CARVER OWNERS CLUB
This site is owned by, managed by, and exclusive to Carver, Californian, and Trojan owners.

July 2007

Headlines - Click on a Headline to see the Story

Stories

This may have been the best Rendezvous ever.  We changed the format completely – moving the Boat Hop or tour of boats to Friday evening, having a series of seminars Saturday morning, playing a group game Saturday afternoon, and conducting a Boat Talk session in person on Sunday morning.  There are rumors that some attendees engaged in a covert operation against a nefarious villain to attack the very core of that villain’s being.  More on that later.

The Saturday morning seminars were interesting.  The first was from Patrick Seiler of the Seiler Group. The Seiler Group is a team of seven people managing over a billion dollars in assets.  Two of the more interesting points Patrick made are that his company calculates return on investment after all costs are considered and the importance of Private Equity Placement. Calculating return on investment after all costs are included gives you a more complete picture of what you are really earning.  Private Equity Placement (investing as if you are a venture capitalist) is very hot right now, as you can see by the strength of the Blackstone IPO.  You can contact Patrick at The Seiler Group, 800-688-1966, 12 Terry Drive; Newtown, Pa. 18940 http://fa.smithbarney.com/theseilergroup.

The second seminar was hosted by Consolidated Insurance Company.  Jack Doetzer, chairman of the board, and Dave Reeve, Vice President of Personal Insurance presented information about reducing insurance costs while taking the most advantage of your coverage.  Dave talked briefly about medical evacuation insurance.  This is an inexpensive policy that pays for your medical evacuation from where ever you are.  You buy limits of coverage, say $50,000 for a trip on the ICW.  Then, if you need to be evacuated for medical reasons, insurance pays the cost up to the limit of coverage.  It’s nice to know that you don’t have to be stuck somewhere when you need to be with your doctors at home.  He also talked about the savings you could have by having one insurance broker handle all of your insurance needs.  That is, have a single source for home, auto, boat, and business insurance.  When we used a single broker, we ended up with a lower total cost for insurance.  For a free quote on your boat or all of your insurance, contact Dave at 410-358-9500 or email dreeve@cicinc.com.

The jewel of the seminars was Captain Walter and Barbara Davis’ presentation of the Great Loop trip.  Walt summed up the trip at the end of the presentation – 8 segments; 5 months (June 21 to November 30 at Daytona Beach); 5205 miles; 62 ports of call; 416 hours underway; 9000 gallons of diesel fuel at a cost of $21,000.  Some of the challenges of the trip were a lock that raised the boat (a 570 Voyager) 95.5 feet; 40 bridges in 5 miles in the Chicago area; rattlesnakes under boulders used to tie up for overnight dockage; bumping through the Trent-Severn canal; and Georgian bay.  Walt and Barb described Georgian Bay as the moon with water.  Crystal clear water where one could read a beverage can thirty feet below.  It was great to see how so many friends and family members participated in the trip.  Another boater asked to borrow the “all-weather crew” of grandkids who were out in the rain handling lines and being kids.  One of the most interesting pictures was of the grandkids and others puckered up on the fore deck as Dondabar came down the railway lock.  That looked like taking your boat on a roller coaster.  It turns out that the Davis stayed at a marina on the Great Lakes operated by the nephew of another member, Chris Ramsey. 

Our group game this year was an active, physical game, rather than the more familiar mind games, like Boat Hop poker or the ever famous Yacht-O.  It was a blind dingy race or, as it was later named, the American Way Cup.  In this race, the dingy crew consisted of a blindfolded helmsperson, a navigator, and a marshal who enforced compliance with the rules.  The race essentially had no rules, so it was up to the helmsperson and navigator to bribe the marshal to allow lying, cheating, and general misconduct in order to win.  Chris Ramsey suggested that our race represented the true, “American Way” of trying to get ahead.  We planned to have the racers go in reverse to help control speed, but this was abandoned after the first boat started turning in circles and Patsy commented, “They’re going to kill him,” speaking about the other boats.  Did I mention that we had the race in the main fairway of the St. Michael’s harbor on a Saturday afternoon? 

The awards in the blind dingy race are:

1. First place – Chuck Cipriotti, helm, George Burke, navigator, and Terry Ramsey, marshal.  The $20 bribe paid to me in no way influenced the award.

2. Second place – Jim Shilling, helm, Sue Shilling, navigator, and Chris Ramsey, marshal.

3. Third place and damn near disqualified – Jim Thomas, helm, Patrick Seiler, navigator, Debbie, marshal, and Chris Thomas, Jim’s daughter as apparent kidnap victim forced to ride in a dingy.

Dinner this year was also different in that we were able to order from a menu.  That was a nice change from our usual buffet.  After dinner we were entertained by the rousing sea stories of Johnny O, a local drunk, and the theft of a plastic palm tree by combined CIA and Marine recon forces.  Several members were immediately nominated for the Mr. Roberts’ Stolen Tree prize.

Sunday morning started with a Continental buffet.  We added time to discuss several topics related to boating.  We called it Boat Talk in person.  Some of the topics were covered were: the importance of checklists; Internet connectivity while underway; monkey fists; and how to tie up to a piling that you cannot easily reach.  This was a great exchange of ideas.

So, onto next year’s Chesapeake Bay Rendezvous.

Another major event is a convoy down the ICW.  We'll leave Portsmouth, VA on November 1, 2007, weather permitting,   We will stay inside the entire trip.  This will be life in the slow lane, with an average cruising speed of about 12 miles per hour or 50 miles per day.  A couple of days will be longer or shorter, depending on local conditions.  We will not cruise in bad weather.  If you've always wanted to make the trip, but have been unsure of where to start, this is your chance.  Again, many considerations limit the number of boats that can join us, but it should be fun.

Checklists

I am one of the worst absent-minded people in the world.  Patsy even included a note in my airline ticket (back in the days when one actually spoke to a person before boarding a plane) that read, “This is an absent minded person.  Please make sure he gets on the flight.”  Needless to say, lists and checklists are the only things that give my life some structure.  One of topics we discussed at the Rendezvous was the need to have a series of checklists in the Members Only section of the web site that relate to how we boat.  For example, I made up a circuit breaker checklist for In Slip, At Anchor, and Underway that shows the position of each breaker for each condition.  That way I don’t have to think and Patsy doesn’t have to know which breakers to set for which condition.

We also discussed emergency checklists, including scripts of what to say and do when an emergency happens.  It’s nice to have a written description of your boat to read to the Coast Guard, rather than trying to make one up while dealing with an emergency.  This will be on the web site, too.

It will take awhile, but I will make as many checklists available as possible on the web site as soon as possible.  If you use a checklist, consider sending me a copy to include in this listing.  Thanks.