Debutante's Ball
October 20, 2007
Not unlike the automotive industry the world of boats has it's assortment of annual shows where builders of boats large and small show their wares. Many of these shows like Newport (RI), Miami and Oakland are well known, but like Detroit is to the world of Auto shows, Annapolis is THE show. As the saying goes, people go to Newport to look but they come to Annapolis to buy.
Judy and I have attended the Annapolis show for the last couple of years. Our original order for Makara , which was cancelled in lieu of decision to go with a Passport, was signed at the Annapolis show in 2005 (see It Was A Dark And Stormy Night in past logs). Each year, however, the show (and the size of the boats) seems to just get bigger and this year was no different as the banners and masts on the picture above attest. This show was important for us as Makara is now fully commissioned, and we had a list of acquisitions that needed to be made as part of the cruise preparation. We weren't in . attendance just as "Looky-Loos".
that This show was also Makara's official coming out party, and not unlike a Debutante at a society ball she was fully decked out in her new sails, Passport battle flags, waxed and polished to a high gloss and decorated to the nines. And like the lady she is, she showed beautifully and was being talked about all over the show with literally hundreds looking at her. Makara was not designed as a 'dock queen' and a casual glance at her shows this. Given that she was different than many of the other boats at the show she attracted a lot of attention.
It may seem odd that we would allow our brand new baby to be exposed to the public this way, but beyond the fact that it was something we had agreed to do with the folks from Passport when she was first purchased, admittedly there is a certain pride of ownership and a genuine desire to share with the boating community at large the product of literally two years of careful consideration of what we feel our cruising sailboat should be.
In addition to over 250 sailboats being exhibited ranging from budget day sailors to multimillion dollar vessels, Annapolis is also where virtually every vendor of boat related equipment comes to exhibit their latest and greatest and sell at pretty healthy discounts. There were of course lots of new pieces of electronics (it seems that color displays are in vogue possibly replacing monochrome displays in everything from radios to instruments as time goes on). In addition it seems that everywhere you went you saw LED lighting for boats to replace their power hungry forebears.
In addition to the opportunity to watch Makara's public reception we had some serious work to do at the Annapolis show to take advantage of all those vendors being in one location. Now that Makara is essentially completed we are starting the process of outfitting her and we came to the show with a pretty long and specific shopping list. The top of that shopping list was to buy another boat. No we are not insane, well at least we don't think we are, because Makara needs a tender to get us to land when she at anchor and we came to Annapolis looking for the perfect dinghy for Makara. After two days of debate we successfully accomplished the purchase of a hard dinghy which we will call Varuna (see sidebar).
The balance of our shopping list was mainly safety equipment. The most important of these was completing the purchase of what is in effect another boat (no I tell you again we are not insane). In this case that "boat" was one we seriously hope to never use, our life raft. Although we never want to have to use it, some of our plans take Makara into the deep ocean and you do not want to tempt Poseidon, or risk your lives with anything less that a quality piece of equipment. In turn we had to make sure our choice is a correct one our life might depend on it (see links to find out about our choice - a Winslow). In addition to occasionally checking in on the traffic going through Makara, we made several other purchases along this line including equipment to quickly remove Makara's mast should she ever become dismasted (broken masts punch holes in boats) and a satellite beacon called an EPIRB which will send out a signal letting the authorities know where we are should it ever become necessary to use that life raft.
So you don't think we just spent days at this show shopping, one of the other wonderful things about the Annapolis show is that it brings experts from all over to lecture and discuss all aspects of sailing. Some of these people are Rock Stars in the sailing world like Jimmy Cornell who has completed 3 circumnavigations and is the leading expert on cruising routes. Others are a bit more colorful, like Bob Bitching who publishes a cruiser oriented magazine called Latitudes and Attitudes . In addition to being a publisher (of Lats and Atts), he co-sponsored of an inaugural cruiser bash with an awesome Jimmy Buffet knock off band, free beer and pizza for about 800 of his closest friends, which included us since we like Jimmy Buffet, pizza and beer. Bob is also the real deal who roams the world in his boat called "Lost Soul".
A tremendous organization which Judy and I are members of called the Seven Seas Cruising Association of SSCA for short had a meeting the Saturday of the Annapolis show known as a GAM. It was a day long set of lectures covering Marine Medicine (led by a local physicians group that is knowledgeable on cruising), Electronic Charting, Odor Control, the voyage of Nine of Cups who Circumnavigating South America (which was tremendously inspirational and made us want to leave NOW), and a lecture on when Mars and Venus go sailing. The SSCA also sponsor a dozen or so lunch roundtables on every subject you can possibly imagine such as advances in communication and the benefits of establishing residency in Florida. This was a great ge together with other cruisers and they were also a cosponsor of the cruisers bash. We even have T-shirts to prove it!
It was at a break during one of the SSCA lectures that I realized that we had done something special with Makara. I happened to be walking by two women engaged in an enthusiastic conversation about this beautiful boat that one woman insisted the other HAD to go see at the boat show. When she said she thought the boat was a Hylas or something and was built for two women who are going to sail it around the world, I paused, smiled and politely interrupted clarifying that the boat wasn't a Hylas, it was a Passport. The woman who had been talking, before recognition kicked in said " that's right, it was a Passport". Then she smiled and sail "Oh my god, is that your boat?". I returned the smile and nodded, and felt warm and proud. Makara, the girl we nurtured into existence and exposed to cruising society, succeeded in her coming out.