West River Cat Racing in Ches Bay Mag
If anybody here happens to be in an area where you can get Chesapeake Bay Magazine - check out the January issue! Our little rag-tag outfit has a feature article, and Commodore Rodger Holmes has the cover on his ARC-22 with Mike Murphy crewing.
If you're in the Chesapeake Bay area and haven't checked out this magazine, do so, lots of local stuff to enjoy. But we've made a convert out of one of their reporters/editors, so that's even better!
Check it out - Chesapeake Bay Magazine
Click on the
Current Issue
link to see the cover. Also, on the main page of the site there are a few pics rolling, the F-16 is John McLaughlin.

Yeah, somebody who had a personal beef complained to the county that we were running a marina/business without permits (which we weren't). That started a whole process in which the county kept raising the bar for what we had to do to stay within perceived zoning regs. After a year of this they had caused just enough stink that the owner's caretaker evicted us. The community has never had anything bad to say about us, and we never had police problems or the like. The whole neighborhood is old time maritime, you're almost required to have a boat in your yard.
In this county, somebody completely reformed a small island and built a house complete with fake lighthouse and swimming pool without a single permit being filed and he gets to keep his house. Push a few boats into the water from a maritime zoned lot and you get evicted.
Fortunately the A-Cats and N-20s are now established as OD fleets at the WRSC and can store there (rumors are that the F-16s might try next). We have limited storage for other open class boats in another area (I believe the open class aspect is key to keeping this whole thing working). So the racing continues as long as it can! This will be our 20th year!
The CBM article is icing on what has been a great cake.
Hi,
I'm new here and just thought I'd add a comment concerning the house lighthouse near Dutch Ship Island. I believe he's still wrapped up in court proceedings about that...last I heard County said tear it down. But what do I know?! I'm a live and let live believer anyway. Damn Libertarians!
Scott
I'm new here and just thought I'd add a comment concerning the house lighthouse near Dutch Ship Island. I believe he's still wrapped up in court proceedings about that...last I heard County said tear it down. But what do I know?! I'm a live and let live believer anyway. Damn Libertarians!
Scott
They let him keep the house and everything else if he took out the lighthouse and pool. Influential people argued on his behalf. There are still people trying to get it all torn down, so it may not be over. But he's a connected developer, and he definitely knew it was a safe gamble to ask for forgiveness instead of asking for approval.
Not advocating one way or the other on that, just commenting on the different levels of enforcement. Live and let live would have benefited us after we complied with the first set of requirements... Yes, I'm a little bitter.
But all that aside, thanks to Ann and Chesapeake Bay magazine for coming out and doing a piece on us!
Are we the luckiest guys in the world or what? We have not one but two cat clubs in a real nice 350 year old maritime village that is surrounded by water. Many thanks to Roger, Kieth and the many others who have made this happen for 20 years. Many thanks to Chris F. for getting the A Cats accepted into the one design sailing club and Chris9 for doing the same with the N-20s. It goes to show that if you want something to happen don't sit around and wait for someone to do something. YOU are someone, get busy. I have volunteered to work on getting more breeze for this season coming up, last year sucked. Here's the links to our clubs if interested. Ed
http://www.wrcra.org/
http://www.westriversc.org/
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