I attended the last four Annapolis sailboat shows free, covering them for Soundings Magazine. This year, we paid. I was just as confused as I was when I had the pressure to find a story inside the show grounds. There is just so much stuff to see.
We got off the shuttle bus that brought us from the Naval Academy stadium parking lot and immediately bought tickets. Monica said I should lead the way, so I stumbled ahead in blind disarray.
We had only traveled maybe 150 feet into the grounds along Ego Alley when I looked down and saw a must-buy product -- a powder that claimed it will remove mildew from your boat. Even though we had scrubbed our saloon cushions with disinfectant, they still had that bitter mildew odor.
We allowed ourselves to succumb to the mildew man's pitch and bought a jar of the stuff. The same fellow was hawking odd-feeling rubber-like pads guaranteed to keep your tumbler filled with iced tea from tipping over when the boat heels 30 degrees. Or at least that was the promise Monica believed was made. She's a sucker for such products, like the golden towels sold on TV as Sham Wow. She's convinced that they are dangerous because if you drop them overboard, they'll absorb all the water in the Chesapeake, leaving you grounded.
From Mildew Man, we moved on through the gauntlet of boat salesmen and boat insurance salesmen until we found ourselves beside the Mini-Transat Eko, atop which sat Kate Ambach, who sailed the boat to Bermuda in the race in June. Her fiancee, Drew Wood was in the cockpit as was Sam Asmus (sorry, Sam, if that's not the correct spelling,) the owner of the company that built Eko. Drew sailed another mini to Bermuda and Sam did the same in 2007.
I'd seen the minis in Newport and Bermuda but never been aboard one. So I took this opportunity, saying as I stepped from the dock that I couldn't conceive ever sailing one offshore.
Oddly, when I returned to the dock it was with the feeling that sailing a mini in its blue-water element would be great fun -- as well as a great challenge.
You crawl into a mini cabin as if entering an igloo -- through a tiny companionway. Once inside, you find an amazing amount of room. Since it is a pure racing boat, you find no amenities.
Sam explained that minis come in "prototype" models, which can have canting keels and water ballast and carbon fiber everything, and in more prosaic models which are made of fiberglass and have neither the keels nor the ballast. But they do have solar panels and autopilots.
In place of water ballast, which is pumped from port to starboard and back to counter the heeling force of the wind, the crew of a standard mini simply shifts their stores inside the boat from side to side to gain the same effect.
We moved on from the mini to inspect some other boats. (We'd already visited the Morris 52-foot daysailer, at $1.4 million an example of state-of-the-art one-upmanship. Later, we visited the Friendship daysailer designed by Ted Fontaine. This is my choice among these frivolous boats for its exquisite blending of curves. It is, at least, a great bit of sculpture.)
At lunch time, we broke bread at McGarvey's Pub, sitting outside and braving the drooping gray clouds, in the company of our NJ neighbors, Jean and Mark Nooney. They live two doors away, but we had to go to Annapolis to finally share some time with them.
On the dock, we ran into Georgie and Tom Norton, members of The Red Dragon Canoe Club well before we came to town and joined.
At some point, we boarded a Cabo Rico 56, just to be dazzled. Among limited production boats, the Cabo Ricos have always caught my eye. I didn't ask the price of this model.
We finally did some investigation in one of the tents where I spent time with Hans Bernwall at Scanmar, which sells windvane steering units. I had emailed Hans after we damaged our Windpilot coming back from Bermuda. I was inquiring about a vane system that, I learned, he no longer sells.
At the show, Hans spent an inordinate amount of time explaining why I should buy a Monitor windvane. I know that many boats in the Bermuda One-Two use Monitors. I also know they cost a bundle. Hans wasn't offering any half-price deals, and we can get along without a windvane at least until Monica retires and we begin cruising seriously.
It was fun to chat with Hans, however. He's a good salesman, I'm sure, and it was interesting to hear him slander his competition with a winning smile.
We lasted at the show until our feet got tired. Then we drove to Robin's side. But that's another story.