April 27, 2024 • 55 mins
Jibe Talking sits down with the Lake Erie Interclub Cruise as they talk about the coming race this year!
Follow the link below to sign up and learn more at https://www.erieinterclub.com/
Cruise Coordinator: Heather McBrier EYC
Website / Digital Communication: David McBrier EYC
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening
(00:03):
Whatever time it is where you are listening to us. This is jibe talking
We are recording at
Jolly Roger Sailing Club in Toledo, Ohio where pirates come to play you can say that
(00:23):
That was a pirates back there
I am your host today
Christina Columbus and I have my co-hosts Ted Mount
And today we are here. I'm talking with some folks
from the Lake Erie inner club crews and I'm gonna let them introduce themselves
(00:46):
before we begin
My name is Heather McFryar and I'm the event planner for the Lake Erie inner club crews. I've been
the event planner for since
2004 so I've been doing this since
for about 20 years and
I'm not originally from Erie, but I'm married into the Great Lakes
(01:11):
and
Learned how to sail because of my husband and his family and they've been doing this a long time
so
Who wants to go next Gibby you can go next
Okay, fine
My name is give me so I am from Erie, Pennsylvania
And I have been sailing my entire life
(01:32):
I'm soon to be 85
So I started at age 8 with my brother and I'm probably the oldest living person
Who has ever sailed in the inner club? I first inner club
Started before the inner club. That's pretty cool
Anyway, that's me. I've sailed everything from
(01:55):
big boats to
racing models, okay
David
My name is David McFryar. I'm from Erie, Pennsylvania
fifth generation Erie, Pennsylvania
So glad to still be hanging the flag flag there. I hail out of the Erie Yacht Club
And I've been an avid sailor my entire life and have raced
(02:18):
everything from
IOR boats to
Mum 30s the Cape 31s the J 70s
Both both ocean and Great Lakes sailing. Oh
That's quite
Pleasure to have you guys doing this podcast
For us for the Lake Erie inner club. Oh, we're having fun. Yeah, look look
(02:39):
We're all fellow pirates looking forward to it. Thank you. Hey, uh, I have to ask heather
I have to ask you a question
Have you been doing the event for 20 years because you're good at it or because no one else will take it over?
Yeah, yeah because if you didn't say that give me a break
(03:01):
Yeah, yeah, because if you didn't say that give me somebody else would be taking it over
Oh, I you know, I when I moved to Erie, um
I I had to like start over and figure out what I wanted to do with my life in terms of you know
starting to have kids and um
(03:23):
I actually got connected with the other woman that used to run the Lake Erie inner club crew since passed away
But um, I actually it ended up becoming a career for me in the sense that I became an event planner
I had my own business because I started so you're good at this kind of stuff. Okay. Well, yes
Yeah, but um, but I I learned how to sail because my husband it's a blast
And I've done a lot of the inner club cruises as well
(03:45):
Now I don't because I'm I'm sort of running it solo so I drive around so I have the perspective of meeting them all in courts
And planning the parties and you know merchandise all that stuff
Maybe they can be our sponsor for this one then she can sponsor her own show
Oh, you never know. You never know. Yeah, we can take you on the road. There you go. There you go. Hey, um
(04:07):
It kind of how this came about is you know, we are all
Most of the stuff we've done has been on western Lake Erie
And I wanted to know you know
what was going on on the other half of the lake because I know I see boats and
And I saw you guys and thought you know what I wouldn't mind learning about this now
Who can give me and I heard I heard it give me I heard you're the guy
(04:28):
Give me a little bit of a history of this lake Erie inner club cruise
Well, let's say the lake Erie inner club cruise
Started as
What was known as the Annette Cup?
Oh back in the early 1900s. Oh my word
(04:48):
Actually in the 1800s and there was a group from the Erie Yacht Club
that sailed across to Port Dover and the race was time to go
along about the time of Dominion Day in Canada
And then there were several races that were involved first
(05:08):
It was the Annette Cup and then because there were boats that started to pick up and go into it
And everybody wanted to win. They created a thing called the Bruce Bell
Where it was a past performance handicap type thing
and so
Sooner or later if you sailed the race long enough, you won a trophy
(05:29):
and
I can't tell you quite when they started to invite other boats to come in from other yacht clubs
But then they had a it was called the Invitational. So
along about in
Let's say 55 if you sailed
The the wasn't called it inner club. It was called the Annette Cup
(05:51):
And if you sailed in that there was a possibility you could win four or five trophies
Depending upon
Where you lucked out in the fleet, I guess
So and then and I think because there were a lot of Buffalo boats
They decided to make it a
(06:12):
cruise versus a race so that you could get all sorts of boats into it from different yacht clubs and then of course the
the racing
Developed in the different races
from from port dover to
Maitland port colburn the canoe club to the buffalo yacht club to duncurt new york
(06:36):
All those different varieties of races were
were a product of the uh, what was now the inner club cruise because there was a lot of a lot of buffalo boats
and
And it still is there's still still a lot of buffalo boats and so that sort of became a family type of sailing
and that on this end of the lake and
(06:58):
mothers fathers and
kids sailed and
Everybody had a good time
So which club was it?
Everybody had a good time so which club kind of heads it up. Is there one particular club that's kind of in charge of it?
I'd say the eerie yacht club all of us that run it are
(07:18):
All from the area club, but there's a committee that meets once a year at the buffalo yacht club and we have representatives from
from the dover yacht club and buffalo yacht club and port colburn as well as eerie but uh
Dave dave's dad has kind of been the
Uh mainstay for the past I would say 30 years and so dave runs the website. I do the event planning
(07:41):
And all the registration and all that used to be here, but now it's online for yacht scoring. So it makes it a little easier
I think everybody's kind of going to that. Yeah
Gibby you would say though that it's a group effort. It's a group effort
Yeah, I mean it's you know, you have all you have all these clubs that have come together
to
(08:02):
So right so the buffalo yacht club, which is the oldest yacht club on lake eerie
Which was built in 1860
And it's the and the buffalo yacht club is the third oldest in the united states
So there's a lot of history coming out of the buffalo yacht club
And the so you've got the buffalo yacht club and then they have a summer station called the buffalo canoe club
(08:24):
Which is over in canada
Um, so they have docked over there and then there's another yacht club over there called the buffalo canoe club
They're a they're a founding member as well
the eerie yacht club
And then the port dover yacht club have always been mainstays
And then there's another club called the sugarloaf sailing club, which comes out of port colburn, ontario
(08:49):
Which is at the beginning of the welland canal where you go up the lake ontario
Um, so you have all these founding clubs that all participate on a committee
To make sure that this event keeps going forward
Now how many boats did you have last year? Do you know?
(09:09):
I have that information. Uh last year we had 35 boats participate. We break them into various
classes
So if if you're an avid racer and you want to be in a racing class you can
You can participate we we race under the perf handicap system
Um the biggest year we've had we had 60 boats on our 50th anniversary
(09:32):
So some of the old some of the old legacy boats kind of came back to participate
Uh, but we've been averaging about 35 boats
Uh post covid that's that's quite a few boats. I was gonna say right before covid right before covid
We were in the 40s almost 50s. So we've dropped
Quite a bit since covid but we're bringing it back
Bringing it back
(09:53):
So now I know I know I think I saw on your website that um, some of the stops if you will are in canada
Um now
I have I mean I have heard about it, but how hard is it?
Like if you go from here and you want to and you you port in canada like how does that work?
(10:15):
Well
You have to clear customs for one thing. Okay, and I think they
For a while
If you use eerie as a starting point
The first race would go across the lake to port jover
And then it would come back into this country
(10:36):
And then it'll go back into canada
Which created a real problem with customs because you had
let's say
10 people on 40 boats. It's 400 people trying to clear customs going both ways
And it just it didn't work. So I think david if i'm
Correct now most of the
(10:57):
They don't come back into the this country unless it's the last stop
That's correct
Yeah, the good news is the u.s system and the canadian system. They're starting to share more data
Uh, we in canada we use an app called the uh, it's can am k-a-n or sorry c-a-n-a-m
(11:19):
And we typically have one person in charge on the on the boat
To it doesn't it doesn't have to be the skipper or the captain
Uh, but we just have one person that collects everybody's passports
They enter all the data into the app
and um
It's it's really helped simplify it
so it does it does take some time to clear customs, but
(11:42):
That's normally when we have our first cocktail after racing on the boat
And we hang out as a crew until the intel customs clears us
So it gives us a little gives us a little downtime
So how long does it take up your lives down time to make up your lies
(12:04):
Talking like a true sailor
Um, so if somebody wanted to participate in your race, they would need to have a passport
Correct they also need to make sure that one of the things that we've learned over the years
Is you have to make sure that your crew
(12:26):
Is eligible to go to canada so you can't have any uh violations
Um, maybe a dui offense to be able to enter canada via boat. Um,
The entire crew needs to be able to clear customs. So felons are a no-no, man
That's right, and they will and they will stop you. I mean, so if you if you have you're creating a crew
(12:50):
you've got to really interrogate them because
we did get stopped one time because
The guy had a had a lot of the drug driving but it was a more serious violation than that
And they damn near threw him out. So I mean adam believed canada
Only because somebody was a good bullshitter that he was able to stay in
(13:13):
Back in the day, they'd come down on the on the on the docks and you'd have to pass, you know right there in person
but
Since 9 11 it got it got really strict
But I would say because of covet it got it sort of got easier because everything went to an app
And and it's a lot easier now. So in 2025 for the first time we're going to go
(13:33):
from erie to
Dover then back to duncur which we used to do a long time ago
but um having in a long time because it was just so difficult to go from
Um, like like gibby said to canada then back to us and back to canada again. So
now
for somebody who's
(13:55):
clearing customs
On a boat like what does that entail? Like what does that look like?
I know I think about it like coming back from an international travel at an airport
but with a boat you can kind of
Uh, doc any are there specific places that you have to dock to go through customs?
