Make your vacation home a boat

Boston Globe

It seems boat traffic has slowed this summer on local lakes. Higher fuel costs clearly are pinching the busiest leisure time of the year.

However, a significant blow to the masses is not even a light tap to the rich. Astonishingly, it could not be a better time to be a builder of large yachts. A recent report indicates the number of mega-yachts is not only on the rise, but that shipbuilders around the world are having difficulty employing enough workers to meet the demand.

Camper & Nicholsons International, a yacht broker with offices in several international cities that monitors sales and charters of yachts greater than 80 feet, reported that there are approximately 3,800 vessels that size now in service with 1,200 more to be built by 2010.

Now that we're in dreamland, the largest known floating home purchased by a Seattle-area resident is the 416-foot Octopus owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The world's largest private yacht afloat when it was launched five years ago, it now reportedly has slipped down the nautical ladder to eighth, a result of the whims of comfortable watercraft enthusiasts from the Middle East.

The Octopus reportedly cost more than $200 million, has two helicopters, seven auxiliary boats and a 10-man submarine that has the capacity to sleep eight for up to two weeks underwater. The Octopus has a permanent crew of 60, including several former Navy Seals, and a vehicle for crawling on the ocean floor.

Because owners must spend a minimum of 10 percent of the purchase price annually to pay crew salaries and maintain the vessel, Allen, who also has owned other huge yachts in addition to the Octopus, would need a $20 million annual budget to keep his largest boat ship-shape. more

I-LYA Bay Week Regattas

With the conclusion last week of the 2008 Inter-Lake Yachting Association (I-LYA) Bay Week Sailing Regatta, presented by Progressive and sponsored by GMC, an annual rite of summer on the Great Lakes has been marked by hundreds of competitors aboard 90 sail boats of varied sizes. This is not a typical regatta – the Monday to Wednesday race schedule virtually ensures that the racers have planned their participation to coordinate with some vacation time. And the location, Put-in-Bay, the quaint Victorian resort on South Bass Island, Ohio, is also a significant factor in attracting high caliber sailors who enjoy the tactical racing among the surrounding islands on Lake Erie.

“I can’t remember how long we’ve been sailing in this event . . . since the ‘70s at least,” said Heidi Backus Riddle (Vermilion, Ohio). The 1985 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year competed in the Tartan 10 class, with a crew on Nuts that included sister Susan Backus (herself a nationally-known sailor), son John and some good friends. “This is so different from a normal regatta venue. One day you race around the island, another around the buoys. When racing is done the island is a great place to spend your time and relax.”

Riddle won the 12-boat T-10 class, the largest of the five one-design classes competing, after seven races. “The first two days were blowing 10-15 south-southwest, steady,” said Riddle citing good crew work for finishes of 4-1-2-1-3-2. In a light shifty breeze on the final day of racing, despite posting her worst finish of the series – a tenth which became her drop score – she secured the win by just two points over Gary Disbrow (Avon Lake, Ohio) against whom she has sailed “many, many times.” Disbrow had earlier won the I-LYA Deepwater Race from Sandusky which is one of the optional feeder races (Cleveland, Port Clinton, Toledo and Detroit are the other starting points) that has the respective fleets navigating the challenging waters around the Bass Islands to assemble at the bustling waterfront of Put-in-Bay in time to participate in the Sailing Regatta.

Nine yachts raced in the PHRF Casual Cruising class, while a total of 41 boats raced in various PHRF fleets and 40 raced in the five one-design classes. In the five-boat Crescent fleet, David Hume (Grosse Pointe Park, Mich.), sailing with his teenage son and daughter, beat older brother Stephen Hume (Detroit, Mich.) who finished four points back in second overall. “You can buy a completely stocked Crescent ready to race for $5000, and for $500 for food and entry fees you’ll have an experience you’ll never forget,” said Stephen Hume of the event he has competed in since 1984. “The Put In Bay Yacht Club is so nice to us, the I-LYA runs a professional event, and I love sailing around the islands where the war of 1812 was fought. There have been people sailing here who have quit their jobs for this event!”

“No one got killed by the lighter winds” said Ed Skoch the ILYA Sail Regatta Chairman about the change in breeze strength and direction on the final day of racing. “It did not really affect the standings. The one-design centerboard fleet did not race on the final day because the air was too light, but they had [completed] seven races and so they did fine. PHRF did not have significant changes. They raced around the island and the wind did come back a little. The Crescent fleet moved from the one-design keelboat course to the PHRF course in order to participate in the race around the island. And it was the first time windsurfers participated in the event after someone from Middle Bass Yacht Club got the idea –they said they would be back next year. We had a very successful regatta, with very few problems.”

Third Annual Tri-Area Challenge - For the third consecutive year, the Tri-Area Challenge – open to all classes participating in the I-LYA Bay Week Sailing Regatta – has been won by the Western Lake Erie Basin team. Boats registered for the regatta automatically became eligible and were included in the scoring with the winning area receiving a cash prize of $1000 to be distributed to their Junior programs, along with a case of Captain Morgan Rum for the sailors. The Western Lake Erie Basin covers Vermilion, Ohio to North Cape, Michigan, with representatives from the Jolly Roger and Sandusky Sailing Clubs, Perrysburg and Vermilion Boat Clubs, and Put-in-Bay Yacht Club racing in the regatta.

Top three results for each class follow at the end of this release. Complete results can be found at http://www.yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=208