[Rhodes22-list] Re: the official Annapolis Rhodes 22 Show Report

[L. Sailor]

Looks as if those of you who have run out of launching challenges now have some new ones to try. ;^)
   
  Just like Stan to field test everything...
   
  elle

"William E. Wickman" <wewickman at duke-energy.com> wrote:
  
Stan has proven that you don't have to go all the way to the Bahamas to
have a grand adventure with a Rhodes!!!

Thanks Stan, you have made the many of us who have done lame headed things
with our boats feel much better about ourselves.

Bill Wickman






stan 
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stan 
Subject 
10/14/2006 12:40 [Rhodes22-list] Re: the official 
PM Annapolis Rhodes 22 Show Report 


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The Show started on a balmy note as Art and I motored into our
rented slip and raised the mast just outside the show entrance in time to
beat a radical weather change. Five days later we are happy to report a
successful show, a wiser and older crew and a safe at home call - after a
series of offensive and defensive errors.

As the only surviving charter exhibitor still showing a 22 foot
sailboat at the greatest sailboat show on earth, we had been given a gold
badge on the show's 25th anniversary (some many years ago) and invited to
an exclusive party where we were allowed to tell our story:

For years we had been taking the same space and show biz was
good. One year we came and could not fit into our sacred territory. I
called Carol, the show manager, and explained the problem. She explained
that we had fit this space for all these years so we must be cheating and
showing a bigger boat this year. We explained that we had managed all
these years by projecting into the exhibitor's space in front of us and
allowing them to project into our space and that this year she had put a
tented exhibitor in our projected area and so this year we could not fit.
She explained that the show was sold out and that we would have to cut 3
feet off the boat and call it the Rhodes 19. I explained that there
already was a Rhodes 19 and that, in fact, another exhibitor was showing it
at this very same show and therefore the public would be confused - but not
to worry, I would go into my creative mode and scan the show for a way
out. She gave me one hour to come up with an ingenious idea and get the
boat out of the aisle which, she explained, the fire department considered
a fire lane, or go buy a chain saw. I looked up and in 2 seconds saw the
solution.
w
"Carol" I said, "take that row of toilet booths and put them in
our space and move us into the toilet exhibit".

"Brilliant" she said, "Maybe you should be managing the show",
and in two seconds a fork lift was lifting the first of the green toilet
booths high into the air, when I noticed the door of the booth starting to
open. Immediately I wanted to shout a warning; what came out was, "Watch
that first step". Other exhibitors were envious when they saw the crowds
at our exhibit during the show, not realizing the public was lining up to
use the Rhodes head.

But now Carol, the show owners and all our old friends from the
original show team have passed on and new management, seeing us as the tiny
nothing company we are and nullifying longevity values, put us at the end
of the line, squeeze us in between Catalina and Hunter and take away our
free in-the-water demo space. But not to cry for good old GB - we manage a
slip just outside the show for our demo boat sailing while loyal Rhodies
like Art, Jay, Ed and others are showing up in our doting years to give us
a Tom Sawyer like hand.

This year it was Art helping the demo boat launching at the
Thruxton Park ramp. And when we parked the emptied, unsecured trailer
there, I explained I simply remove the 2 extension tongue pins so any
trailer thief would soon find he was pulling a ten foot length of clanking
metal tubing down the street while the falling-behind-trailer was causing a
massive car pile up behind him that would undoubtedly result in his being
called by the court as a witness.

When we were finally set up to slay the giants, the weather
suddenly turned on us. It rained, the winds howled and the temperature
convinced us the wizard had moved us to Minnesota. Nevertheless Art gave
demonstrations - unfortunately, to prospects who already owned Rhodes 22s.
Jay and Art did sell some boats. Unfortunately, they were not Rhodes. (I
think Art sold one Catalina and Jay two Hunters.)

