Paul Mellen from OPCYC is organizing a loose “rally” of folks who think it’s about time to sail to Bermuda.  D-Day is Saturday, 6 June 2009 – the 65th anniversary of the original nautical crossing which was also termed “D-Day.” 

We held an initial organizational meeting for the 2009 Bermuda Rally on Tuesday 15 July.  At the time of this writing, we have seven boats signed up to participate, and loads of people who want to crew for the seven skippers.  The seven boats and skippers are:

Salt Water Taffy           Catalina 42       Paul Mellen

Damn Yankee              Catalina 42       Mark Brzozowski

Cats’ Paws                   Island Packet 44           Michael Turner

Ellen B             Beneteau 461   Dick Beaver

Tovarisch II                  CT-54              Ron Marchman

Lady Ella                      Pearson 365     Tom O’Brien

Sea Harmony               Ken Hawkins

There are several other boats that are considering making the trip, but who have not yet committed to doing it. 

We are contacting clubs in the Southern Chesapeake Bay to encourage their members to participate.  Although OPCYC is letting us use the clubhouse for meetings, it’s important to note that the 2009 Bermuda Rally is not sponsored by OPCYC.  To be precise, the rally is simply a group of like-minded sailors who like the idea of sailing to Bermuda together, in much the same way that you might sail to the Concrete Ships in the company of the guy who keeps his boat across the dock from you – except that it’s 640 miles to Bermuda.  There is no entry fee, of course, because it isn’t sponsored by anyone.  Just like a trip across the Bay, it’s “pay your own way”.  Anyone who participates is responsible for his own decisions and actions.  However, we’re getting some experienced offshore sailors to provide their advice, words of wisdom, and the “voice of experience”. 

We’re still in the “organizing” phase, so nobody who didn’t attend the first organizational meeting has missed anything yet.  We have several more organizational meetings coming up.  The next one will be on Monday, the 11th of August, at 7 PM in the OPCYC clubhouse at Ft. Monroe. 

 

September PMU Class

The first of many training events will be a “Pointer Maritime University” (PMU) class on Saturday, 20 September, from 9 AM to noon, in the classroom at the Ft. Monroe fitness center.  This class is free and open to anyone who is interested in sailing to Bermuda with us.  If you plan to sail to Bermuda and haven’t prepared your boat for an extended offshore passage, you may have some work to do before June 6th 2009.  We’ll begin the Bermuda Rally classes by taking advantage of people who have done this before and don’t mind telling what they did right, and in some cases, what they did wrong.  Since getting your boat ready may be the one thing that takes the greatest amount of preparation, we’ll focus on that first.  This class will be taught by Greg Conover, who bought an older boat (1976 Morgan Out Island 51) and completely renovated it for an extended 2005 family trip from Hampton to Bermuda and on to Europe, the Azores, and the Caribbean. 

We’ll have a follow-on class on the same subject with a slightly different focus on Saturday, October 18th.  This class will be taught by Steve Runals, who has extensive Blue Water sailing experience in both the Atlantic and Pacific and who took his Pacific Seacraft 34 to Bermuda in 2006.  Between these two instructors, we’ll get both a “small boat” and a “large boat” focus. 

Later on in the fall and especially in the prime PMU class time in January-April, we’ll have classes on all the things you can imagine that relate to making the trip, and probably some things you can’t imagine, as well.  Trust me, we’ll cover everything from water and fuel rationing to US Customs re-entry requirements. 

 

Since OPCYC has offered its facilities, all the classes, including the class on 20 September, will be open to all OPCYC members.  However, for these special “Bermuda Rally Prep” classes, we’ll reserve a few seats up front for the participating skippers and crew, who need to be paying more attention than the Walter Mittys among us. 

 

In case anyone was wondering, with Paul Mellen and Jeff Rogers involved, yes, of course, it will be a race too.  But we’ll use the rally rules that were set up by Steve Black instead of using Americap, IRC, or other such rules.  This is a great way to race without being didactic, pedantic, or anal about it. 

 

If you would like to discuss anything about the trip, feel free to call Paul Mellen at 851-4198, or E-Mail pmellen@cox.net, or call Jeff at 449-2931 or E-Mail jeff@faceco.com or halaha@peoplepc.com.  

 

The OPCYC clubhouse is located on McNair Drive at Ft. Monroe.  This is the road along the water (right) side as you enter the Post.  We’re in the second building on the right side of the road, just past the Marina parking lot.  We share the building with the Post Office, and our only entrance to the clubhouse is on the side of the building next to the water. 

 

See you on the water!