My friend Paul Potter and I each built a US-12 just so we could race one another in his backyard facing Middleboro Lake here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Neither of us had ever raced any kind of boat before, but it looked challenging. It took a while to complete the boats - it helped that I flew R/C aircraft for the past 10 years so I was familar with servos, receivers and such.
We raced throughout the summer of 2009. Paul has a beautiful back yard right on the lake. Our wives were watching us go round the triangle course and suggested we throw a party with a nautical theme. They both are very social (understatement) and we ended up inviting 100 friends to view the 2009 Middleboro Yacht Club Regatta! We specified in the invitation that "proper nautical attire was required" and outfits would be judged. Our friends got into the spirit and came suitably attired and somewhat over-dressed. The weather co-operated and we had a wonderful time. We catered the affair with an open bar and buffet. We invited 100 and 100 came!
We used the AMYA starting tape and invited friends to bring a sailboat to race thinking nobody would have an R/C boat ready to race. We ended up with a chris-craft, a toy RC fire boat and two small toy type RC sailboats. We had an announcer call each race, Paul gave an overview of class racing and the US-12. Our line judge was a retired US Ambassador, Peter Sechia. We had an official trophy presentation (tongue in cheek) to the winning boat and skipper.
What was suprising was the interest that many of the guys attending had in racing. Many had raced full-scale boats years ago and they knew the rules and wanted to try their hand at controlling the boat. We gave everyone interested a chance to sail our boats after the official race. Very quickly we had ten skippers who wanted to race the next year. I have been in AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) for 15 years and an Associate District VP for 9 years so I am a big believer in association membership. We required each member to join AMYA and we registed our club as AMYA club #287.
Fortunately because of my airplane building experience I hosted in my shop weekly build session for the new skippers. Most had little knowledge regarding how to build the boat, but they enjoyed the process. Last year, 2010 was our first season as a real AMYA club. We set up a scoring system, a Yahoo email group and kept everyone up to date on standings and upcoming race locations. We tried several private home sites, park sites and larger lakes in West Michigan.
Two of our members are former Commodores of the Grand Rapids Yacht Club on Reed's Lake in East Grand Rapids. This is a racing club focused on weekly club racing and developing young skippers through a summer sailing program. We offered to fund a scholarship for the sailing school in exchange for the priviledge of each Wednesday sailing at the GRYC and use of their Boston Whaler chase boat. We set our own marks, provide our own starting tape and usually have 4-8 boats racing each week. The GRYC members enjoy watching our boats race and tell us so every Wednesday night. Our races start at 5:00pm and we are done by 7:30pm having raced five races.
Lessons learned - do not underestimate the peer group power of a large social gathering organized around a sailing regatta. The racing provides something for the men to get involved with much more than the typical cocktail party we all suffer through. Many people who actively raced class boats in their 20's and 30's no longer want the committment of full-scale racing. We offer the thrill of competition, the pride of workmanship and the socializing aspect in a nautical themed environment. Plus it is much less expensive than golf and a lot less frustrating!
I hope this story might help other AMYA members realize the power of a social event organized around model sailboat racing.
There are around 200 Micro Magics registered in Florida so we are expecting a big interest an the series and hopefully skippers from the many clubs throughout Florida will participate.