Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.
We have never held a C25/250/Capri National Regatta on the Chesapeake Bay. I asked the first Chesapeake Bay member who came to mind if he'd be interested in it during the summer of 2017, and he's excited about it. I'd like to hear if other C25/250/Capri owners would also be interested.
My thinking is to start off with racing, followed, of course, by a party, and then, since you'd be here in one of the great American cruising grounds, followed by a Chesapeake Bay cruise.
I'd like to see the boats race non-spin, because not everyone has or can fly a spinnaker, and more sailors will be able to be competitive. If you need crew, I believe we can find them for you. Members who want to participate, but can't bring their own boats could serve as crew, or as race committee, if they'd like. We can arrange to help owners launch their boats and raise their masts. Boats can moor in Annapolis harbor for $25.00 per night, or anchor in Annapolis Harbor, and taxi boats can transport you to and from shore. You can use showers at the dockmaster's office.
If you'd be interested, let us know. Also, see if other C25/250/Capri owners at your sailing venue might want to attend as well, perhaps convoying with you.
It should be great fun and an opportunity to socialize with other Catalina sailors and to sail a wonderful and historic bay.
This post is to explore interest in a Chesapeake Bay Regatta and cruise. If enough people are interested in this event, I'll submit a formal proposal.
Steve Milby J/24 "Captiva Wind" previously C&C 35, Cal 25, C25 TR/FK, C22 Past Commodore
This is a good place to gather comments from the Chesapeake Bay. Once you have a hosting club, venue, and other details, then consider submitting a bid. Please review my post on the Racing forum.
I'm definitely interested. Could possibly see if we could arrange something with the Eastport Yacht Club.
I agree. I think Eastport would be our first choice. Beautiful facility, and they usually invite racers to a party after the race. All they would have to do is give us a separate start in one of their annual regattas. They'll usually give a separate start to any one design fleet that can bring 4-5 boats to the starting line.
Steve Milby J/24 "Captiva Wind" previously C&C 35, Cal 25, C25 TR/FK, C22 Past Commodore
If you don't know how to race, we can assign an experienced racer to crew for you, and help you start, help you find your way around the race course, and help you avoid any rules issues. At our races you'll see skilled racers, casual racers and cruisers. One of our older cruising members raced in the Cleveland Regatta with his cruise-equipped boat equipped with a wind generator, just for the fun of it.
I don't need a firm committment from anyone to participate next year, because that's too far in the future to ask you to make a firm committment, but I need to know if there are enough people who are seriously considering it, and who would like to attend to justify me in putting together a bid and submitting it to the National Association. Once I put in a bid, there will be a National Regatta next year, whether one boat or thirty boats show up. (I think I already have one boat. Rob is excited about it. If we can get just a few more, we'll have a good event. If we can get lots more, it'll be a great event! )
Steve Milby J/24 "Captiva Wind" previously C&C 35, Cal 25, C25 TR/FK, C22 Past Commodore
I have two local groups that are willing to give the National Association a one design class start in their already planned regattas for next year.
A sailing club organizes a series of regattas every year. Their Commodore is eager to help us. We could probably select one of their events during the summer that would meet your preference with regard to the month.
The other offer is from the organizer of the annual Good Old Boat Regatta. The GOB Regatta is held every year during the Annapolis Sailboat Show, which is certainly one of the premier sailboat shows held around the country, around the first weekend in October. If you've never attended it, it's a great opportunity to attend the many free seminars, meet celebrity sailors, and see all the newest and best sailboats and gear on the market.
The GOB Regatta is a showcase of great old boats whose design is at least 30 years old, and it's a pleasure to see them up close, sailing and racing.
There are other possibilities, but I think the GOB Regatta is a very attractive event, coupled with the boat show and a C25/250/Capri fleet cruise on the Bay.
But, an event can only happen if the members want it to happen. There are almost enough members sailing the Annapolis-Potomac River areas to justify an event, if they want to participate. If a few others are willing to trailer to the event, the numbers would almost surely justify having it. It's up to all of you. Let us know if you can attend the event next year, and if the timing of the GOB Regatta is good for you, or if you would need to schedule the regatta in some other month. Our choices of a date for the event are somewhat limited.
The local organizations are already organizing these events for next year, so, if we're going to have an event, we have to get started soon.
Some folks think C25/250/Capri owners can't be interested in an event like this. If they're right, it's likely that nobody will ever try to organize another one, and you might never have another opportunity to attend one. I hope to hear from you.