(14:18):
So with with this event if you're oh go ahead go ahead gibby if you're if you were just sailing into canada
And not in a race then you have to clear customs
someplace where there is a customs agent or a phone where you can call
the customs office
And once they've done that then they give you a clearance number
(14:43):
And if you're if they come to the if the customs agent comes at the dock they actually give you a slip of paper
You have to put in your someplace on your boat so it can be seen and they and those
Those permits are good for a certain number of days
Depending upon how long you're telling you're going to be there
(15:05):
Okay
but
It's pretty smooth when you leave here. It's port dover
But they have a they have an 800 number if you if you're just you know
You decide you're going to sail across there and go in and that's of course you have to have a passport but
(15:26):
That's
They do and they can't incidentally they can and do come aboard your boat and inspect it because you can only bring in
And so many cigarettes so many bottles of whiskey
Bottle of wine
And they can and found your boat
Don't forget the rum
(15:49):
Well, you are sailors so of course it's gotta be rum
Now I I get the fun job of driving all the flags and all the t-shirts over and every year
I always have a fun time getting all that stuff over well right now
You just piqued christina's interest because she's all about the t-shirts
We had to spend about 10 minutes on the past podcast discussing
(16:10):
Uh t-shirts so so you do have shirts
We do shirts and sweatshirts and we've done a little bit of everything mugs and hats
Yeah, we do a combination but I order everything and I have had different artists do different
uh
Art pieces of artwork and we've sold watercolors and you name it. We've tried it
(16:30):
But that's kind of the lifeblood
Because we're we treat it like a family reunion in a way, you know
uh
so we
Sell
Basically cash only for our for our t-shirts and put it in the bank if you know what I mean
Yeah, I do
(16:51):
So where do you get your shirts from?
Uh, we have a local
Uh vendor that I i've used for the past 20 years and uh, we just give him the design and then I pick out all the
Items and then he silk screens and embroiderers and and does it's called creative imprints here in area
So good. Yeah, it's uh, we we've always found it's important to support local musicians local artists local local
(17:17):
People that support the sailing industry. I agree to to try to ensure that because when we go out to get sponsors
Uh, we do do some fundraising. Uh, we we go to port dover. We try to get the restaurants that we participate in
To try to give back to the event
Businesses in buffalos some of some of the sailors are happy to do in-kind donations
(17:39):
um
And maybe they don't want
Their name branded but it really does take a community effort to keep this event going
So yeah, we don't have like a big sponsor like a gil or or something like that like some of these
One design events are sort of cookie-cutter events and ours is much more
Like a family like when you come aboard, I mean you every year
(17:59):
It's like you meet the whole new past of characters and and people some people have been like gibby's been selling
Same with my husband, you know and now me for 20 years
You see the same faces and sometimes you don't see them until this event every year. So it's kind of like a big reunion
It's cool
So now i'm looking at your um event site right now and I see it looks like it starts on june 22nd
(18:21):
Now is that that's the first race day?
Correct. Yeah, that's going to be the saturday of the first day of race. No, that's june 22nd is a saturday, right?
So that's that's the first race
Uh people typically show up thursday or friday if they're coming in by boat
Um, so the boats will start to arrive at the
(18:44):
Starting point. So sometimes we start in buffalo. Sometimes we start in eerie
um
The 2024 event we start in eerie, pennsylvania at the eerie yacht club
So boats will start to arrive on thursday and friday morning
To you know, you got to get you got to get the ponies to the starting line
did I see for the uh, the first race that you guys are like
(19:08):
The first horn is at some ungodly hour of oh five thirty or something
Right, that's that's notorious because we uh, yeah they have a
Like a 5 45 gun or six o'clock gun and then it's actually quite beautiful because all of the boats
Uh upon
(19:28):
The gun end up popping their shoots and so it's like sunrise plus all the spinnakers going out with the channel. It's very beautiful
That's it. Very nice
One of the other interesting things about that time of the day
June is that the sun is coming around and going right down through the channel
(19:53):
Yeah, I mean there there's some really beautiful pictures that have come out of that thing
Now what are the distances on I see you got an eerie course and it says eerie to dover
What are the distances on these races?
I I have that worked up
Um, let me give you let me just step back one second
(20:14):
I'm going to just give you a little history of the event good probably great. So so right now
It's it's an annual event and it's for sailboats
Um who who want to participate in racing and we also invite people that like to cruise
Um, so maybe you're not an avid sailor like racing sailor
You're not a sim sailor
(20:35):
But you want to go do a you want to go do point to point and maybe do four to the five days
And you want to go just take your boat and move with a fleet of boats because it'll give you protection
Because when you're moving with other boats, at least you got other people around you
That if you do get into trouble that you're at least a radio, you're a vhf radio call away. Yep
(20:58):
Um and plus you're just you're moving with numbers
Uh, so this year the event starts on on saturday june 22nd
And it'll finish on wednesday. So it's always a five-day event
I I would say probably 70 percent of the participants do the entire five day
(21:19):
And then but then you have other people that might only do three days and they choose not to do the last two days
Because they have to go back to work
Or they can't make the full commitment that work screws up everything, you know, I tell you um
So it it but you know the race the people that are trying to win the trophies you have to do all five days
(21:39):
Uh, you can win individual you can win individual days
But if you're going for the overall trophy of the lakeria inner club crews
You have to participate in all five days. Okay
Yeah, and the other thing david to remember is that a couple of those races in the beginning are for eerie boats only
(22:00):
Yeah, where it's part of their it's part of their boat of the year it's part of the boat of the year type races
Get get me there used to be a
The net cup is the oldest freshwater sailing trophy in the world
Wow
Wow
Now do you have a jam and a perf class or just it?
(22:22):
Or just a perf class
Just a perf class, okay
The I know we've made consideration for the cruising class to start to put up spinnakers
um
The cruising class they they get awards, but it's more it's more just for fun. It's for participation
We're trying to encourage boats to come join us
(22:46):
and um
You know again, it's it's it's trying to get people out using their boats. Most most boats sit in their slips
Yeah, we're trying to we're trying to encourage people to use their sailboats
And and go and go explore some ports and enjoy the camaraderie of other clubs other destinations
(23:07):
And a lot of the places we go to have great live music. They've got great restaurants
So and when you're moving and when you're moving with the crowd
It it just makes it a lot more enjoyable
Don't you think that's why some of the people don't go very far?
Because they're they're worried about being on their own and I think you're right with being with the fleet
You can you can call somebody and somebody will come and help you
(23:32):
I don't think that has anything to do with it. Actually personally interesting. Okay
I mean there's
Anywhere in any of these races in any of these events on this end of the lake
on this end of the lake you're pretty close to
to uh
To a port emergency port if you need it, you're not too far away if you look at the chart
(23:55):
Okay
Now did I see in your rules that you're required to have three people on the boat at all times?
That's david mcbryer question
Yeah, yes. Yes it is. Um, we haven't set the event up as a single-handed or a double-handed type event. Um
(24:16):
Just because the days can be longer
Um, I mean some days you can start racing if for example if we're racing from erie, pensivania
We're starting in the bay in erie. We're racing across the port dover
If you have lighter winds
The cutoff I think the cutoff time is like a six maybe a six o'clock finish
There are long days on the water
(24:38):
But just as it the way we've set the event up and the rules up everything is set up for a teamed approach
Um that way you can have a navigator. You can have a driver
Um, we're just we haven't we haven't
Taken the approach yet. We haven't I don't think we've had a lot of demand though for single and double-handed participation
(25:00):
And we haven't we haven't uh
We haven't uh, basically addressed that issue because it hasn't come up yet. Sure. Sure
So if some historic good historically that people who have sailed the race they want to come back
If nothing else they want to come back for the party
Yeah, I was gonna say do you have good parties?
(25:23):
Do we have good parties is
So what are the
What about there are some good there are some good parties. Absolutely. I mean i've done the mills parties
I've done the putting bay week parties
some of the lake eerie interclub crews still has a tradition of
(25:44):
Enjoying the festivities of the port
and
As as i've gone around the country racing
In in different classes, I I would tell you that we still have some of the best parties on the great lakes
What about if somebody from this half of the lake said you know, I wouldn't mind coming over for a couple days
Where would we where would we port our boat at do you guys got room over there for us?
(26:09):
Uh, yes at the eerie club, yeah, we could we can get a lot of people in there. Okay, uh, they have a big have a
Uh, usually there's some that are available because people are out
And then we have a guest dock that is several hundred feet long
And there are other places in the club to support somebody and put them up
(26:32):
We get all the boats in when the beginning of the race
Uh when everybody everybody's in
There nobody is
Stuck someplace else or out on a keg we get them all in they wrapped them up
Yeah, yeah the eerie the eerie yacht club is one of the largest yacht clubs in the world
The yacht club is one of the largest yacht clubs on the great lakes
(26:54):
And then when we when we go to port gobert, they're able to accommodate
Uh multiple boats they're able to we were able to accommodate 60 foot boats
All the way down to you know, our smallest boats in the race are j24
Uh, we we race under the category three for the
Um for safety
We just want to make sure boats have lifelines
(27:17):
That they're just they're they're properly they're properly fitted out to be able to go
sail out in lake eerie, which
Um, I don't know if you've done much sailing in the eastern end of lake eerie. I was gonna ask you about this
So speak to that. No mine's been western
So my my personal experience is I believe the east end of lake eerie has has relatively steep waves
(27:40):
Uh with with much less time duration between them
So there's there's more frequency of waves
Um, which is more like running head on into a series of brick walls
Uh from time to time as as they get steeper
Um, i've done a lot of sailboat racing out in the open ocean
(28:00):
And I find the great lakes in general
Have there's just more wave energy. Yes, and it can be it can be a little bit more violent
Just because the waves are compressed
We were talking about that earlier on a podcast when I was saying i'd been out to san diego
And sailed in the ocean a few times and it's way different
Yeah, I mean the great lakes especially lake eerie can be a little bit unforgiving at times
(28:25):
Um, they say if you can sail on lake eerie and sail anywhere
You know, we were talking about that very thing too
I in fact I was saying that when I was in san diego was walking up the dock and somebody said
So where do you normally sail and I said lake eerie the answer was oh
By the way, I think we lost your wife she dropped it some way the call got dropped so if she's not talking it's because she got dropped
(28:49):
Heather yeah
Yeah
I don't know. Do you want to try to call her back? We're gonna we're gonna try to hook her back in but just so you know
Yeah, so I mean over over the years it's been interesting we've seen
We've had we we we have a lot of friends
We've seen people with steering quadrant issues
(29:10):
On days with high winds. We've had people break booms
Of course, you're gonna rip sails right blown out spinnakers
Hold on one second. I'm gonna try to get her in here. Hello. Are you back? Hello. Are you bad?
