August 5 through 7 was the 2022 C&C Rendezvous at Thetis Island. 25 C&C yachts made it there and I attended for the first time. The trip to and from the event is chronicled on Opus' blog, including the impromptu and informal race to Thetis from Nanaimo. This article is about the rendezvous itself.
Upon arrival at the docks, I looked over a sparse copse of masts. Earliest check-in time for the Marina was 13:00 and it was only 13:30 when I arrived. A lot of people had yet to complete their passage to Telegraph Harbour on Thetis. There were two particular boats that I made a mental note I had to visit. The first was "Red Sled", a nemesis back from the days when I was racing with LMYC. I had never met them, but the name (and the sight of their stern) was familiar to me. It turned out that the owner of Red was no longer racing, but he was the main rabble rouser and instigator at the Rendezvous. Nice person, though a bit of a liar as he claimed to be a strong introvert and yet I never saw him off on his own. He was always trying to get something going or talking to folks, etc.
The other boat was... distinctive. I looked over at a C&C with a beautiful blue paint job on its hull, the words, "Stars and Stripes" painted along the sides, and a big "USA" on the stern. "That CAN'T be the Stars and Stripes!" I thought. Let me digress for a moment. Stars and Stripes "83" was the first boat that I ever actually became aware of yacht racing. It was Dennis Conner's boat when he won the America's Cup in 1987. It was a big thing and he was an american hero at the time. He duplicated the feat in 1988 as well. Given the name and the paint job, it seemed this might be?
No, it wasn't, but it turns out that it's one of a handful of memorial yachts that carry the name and paint job. To make it even more special, the owner/skipper of it was a member of Conner's team on the "real" Stars and Stripes. It's cool to meet someone like that!
The event started with a meet and greet on Friday evening. We all brought appetizers and had a chance to chat, meet each other, etc. In addition, we submitted questions to be handled at the next morning's tech talk. I'm not really good at that social mixer stuff, so mainly I listened to other people chatting. This comes into play later!
Sunday dawned and we all gathered for the tech talk. A lot of issues were brought up. Some of the ones of main interest to me are how to remove the smell from the toilet in the head -- seems that's a problem across all the yachts!, places to get work done, etc. I took a lot of notes during that and am waiting for the minutes to show up that have all the information that I missed.
Later that day was boat viewing/visiting, although having an "official" time for this seems a bit odd since we were all going around and visiting each other's boats at various times anyway. As a single-hander, I stayed on Opus to answer questions and such, figuring I could wander later on. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get to see all the boats I wanted to, but maybe next year. Opus had a number of visitors. As the biggest yacht there, a lot of people commented on how spacious and luxurious she is. It's always nice to hear good things about one's own boat! However, she wasn't completely cleaned up from the trip to Alaska, and there are still a number of things that broke during the trip that need to be fixed, paint that needs to be touched up, etc.
That evening was group dinner - bring your own protein and bring a salad or dessert to share. This was opportunity for further socialization. Turning the time line back to Thursday, Anne had met a person at a charity event she was assisting. The person had remarked how they were hopping onto a boat the next morning to attend a boat event at Thetis. Anne asked and they got to talking. She told me to look him up. The dinner on Sunday was when we finally connected, and I might have found a new crew member for racing.
After dinner was fun-and-games time. a 15 question trivia quiz, drawn from "tell us something interesting about your boat" that was at the bottom of our registration papers. They would ask the question and then give us 3 choices. Opus showed up as a choice in two of the questions, so I could eliminate that choice pretty quickly. Some of the questions I knew the answer, some I suspected, and a lot of them I guessed. Neptune must have been watching over me because out of 15 questions I got 13 of them correct. See? Eavesdropping other people's social chatter on Friday paid off! The prize was a free night's stay at Telegraph Harbour marina. Thank you for hosting us and for the prize!
After the trivia test was the doorprize giveaways. I was the 4th? 5th? person picked and my prize was a $250.00 gift certificate towards new sails or loft work at UK Sails. Thank YOU UK Sails for the generous prize!
All in all, a great time and I definitely want to head back next year to gather even more information.