Steve Milby J/24 "Captiva Wind" previously C&C 35, Cal 25, C25 TR/FK, C22 Past Commodore
4 years ago I raced on the Chesapeake and spent time in Annapolis. It is a wonderful venue and I recommend that everyone who can possibly make it to go. Just to see the multi-million dollar power yachts and the Naval College is worth the trip! They don't have bad seafood there either!
Derek Crawford Chief Measurer C25-250 2008 Previous owner of "This Side UP" 1981 C-25 TR/FK #2262 Used to have an '89 C22 #9483, "Downsized" San Antonio, Texas
And on the Chesapeake, it's been said you could anchor in a different river or creek every night for the rest of your life! Whether that's slight hyperbole or not, across the bay from Annapolis are some great little ports to visit like St. Michaels, Oxford, Chestertown, Rock Hall... Just bring a fly swatter!
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
I'll organize it if a few people say they're interested in participating. The best part of any fleet race or cruise is meeting other members face-yo-face, chatting, exchanging ideas, learning new skills and enjoying the Bay, and all it has to offer, in tandem.
Steve Milby J/24 "Captiva Wind" previously C&C 35, Cal 25, C25 TR/FK, C22 Past Commodore
So Steve. After all your ugly, abusive posts against me and as an Officer against the Association how does does it feel to fail to garner any interest in a Catalina 25/250/Capri Nationals? You went to more effort that I could have yet no one responded.
Now... Can we survey the membership, as I tried to do before your bile poisoned the thread, and see if anyone is racing and against whom? If there is any racing it may be possible to build on the info.
But please feel free to destroy any good efforts to TRUMP up your ego if you must.
John, please give that old argument a rest and for the good of the Association delete that unnecessary post.
Derek Crawford Chief Measurer C25-250 2008 Previous owner of "This Side UP" 1981 C-25 TR/FK #2262 Used to have an '89 C22 #9483, "Downsized" San Antonio, Texas
With Steve I have learned over the YEARS you have to get your licks in early before his verbosity sets in. But if you read the post there is a message. "Now... Can we survey the membership, as I tried to do before your bile poisoned the thread, and see if anyone is racing and against whom? If there is any racing it may be possible to build on the info."
I'll be glad to go back to the thread and show how he sabotaged a legit inquiry by an Officer.
Is there any serious racing in the Association? If so can we find it and support it.
The only bile I see in this thread was introduced by you. I tried my best to generate enthusiasm and to salvage the C25/250/Capri National Regatta which has been a 30 year tradition. Your interest in it now is too little, too late.
You don't need a "survey" to organize a national regatta. You need an organizer (me), a sponsoring club (I found at least two that would do it), and you need racers. In organizing a national regatta, you have to rely on the participation of local sailors to provide the core of competitors. Sadly, some of our active Chesapeake Bay members couldn't be enticed to participate in what promised to be an outstanding event for racers and cruisers alike.
Steve Milby J/24 "Captiva Wind" previously C&C 35, Cal 25, C25 TR/FK, C22 Past Commodore
Good try, Steve. I believe the basic problems are:
1. The C-25 and C-250 are not boats people tend to buy these days if they're interested in racing. They'll finish way back in the PHRF fleets I see around here (mostly 30'+ with lots of Js, etc.), and they won't find one-design fleets--especially since the C-25/250s aren't one-design boats. (Three keels and two masts for each.)
2. The occasional racers among this group aren't likely to have trailers or the inclination to travel some distances with them.
This is in contrast to the C-22, which Catalina still builds to a one-design spec, and which is much easier to trailer to the large one-design regattas they hold.
A few years back, I suggested a "Racer of the Year" award to fill the void from our "National Championship". The idea was to gather race results throughout the year from anyone, anywhere, who wanted to participate, with handicapped places and fleet sizes (so 3rd among 15 boats would score better than 3rd among 4...) Races would have to be club- or association-sanctioned and documented, and a limit to the number each member could report might help equalize between shorter northern seasons and longer southern ones. Somebody would need to keep a spreadsheet, the results from which could be reported here periodically through the season.
Companion "Cruiser of the Year" and "Boat of the Year" awards could be given by the officers to the members who submit the best stories about about journeys or what they've done to their boats.
The downside of this is that it doesn't lead to a physical gathering of members as would (theoretically) a regatta. The upside is it could attract some information to share from all over the country or world, recognize our members among their peers here, and give them perhaps a little plaque to put on the bulkhead.
It didn't go over then... Just thought I'd resurrect it as another option the association could try. "The times, they are a-changin'."
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
The only bile I see in this thread was introduced by you. I tried my best to generate enthusiasm and to salvage the C25/250/Capri National Regatta which has been a 30 year tradition. Your interest in it now is too little, too late.