Okay, I don't know what happened. That's okay. All right, go ahead talk about spinnakers
Yeah, I mean, but you know with with higher winds
(29:31):
I mean you can blow out spinnakers you can blow out mains. We've snapped spinnaker sheets. We've snapped guys
You'll be sailing along next to somebody and you'll see them blow out like jim halyard
We've seen four stage sheer off. Oh
Having a bad day there
We've seen a couple people where they've dropped mass
(29:53):
so the
The
Nice thing about five days at sea is you get various conditions. I mean some days you'll be
Gibby gibbies had probably many years where you motor for an entire day
Because there's no wind and you can skip you can skip a sand dollar across the lake
And and then you have other days where it's just a nice 25 knot day
(30:17):
With some storm squalls blowing through
So you you need to make sure that you've got it
Competent crew that can handle that can handle all conditions
And if you aren't comfortable with the conditions
At least you have a very good we call them the iron jenny, which is the diesel engines
Hopefully hopefully you have a good way to motor your boat
(30:38):
If you want to reduce sail area
And and be able to be able to motor to the next destination
Now we mentioned how what are some of the different
Races, I know we were kind of alluding to that
So the the eerie to port dover is approximately 40 miles
straight line
(30:59):
Gibby gibby you would agree with that number
Yeah, very yeah 42 43
Yeah, you know and if if you have to start tacking up wind let's say for example, we're sailing north towards canada
Yeah, and if you're sailing north towards canada
Yeah, and you have to and you have to tack up wind all day
It's probably going to add 30 to the distance. Yeah
(31:23):
Predominantly the nice thing about this event is it's predominantly a downwind race
Because the prevailing winds are typically west
to southwest
So you're able to you're able to get your spinnakers up. You can get your a sails up
You can get your traditional symmetrical kites up
And you can go do that 40 miles
(31:46):
And you're and you're typically moving at hull speed or maybe a little bit less
Because most of the boats in our fleet are non-planing hulls
So, yeah, but that most of the most of the distances are between 40 to 20 miles per day, okay
And across Lake Erie you also have a big thing on the other side of the lake this sticks out called longpoint
(32:11):
Which is a navigational hazard
If you don't happen to know it's there
But it also has different currents that run around it and it's shallow so you can you can get in trouble there
And then there's there's two triangular races
(32:32):
Okay
now yeah, so
Yeah, we do some course right in their long distance course races
So when we will sail over we'll do the distance race from Erie to ford dover
The second day or the third day depending on every year. We kind of mix it up a little bit this year
We're starting with a couple of days
We're actually going to spend two nights at the area club before embarking across to canada
(32:57):
But as gibby was saying we'll do these 17. They're like 17 to 20 mile triangle courses
Up in
Over in canada we'll race up to turkey point race out to the corner of longpoint and then back to port de la gare
And those are always that's always great sailing. Uh, gibby mentioned at longpoint's very shallow at the tip because it's a sandbar
(33:21):
That sticks off of canada
But it's also the deepest point in lake erie where it's 210 feet
So you can also have some of the steepest waves
Or the most i wouldn't say the steepest waves. It's actually the most steepest waves in the world
You can also have some of the steepest waves or the most i wouldn't say the steepest waves. It's actually the most forgiving wave
(33:44):
Because you've got a lot of water flow
Where it's not bouncing off the bottom so kind of like an ocean feel there
Yeah, it's nice. You can get you can get some nice sets rolling through there
My my first inner club we finished at like lunchtime
Um, and I thought that was normal. I mean we were we were speeding over there
(34:08):
It was like we were surfing. It was amazing
Yeah, i had heather had the first heather i heather had the opportunity to race we had a boat called aries
It was an ior 47
It was a two-tonner
And it was it was blowing 35
We had a kite up all day
We were hitting 16 knots. Oh
Oh, and we we caught the 10 30 we were driving a car
(34:33):
We started the race at 5 30 in the morning and we we caught the 10 o'clock I think it was like the 10 or the 10 30
bridge
Over into dover
So any any any wheels?
Go ahead. I'm sorry finish up by noon
I would say the standard is they they start rolling in the early boats come in at three
(34:56):
I think they start rolling in at three anywhere between three and five
Wow
You were cruising. Would you say well, I guess sometimes it's two o'clock or something
Yeah, it makes yeah the big yeah the boats today are getting a little bit faster
But one of the great things we have about our event
Is you have a lot of boats that are still averaging like six knots? Okay, five and a half five and a half knots is like their hull speed
(35:19):
Right. So it the heart of the wind blows the boat doesn't get there faster. Nope
um
One thing ted I just
Ted one thing I want to say though is right. We all know the movie captain ron back in 1992
We were talking about that on the last show. Yep
And we we always say, you know, if anything is going to happen, it's going to happen out there
(35:42):
It's the old the old famous quote by kurt russell who plays the role of captain ron
Who was uh with martin short? Yeah
Is the mary mary k place whom he liked to nickname kitty?
Um who was worried about not knowing how to drive a boat
He's just you know, just wanted to try to reinsure that the best way to learn is just go do it
(36:03):
You're right. You're right about that. What if someone what if someone listening says, you know, I I would
Let's say from the western side over here says I would like to be in that but I I don't want to take my boat
Over there. You got to ever have people looking for crew
Uh, we do i'll i'll make sure to stand up I run the website and uh, right I was looking at it
(36:24):
Uh right now we don't have a crew board, but i'll make sure to get a crew board stood back up again
to try to encourage
People to come in and participate with us if they're not from our regions
Um, the other thing we've been getting more and more smaller boats beginning to participate
Um, there's a j24 that races. Oh, okay, and I think I I think they'll tell you it's some of the best sailing they've ever done
(36:51):
um
You show up with the right crew
And you know j24s were built to go do distance racing by design
The other class that's starting to grow is the j80s
Oh, um, that's an idea. Those are nice
We have um, we have a team out of uh port dover, uh run by john valley
(37:15):
Who has done quite well with his j80. There's a team out of eerie
Uh, the dreckies who had a j80. They just recently sold it
They moved over to a far 30
But the uh, yeah, the j80 out there is actually a great boat
And it seems to be able to survive lake eerie on these boats
It and it seems to be able to survive lake eerie on these long-distance races
(37:40):
So something to consider you could trailer a boat in
We do have places to uh pull the boats and we do have places to launch them
If you wanted a trailer in what do you say? Normally are the size boats you're seeing in there?
Yeah, like see a lot of 27s and 30s the biggest class is a j35. I would say okay
(38:07):
Yeah 30 boats are getting smaller but I mean we've seen we've seen on this end of the lake the boats got bigger
But as the as with inflation and the price pressures
The price of sailing increasing my guess is boats are going to start to go back to the 30 33 foot size
(38:28):
And and you know more at the j80 type size because it's affordable
Because if you have to buy sales and you got to buy equipment and you got to pay to you got to pay to participate
I think the economics is starting to play out
and and boats are going to start to
Be more more in the 30 to 30 range
(38:50):
Over here when they do the spectrum they use the j80s for that for their kids for the spectrum sailing
That seems to work out real well with the kids being able to get them on and off and
They're just good boats. Really? Yeah, they are they're good boats pretty fast too. Actually. Yeah
That's awesome so
(39:12):
So if there was anything if somebody for the first time
Uh wanted to participate you guys it sounds like you guys are really encouraging of just getting people out there to race
You don't have to be like some crazy racer if you can handle your boat and you say I wouldn't mind it
It sounds like this might be the place to give it a roll, huh?
