number of T37's to do a class start.

It would have been unfair to the rest of the fleet for us to race them

[BubbleheadMd]

Originally Posted by blt2ski

Dang it, not close enough for me to attend...........

may have to orginize one of these things in puget sound, IIRC there are about a dozen or so boats that have been reviewed around here.

marty

These are also advertised on the Good Old Boat website. I recommend contacting them when putting together your event. Check under "Resources for Sailors" and then "Sponsored Regattas" on the website to see all of the different GOBR's being held around the country.

It'd be great if you got one going in your area.

Originally Posted by T37SOLARE

Was planning on attending, but for the first time they didn't get the required number of T37's to do a class start.

It would have been unfair to the rest of the fleet for us to race them

You should have come anyway. You could have walked away with a trophy. I'm going to talk to the organzier about breaking the PHRF division into spin and non-spin PHRF divisions. I had a perfectly good asymm that would have been wonderful for the light air and didn't get to use it.

[JohnRPollard]

I've always wanted to go to one of these. Unfortunately, our boat model was designed and first produced in the mid-late-'80's, so the oldest examples are about 23 years old. Maybe some day they'll relax the age requirements....

[blt2ski]

I should contact Richard Smith, one of the editor/writers that is local and see what could be pulled off. Puget sound has quite a few older boats in the area. He was the one that wrote the article on my boat in the july/aug issue.

Marty