Thats a great idea, Pete. Next year we'll make a gentleman's race out of it.
The Michigan 300 sounds far less expensive and way more fun without all the salt water in the eyes. I'm in. Let's make this happen.
Paul
boatymcboatface wrote: The Michigan 300 sounds far less expensive and way more fun without all the salt water in the eyes. I'm in. Let's make this happen.
Paul
Yeah to reiterate what Pete said 95% of the west coast of Michigan is beach. And it’s littered with lake front touristy towns. Prevailing winds from the SW. It would make for a terrific floatilla. I’m going in August. Come one come all. In the next month or two we’ll pick a date for this year.
Lake Michigan really is one of the best sailing lakes in the world. I think Pete wants to plan the 300 for next year 2020.
To all the sailors entered, The best of luck to you and may there be good stories to tell. Thank you to the organizers for their efforts in returning this classic race.
I've followed it since the beginning, although 2 to 3 months after it happened because I had to wait for my bimonthly issue of Multihulls Magazine to arrive. Rick and Mary followed it for many years in their motorhome and did the reporting.
I never was in a position to even consider doing such a long distance race. But I did get to sail with the Hogsbreath 500 fleet one early Sunday morning off Englewood Beach.
The michigan race sounds awesome. Just be careful who you invite-might want to make the first to finish buy the rounds for the day!!!
It is sad to see the Worrell in this state. It is a challenge to put a race like this together, and I applaud the organizers for making that part happen, but I think the media game has changed. There were no real announcements until 3 weeks before the event, well, I got the news a year ago as I'm in the game but that doesn't work for international talent (please see CataCup). They picked the most expensive beachcat money could buy, with no factory sponsorship to help with parts and initial boat costs. Further, the boat has no real published rules. Finally, the best were not courted early and aided with proper equipment and ground crew. I'm talking guys like Mischa Heemskerk, Darren Bundock, Glenn Ashby, Mitch Booth, Mike Easton/Tripp Burd, Todd Riccardi, Mike Christensen (Pacific 1000 winner) and others whose names I am forgetting but who are equally talented and make a race like this happen. Personally I am not trashing a $40,000 boat, burning all my annual leave, literally risking life and limb for a race with poorly written/non-existent class rules and at this point to race some great guys but in a tiny class with associated limited ground support. It takes a field of 10+ to get 8 boats up the coast in this sort of race!!
There are a lot of Inter 20s looking for that last hurrah!
The closest I came to a professional writing gig was when I was contacted by Michael Worrell to cover the event in 2003. Michael had seen my online magazine On The Wire, and offered to fly me out to Florida to serve as a sort of "Howard Cosell" correspondent, providing color commentary on the competitors. I saw it as a possible life changing event and path to professional writing. Alas, the event was cancelled that year. It was very disappointing, and I still wonder where I would be now had the event taken place.
I'll be with the race in spirit. The cost of a bottle of Woodford Reserve is about $44.
It's on! I visited the teams preparing on the beach in Hollywood FL yesterday. Good fun!
Organizers are posting on FB lots. That's where the action is.
about to start!
Streaming live at 955 on facebook
now that i'm home and have some bandwidth available - going back to the beginning of the thread; i shared the tommy bahama budget for previous events. that was in no way intended to be an estimate for the 2019 event.
lots of talk about the boats and budget. absolutely true that this kind of race is not for the faint of heart or thin wallets. enter or don't, just like any event. "i'm not trashing an expensive boat." fair enough - lots of other options, and if that is at the top of your list, i absolutely agree this is not the race for you. you made the right choice to sit this out.