Oh, yeah, we've had a lot of like we have some boats that bring on
(39:35):
All their uh, some of the youth sailing like the youth
Uh, like the youth and they'll do a whole boat of you know teenagers
And you know, my son's done that. Um, there's a lot of family like some people try it for the first time and just take
Their family on the cruising side of it because that I I don't know if dave mentioned but we do have a cruising class
(39:56):
We're not racing
So there's it's not you know competitive but you can I you know, just take your time and not have to worry about anything
And yeah, if you need a motor you motor
But yeah, we're encouraging of all levels of skill. There's some really beautiful boats that are in these spinnaker classes
I mean the the trip 56
uh entrada
(40:16):
Uh, just looking at some of these boats
I mean these are some really beautiful sloop some older style boats and then you have some newer ones. Yeah
Yeah, it's really interesting. That's gibby's boat. Gibby. You should speak to the old boats
Gibby knows all about that
That's because I'm old
Well, you said it gibby not us
(40:38):
Well, you race on them
In our in our yacht club fleet your yacht club fleet. We have several wooden boats. Oh and
Those wooden boats, uh two of them are
Are big every other
Dreamer is six on 50 feet 55 feet
(40:59):
and uh
uh, and then we've got
the
uh
The altair which is a roads 29
And that boat is built in 1929. So there's some older boats. Oh my word. There would oh, yeah alt alt air alt altar
(41:20):
Yeah
Uh
And so in in in our local racing here
That there's sometimes it's not uncommon to have three or four or five
Wooden boats in one of our
weekly races wow
Yeah
Yeah, the boat the boat that that's called dreamer that gibby spoke of is it's um, it's a 50
(41:45):
It's just under 55 feet
Just and it has about a 13 foot beam
And it was it was built by um, it was built up in east booth bay, maine
And it was a it's the designer. It was an alden uh yacht
And it's great to watch that boat doing the five days of sailing
Where they're out there stressing their wood mass and they're
(42:07):
You know, they're they're probably they're they're basically trying to get the hull moving full
Once they get all their canvas up and they get that thing going hull speed
It's it's just an absolute beauty to watch sail by you
I mean, there's a 60 foot boat on here. Uh, what is it was called? Damn yankee damn yankee. Yeah
(42:27):
I mean, teddy wow
That's just amazing. You see all the gigantic boats and then even still you have smaller boats that want to participate
It's really exciting. Oh, yeah, it's it's it's
like no other
Sailing or god, I think probably in the world for that matter, but damn yankee has to usually more out and
(42:51):
You know find creative ways to get his crew into the parties
They're they're upsides and downsides
The larger boats
Trey we need to we need to go over there. Yeah, I mean I I got a 28 foot so but you can you get off work for them on
That's a little hard, but you know nothing little advanced pto can't fix right? We could go
(43:14):
Well, I would say that the other thing is is we do break it up
So if you want to do just a portion of it
We started doing that for people that could only do say the eerie dover and the dover dover course race because it's usually over the weekend
So some people will do the first half and some people from buffalo will come over
And then do like the port colburn and the other half at the end of it
(43:36):
So our problem is it would probably take two days if we sailed straight just to get there
Yeah, I mean because it takes us about six hours four to six hours
From our port to the islands. Yep to put in bed, you know
And so then you're looking at about about another six hours to get well if I can convince tray to go see
I'm off in the summers because i'm a i'm a school nurse
(43:59):
So if treo go I would I would take a week and go how close is the area to presque isle the the state park
That's where that's where eerie pennsylvania is. Okay. So that's where the everything is happening at so that's like that's cool
Because I i've done some work out there and stayed out at the state park for a day and it's just beautiful out there
There's like the house boats out there and stuff that people that live out there year-round. I'm assuming year-round
(44:27):
And it's just yeah, brett
Presque isle is magical the uh, so the the niagara was built in misery bay right where you're talking about near the houseboats
Yeah, so the niagara the niagara was built to beat the british in the war of 1812
and
So the the monument when you're down at putting bay and you're looking at the battle that was fought
(44:51):
The the niagara boat was actually constructed in eerie
And it's still it the boat still hails there and it still sails there's a full there's a full replica of it that uh
Goes out and works the great lakes
That could be a whole other podcast. Yeah. Oh, well we'd be up for that. Yeah, that's awesome
(45:14):
Yeah, set that set that podcast up get in touch with heather she uh
So get the right people on the board for that. I get sucked into everything you guys. That's okay
You're good at it. You're your event planner
That's right. That's right
Let me let me the main core is
Let me let me the main course
(45:35):
Oh, no
But the history is really I I mean that's why I like gipy here because it really is incredible like we have the longhorn
Or sorry the long point club, which is if you've
Sailed 25 years you get a hat and the you know, they usually hoist a big
Some kind of a medal for you and um, and it's pretty amazing how many people have done it that long cocktail party
(45:58):
And I thought you meant if you just went to ground at long point you got to be in the club
That's not what you're talking about. Well, I don't know. Did you talk about the parties yet?
Yeah, he did. That's why trey and I are talking about figuring out how to come over
oh, did he talk about how we have these annual like the did you talk about the um,
(46:20):
Like the daiquiri party and the the fish fry and all that stuff because I saw you had margarita
I saw you had a margarita night at one of them though
Yeah
Yeah, that's the first one. But some of these have been dated back
I mean they become sort of like these traditions that happen and um, it's all kind of fun and
Dover is known for their perch their eerie perch. We love perch over here, too. Yep. Yeah
(46:43):
Yeah, so we go over and the typical rut which I think they've already said it's usually eerie
Leave at the crack of night. We have the registration in the margarita party that night and usually a band
And then you have to like roll yourself
You know onto your boat or out of your boat or whatever needs to happen to get you up and at them and
Off to dover and then that next night everyone eats it
(47:06):
Usually the eerie beach
Hotel which is where you get these big platters of perch
And there's initiation stories and all kinds of fun things like that after first time
so if it's your first time we'll have to take you through the process, but
Um, is it like crossing the equator or something? Yeah, you gotta have the king you gotta have the king neptune rituals
(47:28):
Yeah
And then uh, and then you do the course race and then the next night is the big party at the dover yacht club
Which is really fun and they do the big
a daiquiri party and then there's a big another eerie perch fish fry or some people choose to go into town
And then a band which is usually our best band
Of the week and people party pretty hard that night and then they have to go all the way to
(47:50):
Port colburn, which is kind of a you know, long haul
And that's been the traditional and then then on to um
The canoe club, which is gorgeous if you see pictures of that, but it's a really fun
yacht club
Over in canada, it's buffalo's, you know canadian
Sisters club, you know and then usually finishing in the buffalo yacht club. That's the traditional
(48:14):
But we do variations like this year doing the eerie course race. We won't do that again for probably four years
Okay, so this isn't like
A normal year, but we like to kind of add so the clubs can make a little extra money, you know, if you haven't had
Two nights we'll give you two nights every once in a while clubs like money, you know, we all need it, you know
Yeah, that that and that you know, we always try to encourage live music at all the events. We there's there's always great food
(48:40):
There are rum parties. Um, I know
One of the rum parties is put on by a couple. I think it's one of the boats that does it every year, right?
They bring all the rum and they bring all the mixers
And you know they get out they get out the blenders like they used to at cleveland race week
When les used to run the blender party down there
(49:01):
Kind of got that we've got that same kind of theme going on here
Um, and then heather talked about the dinners at the local restaurants
Where you get the tradition and you get everybody wearing their their crew gear
Um, you know, some people get really matchy-matchy and funny
Yeah, so there's there's some good traditions there you get some dancing and one of the nice things is most of these clubs
(49:24):
We're not overly formal. We're not the new york yacht club where you have to show up in a three-piece suit
Um, you can you can do you can do the call it no no collared shirt just everybody being themselves
So it's a little bit more informal and just letting people enjoy summer
I like the sound of that right like the sound of that
(49:47):
Does anybody have anything else they want to ask?
Uh, we we appreciate you guys coming on because this is something we had no knowledge about
And as we've been talking to you guys we've been scrolling to pictures in your website and and thinking it looks like a fun time
I just can I can can I give a shout out to some of the people that that do the event? Absolutely. Absolutely
(50:09):
We've got to recognize gibby lasel gibby gibby you've done every inner club
No, it's this one here david
You took a few years off
At this point in my life, I I take a car to ford tober
Yeah
Yeah, I don't it's okay. I want to go with heather. I don't want to I don't want to be out bouncing around
(50:36):
In a lake anymore. I've done enough of it in my time
I know I did I did go bounce around in the falcon cup last last summer. So
We did have um one of one of our great pirates his name was peter raver and he passed away
Peter had done I think the majority of all of the inner clubs through inception. He might have missed one year
(51:01):
Um, we talked about dave barrack who owns a boat called dreamer
He's a world-class sailmaker in eerie, pennsylvania who who has retired. He was building sails for tall ships
and he was also doing uh
Before the north sails started spinning everything out in nevada. He was making racing sails and cruising sails for boats
(51:21):
And he was also making a lot of sails for ice boats
as well as
He's a woodworker. So he would build his own boats from scratch
Um coming out of the buffalo yacht club, we've got to recognize tom lewin and his son tommy and the entire uh
The crew there's a boat called sledgehammer, which is a j120
(51:43):
Uh, they've been a very successful team
and um
You know, they they've won many inner clubs over the years
There's another team coming out of port dover
Uh skippered by john valley and his whole crew
They've been very successful on many different boats over the years
(52:04):
Uh coming out of eerie, pennsylvania. We've got pat huntley tim pelaski and the whole team
Uh, they they've sailed many boats over the years and they've won in many classes
And then you've got the just the fun families like the machinas, uh, the neemix
And they're running they're they're sailing boats like j109
(52:27):
Um, yep, the wolfard family, uh is coming out of eerie pennsylvania
And buffalo if we needed somebody on this call from buffalo, but there's many teams out of buffalo
The whistler family has been participating in this event for years
And we also mentioned ted johnson
Uh with his with his boat called dan yankee
(52:49):
And um, yeah, so there's there's some serious there's some serious talent
But the other thing you should mention is we have is the race committee is we have a race committee for this whole event
Which is not an easy
It thing to put together and over the years. We've had pretty incredible teams our race committee is out of um
buffalo
(53:09):
And so they go the whole distance but
There's been many hats there, but I mean they they have to set out and you know, huge waves and
Yeah
They they deal with a lot so
Yeah
To go to go be the race committee for this event where you have to do five days at sea
(53:30):
And you're crossing lakes
And you can be out there on days where it's blowing 30
So the power boats are moving around they're rocking and rolling they're burning a ton of fuel
But again, it's for them. It's an endurance race as well
And and without them
We've actually a couple of years where the race committee wasn't able to move with the fleet
(53:52):
We actually had to have each yacht club run their own race committees
So that way we could finish and start boats so we might have one race committee starting it
And another race committee finishing it
Uh, we've had we've had to be creative in some years
Okay, but okay
Overall, I mean, it's definitely something every sailor should have on their bucket list. Okay
(54:16):
If you like if you like a unique and thrilling experience on the water
Um, it surely shouldn't be missed
We've got sailors of all levels
Um, it is five days of competitive sailing
Whether you're a newcomer to the support or you're a seasoned sailor
There's definitely something for everybody
(54:37):
and
Participation is it's just a matter of getting to the race course whether you're crewing for somebody or you're bringing your own boat
You know if it's going to happen it's going to happen out there so you might as well be there I agree I agree
Well, I think I this was great. I'm glad we got to be here
um, and uh, thanks for being on here and before I leave you before I leave you
(55:03):
Uh tre you can cut the rest of this out
Oh, is that your outro? No, I better not I better do something better than that
Thank and I want to talk to you before I go off though
Well, thanks for being with us today and we will encourage people on this end of the lake to come over and to join your crews
Thanks. Thank you guys
Yeah, thank you
All right, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening
(00:03):
Whatever time it is where you are listening to us. This is jibe talking
We are recording at
Jolly Roger Sailing Club in Toledo, Ohio where pirates come to play you can say that
(00:23):
That was a pirates back there
I am your host today
Christina Columbus and I have my co-hosts Ted Mount
And today we are here. I'm talking with some folks
from the Lake Erie inner club crews and I'm gonna let them introduce themselves
(00:46):
before we begin
My name is Heather McFryar and I'm the event planner for the Lake Erie inner club crews. I've been
the event planner for since
2004 so I've been doing this since
for about 20 years and
I'm not originally from Erie, but I'm married into the Great Lakes
(01:11):
and
Learned how to sail because of my husband and his family and they've been doing this a long time
so
Who wants to go next Gibby you can go next
Okay, fine
My name is give me so I am from Erie, Pennsylvania
And I have been sailing my entire life
(01:32):
I'm soon to be 85
So I started at age 8 with my brother and I'm probably the oldest living person
Who has ever sailed in the inner club? I first inner club
Started before the inner club. That's pretty cool
Anyway, that's me. I've sailed everything from
(01:55):
big boats to
racing models, okay
David
My name is David McFryar. I'm from Erie, Pennsylvania
fifth generation Erie, Pennsylvania
So glad to still be hanging the flag flag there. I hail out of the Erie Yacht Club
And I've been an avid sailor my entire life and have raced
(02:18):
everything from
IOR boats to
Mum 30s the Cape 31s the J 70s
Both both ocean and Great Lakes sailing. Oh
That's quite
Pleasure to have you guys doing this podcast
For us for the Lake Erie inner club. Oh, we're having fun. Yeah, look look
(02:39):
We're all fellow pirates looking forward to it. Thank you. Hey, uh, I have to ask heather
I have to ask you a question
Have you been doing the event for 20 years because you're good at it or because no one else will take it over?
