This morning I received the following email which speaks for itself. Please let David have your ideas in the comments. Even if you are not a Laser sailor you can surely help with the planned research project into beers of the US east coast! Thanks.
Dear Tillerman
A group of masters, GMs and one GGM, none of whom have ever done a laser campaign, would like to. We are all located in or close to Calgary, Alberta.
Very preliminary planning has produce some ideas, a motorhome, a driver willing to drive forever, and a trailer that will hold 6 lasers.
Our thinking so far is that our motorhome would tour either the east or west coast. Participants could travel with the motorhome or fly in to as many regattas as they want to participate in- most of our participants still work to feed their laser habit/addiction. Probably we would look for B&Bs, camp or hotels, as well as using the motorhome, for accommodation at regattas and on tour.
We are relatively familiar with the US west coast regattas, but not at all with the east coast, other than from your blog and regatta reports. One thought we had was to do the Florida Masters regattas and then move up the coast slowly, ending up at the Worlds at Cork next year. We would like to participate in both large and small regattas, and training nights, and dip inland from time to time. We plan to offer some Canadian Calgary hospitality wherever we go, and may be able to offer some race committee help. One research project in which there seems to be particular interest is local beers of the east coast.
Where should we go? Can you or your readers help us plan a route or suggest friendly regattas?
With thanks, and appreciation for Proper Course.
David
PS. The photo at the top of his post is NOT of the motorhome that the Canadians are planning to use. I'm sure many of my readers will know this particular vehicle already.
14 comments:
They can stop by Eustis in the center of Florida. We race Lasers basic every two weeks all year long. If they come on an off weekend, We will do some special races for them.
If they bring some extra people, we have extra boats to loan.
I think the Orange Coffee Pot is a must, and they could sleep in my guest room and living room after touring River Horse Brewery in neighboring Ewing, NJ, and dinner here in Lawrenceville
If you do it in the fall time frame, one define must-do regatta - Chesapeake Bay Masters at Fishing Bay Yacht Club in Deltaville, VA. Camp out at the club, and regatta meal cooked by a real chef.
Best. Regatta. Evar.
I have no experience with Sam's suggestion but I can heartily endorse Baydog's and torrid's suggestions. The Orange Coffee Pot (oldest Laser regatta in the world that has been sailed every year since its inception) and a visit to Fishing Bay YC for the Chesapeake Bay Masters would definitely be on my east coast road trip bucket list.
Well on our way
Do the winter Masters circuit in Florida. If ambitious, plan to sail the Miami OCR beforehand, and open Laser Midwinters East after. That'd be a very nice 1.5-2 months of sailing. Even more ambitious? Drive across afterward to Southern California (stopping in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, natch) to sail Midwinters West and Alamitos Bay OCR.
I lived out of a cabover camper on a Toyota pickup truck for up to 6 months at a stretch--it's great! Cook your own food in the RV and save big bucks.
Consider bringing bicycle(s) if training out of the US Sailing facility in Miami--the Grove is great by bike (and not at all big-RV friendly)!
Get gym memberships for showering and working out. Back during my Olympic training days I was a member of Bally's, which had facilities in the Grove and other Florida regatta locales. Dunno if Bally's is still around.
Seems you've some great adventures ahead!
If they wanted to come sailing in Brooklyn, they could join us for the Sebago Cup, our annual dinghy cruising race around Jamaica Bay!
http://www.sebagocanoeclub.org/pdfs/SailingWorldArticle.pdf
There are also numerous breweries - Brooklyn Brewery (which I would call the grand-daddy of our local brewing scene, I'm pretty sure they were the first), Six Point, Rockaway Brewing, Coney Island Breweries, Bronx Brewery, those are the ones I can think of! All making some very nice beers. There's also some distilling going on around here too, my friend Tom Potter, who was one of the Brooklyn Brewery co-founders, has a pretty nifty retirement project, and then there's Widow Jane and Cacao Prieto in Red Hook - yes, a person can get properly soused hereabouts if they're of a mind to!
Well, fantastic, thank you all so much for the ideas and offers of hospitality. We will be in touch to see how we can reciprocate as our plans develop in the next few of months.
And thanks to Tillerman for the post and the much admired Proper Course
David
Real Canadian Masters Sailing Team
words@davidelliott.ca
You are welcome David. I do plan to write a post on my own list of suggested regattas for you and will be dedicating some time this winter to researching and sampling local beers of the east coast. It's a tough job but somebody has to do it.
By the way, why are you called the "Real" Canadian Masters Sailing Team? is there another team of unreal Canadian masters?
Tillerman - every fancy sailing (and yacht) club in Canada seems to have "R" to start its name. Even our Federal police force starts with an "R". Admittedly we are not that fancy, but if someone confuses our "R" with the highest level of Majesty in the land of your birth, oh well .. might be worth one or three of your renowned east coast beers. And I had a seniors moment and muddled where the "M" should be located. I find muddling is getting easier the deeper I get into the GGMs. The "M" has now settled in as RMCST (though it's not very (or at all) catchy. We might try again.
Duh! My bad! Sorry, I should have realized that.
So you are Real Masters but not necessarily Real Canadians? That's OK because I'm not a Real American - at least not yet.
Wouldn't it be better if you called yourselves the Real Canadian Masters Posse?
You, sir, have just won the internet.
OK. Sorry it took so long. Here are my suggestions for your road trip.
That is the way how normally things should be going for a road trip in my opinion nothing can work better then fort lauderdale to melbourne fl because it always go reasonably for me.
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