You don't need a "survey" to organize a national regatta. You need an organizer (me), a sponsoring club (I found at least two that would do it), and you need racers. In organizing a national regatta, you have to rely on the participation of local sailors to provide the core of competitors. Sadly, some of our active Chesapeake Bay members couldn't be enticed to participate in what promised to be an outstanding event for racers and cruisers alike.
Oh My Goodness. Does your ego know no ends?
"You need an organizer (me),"
You did try to organize a regatta that no one responded to. Why?
The question is; who if anyone is racing? If so, against whom and where. Yes a survey will reveal whether there is any interest in racing at all.
Oh My Goodness. Does your ego know no ends? "You need an organizer (me),"
You did try to organize a regatta that no one responded to. Why?
Because I think the Association should serve its racing members as well as its cruising members, and, notwithstanding some uninformed opinions to the contrary, many of our members love to race their Catalinas. How many times do we ask, in a thread about new sails, how a person uses his boat, and his response is "Well, I like to race sometimes."
There's a lot of enthusiasm for racing smaller older boats that are inexpensive to own and race and that have good sailing qualities. The C27 class is very popular. The Cal 25 class is from the 1960s vintage, and they still have a national regatta each year. It moves from San Diego to Detroit to Annapolis. J's are great racing boats, but have you priced one lately? Great modern race boats are expensive to buy and expensive to maintain.
In every one of the seven national regattas I have raced in (6 Catalina and one Cal), some of the participants were not regular racers. Some were owners who entered primarily to support the association and the sport of yacht racing. They found an experienced racer to help them by serving as tactician and they sailed the course, with no real expectation of winning, and I remember one of them actually finished second or third. Maybe our cruising members aren't as adventuresome or as willing to participate as those others, but I don't really believe that.
quote:The question is; who if anyone is racing? If so, against whom and where.
The answer is that a helluva lot of people are racing Catalinas on small lakes all around the country, some casually and some seriously. We don't need a survey or a poll to know that. We know that Capn. Rob and Todd Lewis would like to race in their national regatta, because they said so in this thread. It would only take 3-4 boats from a couple of our classes to have an exciting regatta for our members.
Steve Milby J/24 "Captiva Wind" previously C&C 35, Cal 25, C25 TR/FK, C22 Past Commodore
...notwithstanding some uninformed opinions to the contrary, many of our members love to race their Catalinas...
I guess I'm the "uninformed"... Of course, of the 6000+ boats built, there are people racing them--some passionately. It seems to me Cals have always been more popular nationally for local fleet racing, and from there for national events. Likewise Catalina 22s (32 boats at their 2017 Nationals), and of course the race-designed Capri 25s.
But how many years do you have to remember back to, to remember the last C-25/250 National Regatta, where three C-25s and two C-250s competed, all local, and one became a "National Champion" after protesting that the other let a non-owner take the tiller in one race? (San Diego, 2010.)
Something has changed over the years. We try to ignore it, and the resulting discussions always get ugly.
Curmudgeon out.
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
...notwithstanding some uninformed opinions to the contrary, many of our members love to race their Catalinas...
I guess I'm the "uninformed"... Of course, of the 6000+ boats built, there are people racing them--some passionately. It seems to me Cals have always been more popular nationally for local fleet racing, and from there for national events. Likewise Catalina 22s (32 boats at their 2017 Nationals), and of course the race-designed Capri 25s.
But how many years do you have to remember back to, to remember the last C-25/250 National Regatta, where three C-25s and two C-250s competed, all local, and one became a "National Champion" after protesting that the other let a non-owner take the tiller in one race? (San Diego, 2010.)
Something has changed over the years. We try to ignore it, and the resulting discussions always get ugly.
[quote] But how many years do you have to remember back to, to remember the last C-25/250 National Regatta, where three C-25s and two C-250s competed, all local, and one became a "National Champion" after protesting that the other let a non-owner take the tiller in one race? (San Diego, 2010.)
Gosh Dave, you cherry picked the worst year in our history! In the next year (2011) there were 24 Capris and 5 C25s and C250s racing handicapped. Twenty-nine members had a good time racing in a national event.
The data for 2008-2010 doesn't seem to be accessible online and some data is only sketchily recorded, but in 2006 10 boats competed.