Yeah, yeah because if you didn't say that give me a break
(03:01):
Yeah, yeah, because if you didn't say that give me somebody else would be taking it over
Oh, I you know, I when I moved to Erie, um
I I had to like start over and figure out what I wanted to do with my life in terms of you know
starting to have kids and um
(03:23):
I actually got connected with the other woman that used to run the Lake Erie inner club crew since passed away
But um, I actually it ended up becoming a career for me in the sense that I became an event planner
I had my own business because I started so you're good at this kind of stuff. Okay. Well, yes
Yeah, but um, but I I learned how to sail because my husband it's a blast
And I've done a lot of the inner club cruises as well
(03:45):
Now I don't because I'm I'm sort of running it solo so I drive around so I have the perspective of meeting them all in courts
And planning the parties and you know merchandise all that stuff
Maybe they can be our sponsor for this one then she can sponsor her own show
Oh, you never know. You never know. Yeah, we can take you on the road. There you go. There you go. Hey, um
(04:07):
It kind of how this came about is you know, we are all
Most of the stuff we've done has been on western Lake Erie
And I wanted to know you know
what was going on on the other half of the lake because I know I see boats and
And I saw you guys and thought you know what I wouldn't mind learning about this now
Who can give me and I heard I heard it give me I heard you're the guy
(04:28):
Give me a little bit of a history of this lake Erie inner club cruise
Well, let's say the lake Erie inner club cruise
Started as
What was known as the Annette Cup?
Oh back in the early 1900s. Oh my word
(04:48):
Actually in the 1800s and there was a group from the Erie Yacht Club
that sailed across to Port Dover and the race was time to go
along about the time of Dominion Day in Canada
And then there were several races that were involved first
(05:08):
It was the Annette Cup and then because there were boats that started to pick up and go into it
And everybody wanted to win. They created a thing called the Bruce Bell
Where it was a past performance handicap type thing
and so
Sooner or later if you sailed the race long enough, you won a trophy
(05:29):
and
I can't tell you quite when they started to invite other boats to come in from other yacht clubs
But then they had a it was called the Invitational. So
along about in
Let's say 55 if you sailed
The the wasn't called it inner club. It was called the Annette Cup
(05:51):
And if you sailed in that there was a possibility you could win four or five trophies
Depending upon
Where you lucked out in the fleet, I guess
So and then and I think because there were a lot of Buffalo boats
They decided to make it a
(06:12):
cruise versus a race so that you could get all sorts of boats into it from different yacht clubs and then of course the
the racing
Developed in the different races
from from port dover to
Maitland port colburn the canoe club to the buffalo yacht club to duncurt new york
(06:36):
All those different varieties of races were
were a product of the uh, what was now the inner club cruise because there was a lot of a lot of buffalo boats
and
And it still is there's still still a lot of buffalo boats and so that sort of became a family type of sailing
and that on this end of the lake and
(06:58):
mothers fathers and
kids sailed and
Everybody had a good time
So which club was it?
Everybody had a good time so which club kind of heads it up. Is there one particular club that's kind of in charge of it?
I'd say the eerie yacht club all of us that run it are
(07:18):
All from the area club, but there's a committee that meets once a year at the buffalo yacht club and we have representatives from
from the dover yacht club and buffalo yacht club and port colburn as well as eerie but uh
Dave dave's dad has kind of been the
Uh mainstay for the past I would say 30 years and so dave runs the website. I do the event planning
(07:41):
And all the registration and all that used to be here, but now it's online for yacht scoring. So it makes it a little easier
I think everybody's kind of going to that. Yeah
Gibby you would say though that it's a group effort. It's a group effort
Yeah, I mean it's you know, you have all you have all these clubs that have come together
to
(08:02):
So right so the buffalo yacht club, which is the oldest yacht club on lake eerie
Which was built in 1860
And it's the and the buffalo yacht club is the third oldest in the united states
So there's a lot of history coming out of the buffalo yacht club
And the so you've got the buffalo yacht club and then they have a summer station called the buffalo canoe club
(08:24):
Which is over in canada
Um, so they have docked over there and then there's another yacht club over there called the buffalo canoe club
They're a they're a founding member as well
the eerie yacht club
And then the port dover yacht club have always been mainstays
And then there's another club called the sugarloaf sailing club, which comes out of port colburn, ontario
(08:49):
Which is at the beginning of the welland canal where you go up the lake ontario
Um, so you have all these founding clubs that all participate on a committee
To make sure that this event keeps going forward
Now how many boats did you have last year? Do you know?
(09:09):
I have that information. Uh last year we had 35 boats participate. We break them into various
classes
So if if you're an avid racer and you want to be in a racing class you can
You can participate we we race under the perf handicap system
Um the biggest year we've had we had 60 boats on our 50th anniversary
(09:32):
So some of the old some of the old legacy boats kind of came back to participate
Uh, but we've been averaging about 35 boats
Uh post covid that's that's quite a few boats. I was gonna say right before covid right before covid
We were in the 40s almost 50s. So we've dropped
Quite a bit since covid but we're bringing it back
Bringing it back
(09:53):
So now I know I know I think I saw on your website that um, some of the stops if you will are in canada
Um now
I have I mean I have heard about it, but how hard is it?
Like if you go from here and you want to and you you port in canada like how does that work?
(10:15):
Well
You have to clear customs for one thing. Okay, and I think they
For a while
If you use eerie as a starting point
The first race would go across the lake to port jover
And then it would come back into this country
(10:36):
And then it'll go back into canada
Which created a real problem with customs because you had
let's say
10 people on 40 boats. It's 400 people trying to clear customs going both ways
And it just it didn't work. So I think david if i'm
Correct now most of the
(10:57):
They don't come back into the this country unless it's the last stop
That's correct
Yeah, the good news is the u.s system and the canadian system. They're starting to share more data
Uh, we in canada we use an app called the uh, it's can am k-a-n or sorry c-a-n-a-m
(11:19):
And we typically have one person in charge on the on the boat
To it doesn't it doesn't have to be the skipper or the captain
Uh, but we just have one person that collects everybody's passports
They enter all the data into the app
and um
It's it's really helped simplify it
so it does it does take some time to clear customs, but
(11:42):
That's normally when we have our first cocktail after racing on the boat
And we hang out as a crew until the intel customs clears us
So it gives us a little gives us a little downtime
So how long does it take up your lives down time to make up your lies
(12:04):
Talking like a true sailor
Um, so if somebody wanted to participate in your race, they would need to have a passport
Correct they also need to make sure that one of the things that we've learned over the years
Is you have to make sure that your crew
(12:26):
Is eligible to go to canada so you can't have any uh violations
Um, maybe a dui offense to be able to enter canada via boat. Um,
The entire crew needs to be able to clear customs. So felons are a no-no, man
That's right, and they will and they will stop you. I mean, so if you if you have you're creating a crew
(12:50):
you've got to really interrogate them because
we did get stopped one time because
The guy had a had a lot of the drug driving but it was a more serious violation than that
And they damn near threw him out. So I mean adam believed canada
Only because somebody was a good bullshitter that he was able to stay in
(13:13):
Back in the day, they'd come down on the on the on the docks and you'd have to pass, you know right there in person
but
Since 9 11 it got it got really strict
But I would say because of covet it got it sort of got easier because everything went to an app
And and it's a lot easier now. So in 2025 for the first time we're going to go
(13:33):
from erie to
Dover then back to duncur which we used to do a long time ago
but um having in a long time because it was just so difficult to go from
Um, like like gibby said to canada then back to us and back to canada again. So
now
for somebody who's
(13:55):
clearing customs
On a boat like what does that entail? Like what does that look like?
I know I think about it like coming back from an international travel at an airport
but with a boat you can kind of
Uh, doc any are there specific places that you have to dock to go through customs?
