MAX EBB T
his year I was finally going to follow my own advice and go to the boat show alone. Not that I don't enjoy poking over new boats with friends, but the boats have never been as interesting as the accessories tents, and even the accessories are not as much fun as the people. Anyone who tags along with me as I chat up all my friends and acquaintances — and I run into another one about every 20 feet — is quickly bored to tears. I have my own trick for parking, too. About a mile down the Estuary there's a community sailing center with a big parking lot, and if I get there early, there's plenty of space. Most of the sailors I know would call it beyond pedestrian range, but it's a nice walk past new urban development and the big Amtrak station. As I approached the pedestrian overcrossing to the Amtrak platform, I was thinking about how much this part of the waterfront had changed in recent years. The Coast Starlight was in and '30s big band music played on the PA system. Then my thoughts turned to the late and lamented Metropolitan Yacht Club, one of this waterfront's defining institutions several decades ago. And then I nearly fell on top of a bicycle that had just emerged from the overcrossing elevator door, pushed by a young woman in a hurry. "Hey!" I shouted incoherently as I struggled to regain an even keel. "Sorry! I didn't, like, see . . . Max!" It was Lee Helm, a naval architecture grad student at the university. When she's not windsurfing, I can sometimes talk her into crewing for me. "Imagine running into you here," I said. "Did you bike all the way down for the boat show?" I asked. "Heck, no, Took Amtrak," she explained. "I thought about that too," Come for the boats, stay I said, "even for the widgets. though it's only a couple of stops down the line. But you know, the way they've been building high-density developments around the stations, all the easy parking is gone." "Infill, Max. Think transit-based infill. Amtrak is bike-friendly. And, like, best of all, they usually don't even check for tickets if you hop on and off at stations that are close together." Page 128 •
Latitude 38
• April, 2010
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e walked together toward the show, but when I didn't see any tents, I thought I might've come on the wrong weekend. "What happened to the accessories tents?" "No tents this year, Max." "No tents?" I was crushed. "What's the point of having a boat show if all they have on display is boats?" "Chill," she reassured me. "Big accessories section this year, inside the old brick-and-mortor bookstore. I mean, it's a novel concept, but why would anyone go to a store to buy a book?" "Where are they going to put the seminars?" I asked. "In the hotel, in actual seminar rooms. The speakers won't have to, like, wait for freight trains to pass before they can continue their talks." I had my discount coupon, but Lee, who had volunteered to put in a couple of hours at some non-profit organization's booth, was on the free list. "Let's go to the accessories area first," she suggested. "I can leave my bike there." "Really? They have bike checking this year?" "No, but I can leave stuff at the booth I'm volunteering at. It's an important boat show strategy: Always pick out a friendly booth you can use as home base and storage locker." "Good, I'll leave my coat there, too," I said.
"I
'm not so sure about this new exhibit space," Lee remarked as we walked into the converted bookstore. "It gives the show a whole new upscale feeling." I thought it was a good change. And as usual, within 30 seconds of entering the building, I ran into a friend who works as a rigger at one of the larger chandleries. Since I wanted to talk about replacing my old lifelines, Lee went on to do her booth shift without me while I stayed to talk rigging wire. "Wire is right out!" said the rigger. "The new offshore regs allow Dyneema — for your boat it would be 4 mm diameter. And it's easy to splice, too." I fondled a sample of the new rope, imagining how my boat would look with high-tech fiber lifelines instead of the traditional white plastic-coated wire. "The coated stuff is now illegal for
Get taken for a ride — Free sailboat rides abound at the boat show so take advantage. When you need a break, cat tramps make great rest stops (below).
ocean racing, and even the grandfathering period has run out," the rigger continued. "Now the only choices are bare steel wire or Dyneema." "I have that on my boat," said another sailor who was checking out the latest in clew shackles. "Great stuff. Only thing is, it's hard to see at night." "You mean compared to the old-style white plastic coating?" "No, I dumped that years ago. Fiber is hard to see compared to bare wire, which reflects points of light. Not that it's really been an issue, but that's the only downside I've found." "Hmm, I should probably try a sample before I make a final decision," I said, and I bought just enough to span one section between the aft side of a lifeline gate and the stern rail.
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he show was not at all crowded — Lee and I had arrived early — and even though I like the accessories best, I