In 2005, only 9 boats actually competed, but this is a quote from the report: "We had over 30 sailors on the water, one boat from Indiana, (Bob Mienert), one from Texas, (Derek Crawford), and one boat from Oklahoma, (Steve Meyer), but sailors came from Florida, (Jerry Mulvihill), Connecticut, (Don Peet [New York]), Oklahoma, (JB Manley, Matt Meyer, Jack Moore, Hugh Baser, Ken West), Louisiana, (Mike Murphy, Buck Blum, Tim Voyt), Texas, (Judy Ayers and JD Dukes), and Oregon, (Gary Bruner, Terry Annis, Steve Elred). Several of the out of towners brought family; sailboat racing is a wonderful family experience."
In 2004 there were 26 boats participating.
Throughout our history there have been ups and downs in attendance.
If you've never attended a national regatta, you wouldn't know that the mere number of boats on the water doesn't tell the whole story.
Steve Milby J/24 "Captiva Wind" previously C&C 35, Cal 25, C25 TR/FK, C22 Past Commodore
...It seems to me Cals have always been more popular nationally for local fleet racing, and from there for national events.
Yup--the Cal 25 National Championship is tomorrow through Sunday in Detroit, two yacht clubs hosting, with over 25 boats expected, including from both coasts. As with the Catalina 22, this is nothing new or different. It's a culture that built up years ago around their strict one-design rules. By comparison, C-25s and C-250s are all over the map with keels, masts, rudders, etc., catering to a family cruising, non-one-design marketplace. Hard-core racers go where the one-design racers are, whether it's Lasers, Cal 20s, Cal 25s, Ensigns, Farr 40s, Melges 32s, Sonars, Shields, E Scows, or whatever. And they take their boats where their regional and national one-design regattas are--where it's racer against racer, not boat against boat.
Nothing against handicapped club racing... That's relatively "casual" racing for people who are happy competing against their ratings and improving their skills with whatever boats they've chosen to buy for whatever reasons, and who like getting together with local sailors. The C-25 and C-250 were built and refined over time to be fine family coastal cruisers first, and PHRF boats second. But the culture does not lean toward burning vacation time to haul boats across the country to race other, slightly different boats. (Tall or standard? Fin, wing, swing, or water ballast? High-aspect or standard cut sails? And will anybody else be there??)
Steve Milby, a long-time Catalina 25 guy, is retired and now has a Cal 25, a nationally recognized one-design boat. Is he in Detroit tonight, preparing to hit the line in tomorrow's big National Championships? I suspect he's happily awaiting the next club race in Annapolis, his summer home, ready to take on all comers, smoke his rating, and thereby humiliate some big sleds!
It's all good! But it's all different, and forever changing.
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
Gosh Dave, you cherry picked the worst year in our history! In the next year (2011) there were 24 Capris and 5 C25s and C250s racing handicapped. Twenty-nine members had a good time racing in a national event.
The data for 2008-2010 doesn't seem to be accessible online and some data is only sketchily recorded, but in 2006 10 boats competed.
In 2005, only 9 boats actually competed, but this is a quote from the report: "We had over 30 sailors on the water, one boat from Indiana, (Bob Mienert), one from Texas, (Derek Crawford), and one boat from Oklahoma, (Steve Meyer), but sailors came from Florida, (Jerry Mulvihill), Connecticut, (Don Peet [New York]), Oklahoma, (JB Manley, Matt Meyer, Jack Moore, Hugh Baser, Ken West), Louisiana, (Mike Murphy, Buck Blum, Tim Voyt), Texas, (Judy Ayers and JD Dukes), and Oregon, (Gary Bruner, Terry Annis, Steve Elred). Several of the out of towners brought family; sailboat racing is a wonderful family experience."
In 2004 there were 26 boats participating...
OK Steve, so I cherry-picked what appeared to me to be our last year. Five local boats (3 & 2) in 2010. I can't find any evidence from 2011 except that WYC in Minnesota had their annual Capri Championships then, as always. Several years after that, they invited C-25s and C-250s to join the regatta, and none did--not even local boats. At some point back then, absent any news, I looked at the WYC regatta results to see if there was any evidence to the contrary, and found none. (Were there National Champions nobody has heard about?) Meanwhile, your Cal 25 class is gathered from all over the country in......... Detroit. Is this our association's fault? Or is it the natural evolution of things?
You took your best shot, offering one of the most attractive venues in the nation and best set-ups in years, and what happened? How many years does that make? What Catalina owners have stepped up to organize a National Regatta or howled for a one they can travel to? The silence is deafening. The vitriol surrounding this apparently natural transition is disappointing and not helpful to the association. This is still one of the best sailing communities in support of owners of a few models anywhere on the Web. I think with a little creativity, some things could be promoted to enhance the community--for example, recognition programs, off-season regional get-togethers (with reports),... The trophy is not the point--the community is.
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ. The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.