(14:18):
So with with this event if you're oh go ahead go ahead gibby if you're if you were just sailing into canada
And not in a race then you have to clear customs
someplace where there is a customs agent or a phone where you can call
the customs office
And once they've done that then they give you a clearance number
(14:43):
And if you're if they come to the if the customs agent comes at the dock they actually give you a slip of paper
You have to put in your someplace on your boat so it can be seen and they and those
Those permits are good for a certain number of days
Depending upon how long you're telling you're going to be there
(15:05):
Okay
but
It's pretty smooth when you leave here. It's port dover
But they have a they have an 800 number if you if you're just you know
You decide you're going to sail across there and go in and that's of course you have to have a passport but
(15:26):
That's
They do and they can't incidentally they can and do come aboard your boat and inspect it because you can only bring in
And so many cigarettes so many bottles of whiskey
Bottle of wine
And they can and found your boat
Don't forget the rum
(15:49):
Well, you are sailors so of course it's gotta be rum
Now I I get the fun job of driving all the flags and all the t-shirts over and every year
I always have a fun time getting all that stuff over well right now
You just piqued christina's interest because she's all about the t-shirts
We had to spend about 10 minutes on the past podcast discussing
(16:10):
Uh t-shirts so so you do have shirts
We do shirts and sweatshirts and we've done a little bit of everything mugs and hats
Yeah, we do a combination but I order everything and I have had different artists do different
uh
Art pieces of artwork and we've sold watercolors and you name it. We've tried it
(16:30):
But that's kind of the lifeblood
Because we're we treat it like a family reunion in a way, you know
uh
so we
Sell
Basically cash only for our for our t-shirts and put it in the bank if you know what I mean
Yeah, I do
(16:51):
So where do you get your shirts from?
Uh, we have a local
Uh vendor that I i've used for the past 20 years and uh, we just give him the design and then I pick out all the
Items and then he silk screens and embroiderers and and does it's called creative imprints here in area
So good. Yeah, it's uh, we we've always found it's important to support local musicians local artists local local
(17:17):
People that support the sailing industry. I agree to to try to ensure that because when we go out to get sponsors
Uh, we do do some fundraising. Uh, we we go to port dover. We try to get the restaurants that we participate in
To try to give back to the event
Businesses in buffalos some of some of the sailors are happy to do in-kind donations
(17:39):
um
And maybe they don't want
Their name branded but it really does take a community effort to keep this event going
So yeah, we don't have like a big sponsor like a gil or or something like that like some of these
One design events are sort of cookie-cutter events and ours is much more
Like a family like when you come aboard, I mean you every year
(17:59):
It's like you meet the whole new past of characters and and people some people have been like gibby's been selling
Same with my husband, you know and now me for 20 years
You see the same faces and sometimes you don't see them until this event every year. So it's kind of like a big reunion
It's cool
So now i'm looking at your um event site right now and I see it looks like it starts on june 22nd
(18:21):
Now is that that's the first race day?
Correct. Yeah, that's going to be the saturday of the first day of race. No, that's june 22nd is a saturday, right?
So that's that's the first race
Uh people typically show up thursday or friday if they're coming in by boat
Um, so the boats will start to arrive at the
(18:44):
Starting point. So sometimes we start in buffalo. Sometimes we start in eerie
um
The 2024 event we start in eerie, pennsylvania at the eerie yacht club
So boats will start to arrive on thursday and friday morning
To you know, you got to get you got to get the ponies to the starting line
did I see for the uh, the first race that you guys are like
(19:08):
The first horn is at some ungodly hour of oh five thirty or something
Right, that's that's notorious because we uh, yeah they have a
Like a 5 45 gun or six o'clock gun and then it's actually quite beautiful because all of the boats
Uh upon
(19:28):
The gun end up popping their shoots and so it's like sunrise plus all the spinnakers going out with the channel. It's very beautiful
That's it. Very nice
One of the other interesting things about that time of the day
June is that the sun is coming around and going right down through the channel
(19:53):
Yeah, I mean there there's some really beautiful pictures that have come out of that thing
Now what are the distances on I see you got an eerie course and it says eerie to dover
What are the distances on these races?
I I have that worked up
Um, let me give you let me just step back one second
(20:14):
I'm going to just give you a little history of the event good probably great. So so right now
It's it's an annual event and it's for sailboats
Um who who want to participate in racing and we also invite people that like to cruise
Um, so maybe you're not an avid sailor like racing sailor
You're not a sim sailor
(20:35):
But you want to go do a you want to go do point to point and maybe do four to the five days
And you want to go just take your boat and move with a fleet of boats because it'll give you protection
Because when you're moving with other boats, at least you got other people around you
That if you do get into trouble that you're at least a radio, you're a vhf radio call away. Yep
(20:58):
Um and plus you're just you're moving with numbers
Uh, so this year the event starts on on saturday june 22nd
And it'll finish on wednesday. So it's always a five-day event
I I would say probably 70 percent of the participants do the entire five day
(21:19):
And then but then you have other people that might only do three days and they choose not to do the last two days
Because they have to go back to work
Or they can't make the full commitment that work screws up everything, you know, I tell you um
So it it but you know the race the people that are trying to win the trophies you have to do all five days
(21:39):
Uh, you can win individual you can win individual days
But if you're going for the overall trophy of the lakeria inner club crews
You have to participate in all five days. Okay
Yeah, and the other thing david to remember is that a couple of those races in the beginning are for eerie boats only
(22:00):
Yeah, where it's part of their it's part of their boat of the year it's part of the boat of the year type races
Get get me there used to be a
The net cup is the oldest freshwater sailing trophy in the world
Wow
Wow
Now do you have a jam and a perf class or just it?
(22:22):
Or just a perf class
Just a perf class, okay
The I know we've made consideration for the cruising class to start to put up spinnakers
um
The cruising class they they get awards, but it's more it's more just for fun. It's for participation
We're trying to encourage boats to come join us
(22:46):
and um
You know again, it's it's it's trying to get people out using their boats. Most most boats sit in their slips
Yeah, we're trying to we're trying to encourage people to use their sailboats
And and go and go explore some ports and enjoy the camaraderie of other clubs other destinations
(23:07):
And a lot of the places we go to have great live music. They've got great restaurants
So and when you're moving and when you're moving with the crowd
It it just makes it a lot more enjoyable
Don't you think that's why some of the people don't go very far?
Because they're they're worried about being on their own and I think you're right with being with the fleet
You can you can call somebody and somebody will come and help you
(23:32):
I don't think that has anything to do with it. Actually personally interesting. Okay
I mean there's
Anywhere in any of these races in any of these events on this end of the lake
on this end of the lake you're pretty close to
to uh
To a port emergency port if you need it, you're not too far away if you look at the chart
(23:55):
Okay
Now did I see in your rules that you're required to have three people on the boat at all times?
That's david mcbryer question
Yeah, yes. Yes it is. Um, we haven't set the event up as a single-handed or a double-handed type event. Um
(24:16):
Just because the days can be longer
Um, I mean some days you can start racing if for example if we're racing from erie, pensivania
We're starting in the bay in erie. We're racing across the port dover
If you have lighter winds
The cutoff I think the cutoff time is like a six maybe a six o'clock finish
There are long days on the water
(24:38):
But just as it the way we've set the event up and the rules up everything is set up for a teamed approach
Um that way you can have a navigator. You can have a driver
Um, we're just we haven't we haven't
Taken the approach yet. We haven't I don't think we've had a lot of demand though for single and double-handed participation
(25:00):
And we haven't we haven't uh
We haven't uh, basically addressed that issue because it hasn't come up yet. Sure. Sure
So if some historic good historically that people who have sailed the race they want to come back
If nothing else they want to come back for the party
Yeah, I was gonna say do you have good parties?
(25:23):
Do we have good parties is
So what are the
What about there are some good there are some good parties. Absolutely. I mean i've done the mills parties
I've done the putting bay week parties
some of the lake eerie interclub crews still has a tradition of
(25:44):
Enjoying the festivities of the port
and
As as i've gone around the country racing
In in different classes, I I would tell you that we still have some of the best parties on the great lakes
What about if somebody from this half of the lake said you know, I wouldn't mind coming over for a couple days
Where would we where would we port our boat at do you guys got room over there for us?
(26:09):
Uh, yes at the eerie club, yeah, we could we can get a lot of people in there. Okay, uh, they have a big have a
Uh, usually there's some that are available because people are out
And then we have a guest dock that is several hundred feet long
And there are other places in the club to support somebody and put them up
(26:32):
We get all the boats in when the beginning of the race
Uh when everybody everybody's in
There nobody is
Stuck someplace else or out on a keg we get them all in they wrapped them up
Yeah, yeah the eerie the eerie yacht club is one of the largest yacht clubs in the world
The yacht club is one of the largest yacht clubs on the great lakes
(26:54):
And then when we when we go to port gobert, they're able to accommodate
Uh multiple boats they're able to we were able to accommodate 60 foot boats
All the way down to you know, our smallest boats in the race are j24
Uh, we we race under the category three for the
Um for safety
We just want to make sure boats have lifelines
(27:17):
That they're just they're they're properly they're properly fitted out to be able to go
sail out in lake eerie, which
Um, I don't know if you've done much sailing in the eastern end of lake eerie. I was gonna ask you about this
So speak to that. No mine's been western
So my my personal experience is I believe the east end of lake eerie has has relatively steep waves
(27:40):
Uh with with much less time duration between them
So there's there's more frequency of waves
Um, which is more like running head on into a series of brick walls
Uh from time to time as as they get steeper
Um, i've done a lot of sailboat racing out in the open ocean
(28:00):
And I find the great lakes in general
Have there's just more wave energy. Yes, and it can be it can be a little bit more violent
Just because the waves are compressed
We were talking about that earlier on a podcast when I was saying i'd been out to san diego
And sailed in the ocean a few times and it's way different
Yeah, I mean the great lakes especially lake eerie can be a little bit unforgiving at times
(28:25):
Um, they say if you can sail on lake eerie and sail anywhere
You know, we were talking about that very thing too
I in fact I was saying that when I was in san diego was walking up the dock and somebody said
So where do you normally sail and I said lake eerie the answer was oh
By the way, I think we lost your wife she dropped it some way the call got dropped so if she's not talking it's because she got dropped
(28:49):
Heather yeah
Yeah
I don't know. Do you want to try to call her back? We're gonna we're gonna try to hook her back in but just so you know
Yeah, so I mean over over the years it's been interesting we've seen
We've had we we we have a lot of friends
We've seen people with steering quadrant issues
(29:10):
On days with high winds. We've had people break booms
Of course, you're gonna rip sails right blown out spinnakers
Hold on one second. I'm gonna try to get her in here. Hello. Are you back? Hello. Are you bad?