During the show I noticed that Art was explaining the Rhodes
swing keel to prospects. Now I know for a fact that the Rhodes does not
have a swing keel since every few years I read the promotional material we
hand out at the show. But Art is a smart guy and has not one but two
"Rhodes" with swing keels so they have to be counterfeits. Or, I must have
been remiss in explaining to owners the difference between the Rhodes
combination keel/centerboards and swing keels. So let me state right
here, if you have a Rhodes with a swing keel, you do not have a Rhodes, no
matter what the year.

The last day of the show the weather changed again. The sun came
out and the temperature rose and the wind died, completely. This gave us
the excuse to pull out of the war zone before the 5 o'clock massacre when
all sailboats must evaporate to allow the circling motor boats into their
spaces for the US Motor Boat Show. (You have to see this amazing annual
ritual at least once in your lifetime.) With Art an Annapolis graduate, I
gave him the job of navigating the boat back to the ramp while I drove the
car there to position the trailer for the retrieval.

Another instruction booklet failure: My van has this great
feature of a second hitch, this one on the front bumper so I have this
great view of my retrievals. I could see Art raising the centerboard in
preparation to motoring onto the submerged trailer, now attached to the
front of my car. So let me state right here: With a real Rhodes and a
real Rhodes trailer, you lower the center board before sailing, motoring or
pulling the boat onto its trailer, not raise it.

Remember the trick of pulling the extension tongue pins to foil a
trailer crook?. Well, I found the enemy - and he was me. As I backed up
the ramp to pull the rig out of the water, the boat and trailer stayed put
and the 10 foot extension bar came out of the water just as easy as can be.
I sat there and watched the entire foiled heist. My first fear was that,
now detached from the van, the boat and trailer would roll down the ramp.
And, while the boat floats, trailers generally do not. And once off the
end of the ramp our only Thruxton Park trailer would join the Chesapeake
ship grave yard. And, sure enough, the rig started to move down the ramp!
Then, a miracle, the law of gravity was repealed, long enough for Art to
jump in the water, Gucci shoes and all and hang on for dear life; a miracle
to give me pause to raise my faith one notch, from atheist to Brad's
category. I quickly recovered from that lapse and jumped out of the van
and cleverly disconnected the trailer winch strap from the boat and
attached it to the car and started to winch the boat back up the ramp - and
got punished for jumping faith by the fabric strap parting in the water and
a drowning Art again having to hold on for dear life.

Art then got the brilliant idea that the trailer would be a lot
lighter if we floated the boat back off it. So we tied a line to the car
and backed the rig deeper into the water and relieved the trailer of the
boat load. With some miner engineering feats and submerged jacks, we got
the run-a-way tongue back into the trailer sockets and eventually got the
boat out of the water. Besides shoes, I think the only casualties were
some landside watchers deciding that buying a sailboat was not for them.

It is all relative. Up to now things were going relatively
smoothly. Outside a-by-now dark Washington DC, just before the new
Potomac River bridge where the shoulders disappear, on highly utilized,
high speed I-95, the trailer bounced off the hitch ball. Someone had
forgotten to tighten the coupler's locking knob. You do not want to hear
the rest of this story but when it was all cleared up and I asked the
Maryland Highway crew chief what I owed for the wonderful service, the
graceful response was, "Nothing. Just get out of my state".

Virginia State Route 460, for the first time in my experience,
suddenly ended with a barricade. If I had known then it was merely because
of flooding, having a boat, I would have gone for it instead of taking the
hour and a half detour. Actually I would have enjoyed seeing the
new-to-me rural countryside detour - if it were not so dark and I wasn't
driving in my sleep.

As I learned to chant as a kid growing up in Brooklyn and rooting
for the those bums, the Brooklyn Dodgers, "Wait til next Year". I think I
got it down pat now.

To Art, Jay, Mary Lou, Michael, the Greens and all the other
Rhodies who showed up at the show to lie about the boat to all those
prospects who braved the elements, many thanks.

stan
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