Put Up Or Shut Up

After a week of running around Eastport making everything as perfect on the world's fastest Melges 24s and a week of drunken nights at the few bars available over here, it's time for everyone to get off their asses and go racing. The forecast here in Annapolis is a good one - so long as you're an eskimo. Temps in the 40s (that's 5-10 degrees C), winds in the high teens and low 20s - at least the racing will be exciting, though I'm damned glad not to be out there on a Melges.

Our ride is a lot more comfortable. We've got Tom Weaver's awesome luxury workboat - the Eastport 32 - and it's so good for our purposes that we're already trying to figure out how to bribe Tom to get the boat down to Key West in just a few months. Tom also has a lot of stories to share with the Anarchists when we have time - I'm looking forward to hearing about his time as manager of Mescalzone Latino's Cup campaign, his time sailing with Fossett on Playstation, and what must be hundreds more stories.

In the meantime, we get to bring you the original On-The-Water report, filled with the best video, pictures, and commentary you can find anywhere, along with the back stories from the class and the party action. As always, we encourage y'all to let us know what you want to see - photos of your friends, the conditions on the course - whatever. This is your report, not ours - so feel free to help us make it as good as we can for you.

It seems that OTW Anarchy has spawned something of a cottage industry of copycats. Not only are there a couple of other dopey websites with pretenders and wannabes trying their own live reports here in Annapolis, but it seems the International Melges 24 Class hasn't learned from the mistakes of Key West Race Week and the Mumm 30 class, and is trying to get into the OTW business themselves instead of sticking to the business of running their class. We've been told that the IMCA has actually flown an extra press officer from the UK to this event specifically to do some weak-ass version of what we've been doing for almost three years now - that's in addition to international press chick and class secretary Fiona Brown and US press officer Joy Dunigan. If that's not enough, they're still trying to get away with someone who just doesn't shoot racing shots - even US Class secretary Joy Dunigan shoots significantly better stuff than official Class Photographer Paul Todd (not to mention the even-better stuff from our own Meredith, which is posted to thousands of you within minutes of live), but somehow, despite the clear lack of quality in his work, they just keep bringing him to these events. It's not like I'm making this stuff up - just look at the photos yourself. I'm not sure how they justify the extra thousands of dollars of expenses to their dues paying members - unless they just pass these costs off to their sponsors, who don't know any better...

Enough about the silly antics of IMCA - we may call people out for their stupidity, but we always give credit where it's due, and the Eastport Yacht Club has done an impressive job of organizing, launching, measuring, and registering every boat and team here in town. When not a single competitor bitches about the measurement process, you know they're (being our pal Billy Blank, Chief Measurer) doing a good job, and Liz Filter and Bill Carleton kept the cars, trailers, hoists and tractors running like an assembly line, with the end result being lines of neatly ordered Melgi tied stern-to the docks, ready to loose their leashes and go hunting. Local PRO Jeff Borland has a good reputation, and we'll see how he holds up tomorrow with a shifty, puffy 20+ knots out there. As the crew of USA 757 tape up batten ends and flake sails in the other room, Mer and I will try to get some sleep, so we can bring you the most exciting class in the USA, bar none.

A huge note of gratitude to our advertisers for this live action - Latis Yachting Solutions, Coral Reef Sailing Apparel, and the Eastport 32 - all proudly displayed on OTW forum masthead. Now go check out On-The-Water Anarchy - here's the Day 1 Thread.