Okay, I don't know what happened. That's okay. All right, go ahead talk about spinnakers
Yeah, I mean, but you know with with higher winds
(29:31):
I mean you can blow out spinnakers you can blow out mains. We've snapped spinnaker sheets. We've snapped guys
You'll be sailing along next to somebody and you'll see them blow out like jim halyard
We've seen four stage sheer off. Oh
Having a bad day there
We've seen a couple people where they've dropped mass
(29:53):
so the
The
Nice thing about five days at sea is you get various conditions. I mean some days you'll be
Gibby gibbies had probably many years where you motor for an entire day
Because there's no wind and you can skip you can skip a sand dollar across the lake
And and then you have other days where it's just a nice 25 knot day
(30:17):
With some storm squalls blowing through
So you you need to make sure that you've got it
Competent crew that can handle that can handle all conditions
And if you aren't comfortable with the conditions
At least you have a very good we call them the iron jenny, which is the diesel engines
Hopefully hopefully you have a good way to motor your boat
(30:38):
If you want to reduce sail area
And and be able to be able to motor to the next destination
Now we mentioned how what are some of the different
Races, I know we were kind of alluding to that
So the the eerie to port dover is approximately 40 miles
straight line
(30:59):
Gibby gibby you would agree with that number
Yeah, very yeah 42 43
Yeah, you know and if if you have to start tacking up wind let's say for example, we're sailing north towards canada
Yeah, and if you're sailing north towards canada
Yeah, and you have to and you have to tack up wind all day
It's probably going to add 30 to the distance. Yeah
(31:23):
Predominantly the nice thing about this event is it's predominantly a downwind race
Because the prevailing winds are typically west
to southwest
So you're able to you're able to get your spinnakers up. You can get your a sails up
You can get your traditional symmetrical kites up
And you can go do that 40 miles
(31:46):
And you're and you're typically moving at hull speed or maybe a little bit less
Because most of the boats in our fleet are non-planing hulls
So, yeah, but that most of the most of the distances are between 40 to 20 miles per day, okay
And across Lake Erie you also have a big thing on the other side of the lake this sticks out called longpoint
(32:11):
Which is a navigational hazard
If you don't happen to know it's there
But it also has different currents that run around it and it's shallow so you can you can get in trouble there
And then there's there's two triangular races
(32:32):
Okay
now yeah, so
Yeah, we do some course right in their long distance course races
So when we will sail over we'll do the distance race from Erie to ford dover
The second day or the third day depending on every year. We kind of mix it up a little bit this year
We're starting with a couple of days
We're actually going to spend two nights at the area club before embarking across to canada
(32:57):
But as gibby was saying we'll do these 17. They're like 17 to 20 mile triangle courses
Up in
Over in canada we'll race up to turkey point race out to the corner of longpoint and then back to port de la gare
And those are always that's always great sailing. Uh, gibby mentioned at longpoint's very shallow at the tip because it's a sandbar
(33:21):
That sticks off of canada
But it's also the deepest point in lake erie where it's 210 feet
So you can also have some of the steepest waves
Or the most i wouldn't say the steepest waves. It's actually the most steepest waves in the world
You can also have some of the steepest waves or the most i wouldn't say the steepest waves. It's actually the most forgiving wave
(33:44):
Because you've got a lot of water flow
Where it's not bouncing off the bottom so kind of like an ocean feel there
Yeah, it's nice. You can get you can get some nice sets rolling through there
My my first inner club we finished at like lunchtime
Um, and I thought that was normal. I mean we were we were speeding over there
(34:08):
It was like we were surfing. It was amazing
Yeah, i had heather had the first heather i heather had the opportunity to race we had a boat called aries
It was an ior 47
It was a two-tonner
And it was it was blowing 35
We had a kite up all day
We were hitting 16 knots. Oh
Oh, and we we caught the 10 30 we were driving a car
(34:33):
We started the race at 5 30 in the morning and we we caught the 10 o'clock I think it was like the 10 or the 10 30
bridge
Over into dover
So any any any wheels?
Go ahead. I'm sorry finish up by noon
I would say the standard is they they start rolling in the early boats come in at three
(34:56):
I think they start rolling in at three anywhere between three and five
Wow
You were cruising. Would you say well, I guess sometimes it's two o'clock or something
Yeah, it makes yeah the big yeah the boats today are getting a little bit faster
But one of the great things we have about our event
Is you have a lot of boats that are still averaging like six knots? Okay, five and a half five and a half knots is like their hull speed
(35:19):
Right. So it the heart of the wind blows the boat doesn't get there faster. Nope
um
One thing ted I just
Ted one thing I want to say though is right. We all know the movie captain ron back in 1992
We were talking about that on the last show. Yep
And we we always say, you know, if anything is going to happen, it's going to happen out there
(35:42):
It's the old the old famous quote by kurt russell who plays the role of captain ron
Who was uh with martin short? Yeah
Is the mary mary k place whom he liked to nickname kitty?
Um who was worried about not knowing how to drive a boat
He's just you know, just wanted to try to reinsure that the best way to learn is just go do it
(36:03):
You're right. You're right about that. What if someone what if someone listening says, you know, I I would
Let's say from the western side over here says I would like to be in that but I I don't want to take my boat
Over there. You got to ever have people looking for crew
Uh, we do i'll i'll make sure to stand up I run the website and uh, right I was looking at it
(36:24):
Uh right now we don't have a crew board, but i'll make sure to get a crew board stood back up again
to try to encourage
People to come in and participate with us if they're not from our regions
Um, the other thing we've been getting more and more smaller boats beginning to participate
Um, there's a j24 that races. Oh, okay, and I think I I think they'll tell you it's some of the best sailing they've ever done
(36:51):
um
You show up with the right crew
And you know j24s were built to go do distance racing by design
The other class that's starting to grow is the j80s
Oh, um, that's an idea. Those are nice
We have um, we have a team out of uh port dover, uh run by john valley
(37:15):
Who has done quite well with his j80. There's a team out of eerie
Uh, the dreckies who had a j80. They just recently sold it
They moved over to a far 30
But the uh, yeah, the j80 out there is actually a great boat
And it seems to be able to survive lake eerie on these boats
It and it seems to be able to survive lake eerie on these long-distance races
(37:40):
So something to consider you could trailer a boat in
We do have places to uh pull the boats and we do have places to launch them
If you wanted a trailer in what do you say? Normally are the size boats you're seeing in there?
Yeah, like see a lot of 27s and 30s the biggest class is a j35. I would say okay
(38:07):
Yeah 30 boats are getting smaller but I mean we've seen we've seen on this end of the lake the boats got bigger
But as the as with inflation and the price pressures
The price of sailing increasing my guess is boats are going to start to go back to the 30 33 foot size
(38:28):
And and you know more at the j80 type size because it's affordable
Because if you have to buy sales and you got to buy equipment and you got to pay to you got to pay to participate
I think the economics is starting to play out
and and boats are going to start to
Be more more in the 30 to 30 range
(38:50):
Over here when they do the spectrum they use the j80s for that for their kids for the spectrum sailing
That seems to work out real well with the kids being able to get them on and off and
They're just good boats. Really? Yeah, they are they're good boats pretty fast too. Actually. Yeah
That's awesome so
(39:12):
So if there was anything if somebody for the first time
Uh wanted to participate you guys it sounds like you guys are really encouraging of just getting people out there to race
You don't have to be like some crazy racer if you can handle your boat and you say I wouldn't mind it
It sounds like this might be the place to give it a roll, huh?
Oh, yeah, we've had a lot of like we have some boats that bring on
(39:35):
All their uh, some of the youth sailing like the youth
Uh, like the youth and they'll do a whole boat of you know teenagers
And you know, my son's done that. Um, there's a lot of family like some people try it for the first time and just take
Their family on the cruising side of it because that I I don't know if dave mentioned but we do have a cruising class
(39:56):
We're not racing
So there's it's not you know competitive but you can I you know, just take your time and not have to worry about anything
And yeah, if you need a motor you motor
But yeah, we're encouraging of all levels of skill. There's some really beautiful boats that are in these spinnaker classes
I mean the the trip 56
uh entrada
(40:16):
Uh, just looking at some of these boats
I mean these are some really beautiful sloop some older style boats and then you have some newer ones. Yeah
Yeah, it's really interesting. That's gibby's boat. Gibby. You should speak to the old boats
Gibby knows all about that
That's because I'm old
Well, you said it gibby not us
(40:38):
Well, you race on them
In our in our yacht club fleet your yacht club fleet. We have several wooden boats. Oh and
Those wooden boats, uh two of them are
Are big every other
Dreamer is six on 50 feet 55 feet
(40:59):
and uh
uh, and then we've got
the
uh
The altair which is a roads 29
And that boat is built in 1929. So there's some older boats. Oh my word. There would oh, yeah alt alt air alt altar
(41:20):
Yeah
Uh
And so in in in our local racing here
That there's sometimes it's not uncommon to have three or four or five
Wooden boats in one of our
weekly races wow
Yeah
Yeah, the boat the boat that that's called dreamer that gibby spoke of is it's um, it's a 50
(41:45):
It's just under 55 feet
Just and it has about a 13 foot beam
And it was it was built by um, it was built up in east booth bay, maine
And it was a it's the designer. It was an alden uh yacht
And it's great to watch that boat doing the five days of sailing
Where they're out there stressing their wood mass and they're
(42:07):
You know, they're they're probably they're they're basically trying to get the hull moving full
Once they get all their canvas up and they get that thing going hull speed
It's it's just an absolute beauty to watch sail by you
I mean, there's a 60 foot boat on here. Uh, what is it was called? Damn yankee damn yankee. Yeah
(42:27):
I mean, teddy wow
That's just amazing. You see all the gigantic boats and then even still you have smaller boats that want to participate
It's really exciting. Oh, yeah, it's it's it's
like no other
Sailing or god, I think probably in the world for that matter, but damn yankee has to usually more out and
(42:51):
You know find creative ways to get his crew into the parties
They're they're upsides and downsides
The larger boats
Trey we need to we need to go over there. Yeah, I mean I I got a 28 foot so but you can you get off work for them on
That's a little hard, but you know nothing little advanced pto can't fix right? We could go
(43:14):
Well, I would say that the other thing is is we do break it up
So if you want to do just a portion of it
We started doing that for people that could only do say the eerie dover and the dover dover course race because it's usually over the weekend
So some people will do the first half and some people from buffalo will come over
And then do like the port colburn and the other half at the end of it
(43:36):
So our problem is it would probably take two days if we sailed straight just to get there
Yeah, I mean because it takes us about six hours four to six hours
From our port to the islands. Yep to put in bed, you know
And so then you're looking at about about another six hours to get well if I can convince tray to go see
I'm off in the summers because i'm a i'm a school nurse
(43:59):
So if treo go I would I would take a week and go how close is the area to presque isle the the state park
That's where that's where eerie pennsylvania is. Okay. So that's where the everything is happening at so that's like that's cool
Because I i've done some work out there and stayed out at the state park for a day and it's just beautiful out there
There's like the house boats out there and stuff that people that live out there year-round. I'm assuming year-round
(44:27):
And it's just yeah, brett
Presque isle is magical the uh, so the the niagara was built in misery bay right where you're talking about near the houseboats
Yeah, so the niagara the niagara was built to beat the british in the war of 1812
and
So the the monument when you're down at putting bay and you're looking at the battle that was fought
(44:51):
The the niagara boat was actually constructed in eerie
And it's still it the boat still hails there and it still sails there's a full there's a full replica of it that uh
Goes out and works the great lakes
That could be a whole other podcast. Yeah. Oh, well we'd be up for that. Yeah, that's awesome
(45:14):
Yeah, set that set that podcast up get in touch with heather she uh
So get the right people on the board for that. I get sucked into everything you guys. That's okay
You're good at it. You're your event planner
That's right. That's right
Let me let me the main core is
Let me let me the main course
(45:35):
Oh, no
But the history is really I I mean that's why I like gipy here because it really is incredible like we have the longhorn
Or sorry the long point club, which is if you've
Sailed 25 years you get a hat and the you know, they usually hoist a big
Some kind of a medal for you and um, and it's pretty amazing how many people have done it that long cocktail party
(45:58):
And I thought you meant if you just went to ground at long point you got to be in the club
That's not what you're talking about. Well, I don't know. Did you talk about the parties yet?
Yeah, he did. That's why trey and I are talking about figuring out how to come over
oh, did he talk about how we have these annual like the did you talk about the um,
(46:20):
Like the daiquiri party and the the fish fry and all that stuff because I saw you had margarita
I saw you had a margarita night at one of them though
Yeah
Yeah, that's the first one. But some of these have been dated back
I mean they become sort of like these traditions that happen and um, it's all kind of fun and
Dover is known for their perch their eerie perch. We love perch over here, too. Yep. Yeah
(46:43):
Yeah, so we go over and the typical rut which I think they've already said it's usually eerie
Leave at the crack of night. We have the registration in the margarita party that night and usually a band
And then you have to like roll yourself
You know onto your boat or out of your boat or whatever needs to happen to get you up and at them and
Off to dover and then that next night everyone eats it
(47:06):
Usually the eerie beach
Hotel which is where you get these big platters of perch
And there's initiation stories and all kinds of fun things like that after first time
so if it's your first time we'll have to take you through the process, but
Um, is it like crossing the equator or something? Yeah, you gotta have the king you gotta have the king neptune rituals
(47:28):
Yeah
And then uh, and then you do the course race and then the next night is the big party at the dover yacht club
Which is really fun and they do the big
a daiquiri party and then there's a big another eerie perch fish fry or some people choose to go into town
And then a band which is usually our best band
Of the week and people party pretty hard that night and then they have to go all the way to
(47:50):
Port colburn, which is kind of a you know, long haul
And that's been the traditional and then then on to um
The canoe club, which is gorgeous if you see pictures of that, but it's a really fun
yacht club
Over in canada, it's buffalo's, you know canadian
Sisters club, you know and then usually finishing in the buffalo yacht club. That's the traditional
(48:14):
But we do variations like this year doing the eerie course race. We won't do that again for probably four years
Okay, so this isn't like
A normal year, but we like to kind of add so the clubs can make a little extra money, you know, if you haven't had
Two nights we'll give you two nights every once in a while clubs like money, you know, we all need it, you know
Yeah, that that and that you know, we always try to encourage live music at all the events. We there's there's always great food
(48:40):
There are rum parties. Um, I know
One of the rum parties is put on by a couple. I think it's one of the boats that does it every year, right?
They bring all the rum and they bring all the mixers
And you know they get out they get out the blenders like they used to at cleveland race week
When les used to run the blender party down there
(49:01):
Kind of got that we've got that same kind of theme going on here
Um, and then heather talked about the dinners at the local restaurants
Where you get the tradition and you get everybody wearing their their crew gear
Um, you know, some people get really matchy-matchy and funny
Yeah, so there's there's some good traditions there you get some dancing and one of the nice things is most of these clubs
(49:24):
We're not overly formal. We're not the new york yacht club where you have to show up in a three-piece suit
Um, you can you can do you can do the call it no no collared shirt just everybody being themselves
So it's a little bit more informal and just letting people enjoy summer
I like the sound of that right like the sound of that
(49:47):
Does anybody have anything else they want to ask?
Uh, we we appreciate you guys coming on because this is something we had no knowledge about
And as we've been talking to you guys we've been scrolling to pictures in your website and and thinking it looks like a fun time
I just can I can can I give a shout out to some of the people that that do the event? Absolutely. Absolutely
(50:09):
We've got to recognize gibby lasel gibby gibby you've done every inner club
No, it's this one here david
You took a few years off
At this point in my life, I I take a car to ford tober
Yeah
Yeah, I don't it's okay. I want to go with heather. I don't want to I don't want to be out bouncing around
(50:36):
In a lake anymore. I've done enough of it in my time
I know I did I did go bounce around in the falcon cup last last summer. So
We did have um one of one of our great pirates his name was peter raver and he passed away
Peter had done I think the majority of all of the inner clubs through inception. He might have missed one year
(51:01):
Um, we talked about dave barrack who owns a boat called dreamer
He's a world-class sailmaker in eerie, pennsylvania who who has retired. He was building sails for tall ships
and he was also doing uh
Before the north sails started spinning everything out in nevada. He was making racing sails and cruising sails for boats
(51:21):
And he was also making a lot of sails for ice boats
as well as
He's a woodworker. So he would build his own boats from scratch
Um coming out of the buffalo yacht club, we've got to recognize tom lewin and his son tommy and the entire uh
The crew there's a boat called sledgehammer, which is a j120
(51:43):
Uh, they've been a very successful team
and um
You know, they they've won many inner clubs over the years
There's another team coming out of port dover
Uh skippered by john valley and his whole crew
They've been very successful on many different boats over the years
(52:04):
Uh coming out of eerie, pennsylvania. We've got pat huntley tim pelaski and the whole team
Uh, they they've sailed many boats over the years and they've won in many classes
And then you've got the just the fun families like the machinas, uh, the neemix
And they're running they're they're sailing boats like j109
(52:27):
Um, yep, the wolfard family, uh is coming out of eerie pennsylvania
And buffalo if we needed somebody on this call from buffalo, but there's many teams out of buffalo
The whistler family has been participating in this event for years
And we also mentioned ted johnson
Uh with his with his boat called dan yankee
(52:49):
And um, yeah, so there's there's some serious there's some serious talent
But the other thing you should mention is we have is the race committee is we have a race committee for this whole event
Which is not an easy
It thing to put together and over the years. We've had pretty incredible teams our race committee is out of um
buffalo
(53:09):
And so they go the whole distance but
There's been many hats there, but I mean they they have to set out and you know, huge waves and
Yeah
They they deal with a lot so
Yeah
To go to go be the race committee for this event where you have to do five days at sea
(53:30):
And you're crossing lakes
And you can be out there on days where it's blowing 30
So the power boats are moving around they're rocking and rolling they're burning a ton of fuel
But again, it's for them. It's an endurance race as well
And and without them
We've actually a couple of years where the race committee wasn't able to move with the fleet
(53:52):
We actually had to have each yacht club run their own race committees
So that way we could finish and start boats so we might have one race committee starting it
And another race committee finishing it
Uh, we've had we've had to be creative in some years
Okay, but okay
Overall, I mean, it's definitely something every sailor should have on their bucket list. Okay
(54:16):
If you like if you like a unique and thrilling experience on the water
Um, it surely shouldn't be missed
We've got sailors of all levels
Um, it is five days of competitive sailing
Whether you're a newcomer to the support or you're a seasoned sailor
There's definitely something for everybody
(54:37):
and
Participation is it's just a matter of getting to the race course whether you're crewing for somebody or you're bringing your own boat
You know if it's going to happen it's going to happen out there so you might as well be there I agree I agree
Well, I think I this was great. I'm glad we got to be here
um, and uh, thanks for being on here and before I leave you before I leave you
(55:03):
Uh tre you can cut the rest of this out
Oh, is that your outro? No, I better not I better do something better than that
Thank and I want to talk to you before I go off though
Well, thanks for being with us today and we will encourage people on this end of the lake to come over and to join your crews
Thanks. Thank you guys
Yeah, thank you
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