Public Eye

The Race Week staff attempts to create a more serene work environment for Mr. Clean as he finishes his last press release on Sunday.  It didn't work!

I turn 35 years old today, and I don’t have a home or much of a job.  I’m newly married, my wife is similarly unemployed and nearly broke, and yet somehow, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.  My life is more interesting than it’s been in years, I’m about to head to New Zealand and Australia for a month, and I just had an intense weekend reporting on a great regatta in my soon-to-be new hometown.  Unlike recent trips to Charleston, this week I only skipped sleeping once.  I wasn’t at the all-nude, all-night, BYOB strip club like some Anarchists, nor was I in a hot tub with Mer and her adorable friends – I was sprawled on the floor of a converted hayloft, chain smoking cigarettes and chasing each with a big cup of stale espresso roast from one of those coffee boxes. 

If that doesn’t sound familiar to you, maybe it’s been a while since you were in school.  I’d certainly forgotten how annoying it is to cram for an exam, but the Coast Guard told me that if I wanted my license I needed to be there at 7 AM, so there it was.  I’m still not sure that I can make a living on a freelance writer’s salary, so I’m making sure I’ve got the ticket to do deliveries for extra cash, and I stupidly let my old paperwork expire, necessitating my presence for another obnoxious 7 hour long exam. 

Decision in action

If you’ve never taken the exam, I’ll let you in on a secret:  It’s pretty damned easy, and it’s almost all open-book.  The only reason I needed to cram at all is because of the one portion of the test that’s not open book – Rules of the Road.  It’s also the only section of the test that requires a decent score – if you get more than 3 out of 30 wrong, you fail.  The other sections are a joke – 70% is a passing grade – but the Rules force a near-perfect performance.  The questions themselves are a pain in the ass too, unless you’ve memorized the lighting requirements for everything from a rowboat to a tug (larger than 150 meters) towing a triple barge (greater than 200 meters) in a narrow channel (Inland, Western Rivers, and International signals, please). 

Unruly spectators were cheering and whistling at the racers

Sometime around 4:30 AM, just as I finished learning the sound signal for a ship larger than 100 meters (aground, in fog), my skin started to get that all-night itch like it used to when I was in school.  That wonderful feeling led me down memory lane, and it finally sank in - I really am starting all over.  I felt a moment of panic until I reflected on Charleston Race Week, especially the people from CORA and from the South Carolina Maritime Foundation – their attitudes, their generosity, and their passion reminded me that I’m in the right place.  Meaghan Van Liew knew exactly what she was in for when she hired me to write the press releases for the event, held last weekend on three courses in and around the harbor.  She knew my reputation, knew that I’d be doing on-the-water stuff for SA, and stunningly, she, husband Brad, and Race Director Ken King were not only fine with it, but they embraced it – giving us everything we asked for to do the best job we could. 

Anarchists'

That attitude was a far cry from Key West, where every day we were afraid that Premiere would pull the plug on our on-the-water Anarchists, but these folks are truly different, and having gotten to know them, I don’t think they’ll ever change.  First of all, the entire regatta is a benefit – every penny they make goes back into the Foundation, which just launched a big, beautiful wooden schooner for youth sail training.  Secondly, they’ve got as much experience with publicity, sponsorship, and promotion as anyone in the U.S., and they don’t seem to worry too much about the crap that lots of big event staff do.  Brad and Meaghan were both successful in business before putting together two Around Alone campaigns, one of which ended with Brad smashing Class 2 in a dominant victory, so they don’t have much to prove - all they really care about is getting as many people as possible out on the water, sailing in whatever makes them happy.  That’s the same reason that I started writing in the first place, and I figured we’d get along famously.  By the first night of the regatta, Mer and I already felt like family.  Ironically, the thing I was dreading most about sailing in Charleston was that there’d be some kind of closed-off, backwards, old-money sailing community that was tough to get close to – and I couldn’t have been farther from the mark. 

Tim Wilkes captures the mood and the scenery

If you’ve been on SA before, you’ve seen the following questions ad nauseum when it comes to 95% of regattas: Where’s the information?  Where are the results? Where are the photos?  Where are the stories?  This isn’t far from the other oft-repeated gripe:  Why is there so little information out there about sailing, and how do we get more people into it?  Coming from a PR background, Meaghan wanted to make sure that everyone on the planet knew exactly what was going on, and she and her team did exactly that.  In my Report Card on the J/24 Worlds last month, I agreed that the Mexican J/24 Class ran an amazing regatta – in their own words, “The Best Worlds Ever!”  There’s no doubt in my mind that CORA and the SCMF did their own “best job ever” of getting information out to racers and the public, and I hope that other organizers follow their example.  It’s impossible to do it without the right team of people, and every one of them has to have the time and the motivation to do a great job.  A Press Officer doesn’t have the time to walk the docks every day getting quotes and watching the racing – they actually need to spend hour after hour coordinating newspaper people, magazine people, spectators and website traffic, leaving very little time to do anything else.  When you’re public and live, there’s not much room for amateur “official photographers” or for slow, glitchy scoring software.  Our team included some amazing people, and it showed. 

My gorgeous 420 crew one night in Charleston, and the cute crew who kicked our asses.

Charleston’s “liveness” made things more difficult at times – when results are posted immediately, with all the details attached, sailors are more likely to catch scorers’ mistakes, and they did – which made life more complicated for Anarchist L_Z, whose scoring software made the instantaneous results possible.  When the Event Director and Race Director were debating whether they should end the regatta early in the face of possible severe weather, Brad said to me, “I can’t believe we’ve got this regatta live on SA, and we’ve got to make this decision right now, in front of you!”  These are incredibly open people, though, and more importantly, they have nothing to hide.  The venue is gorgeous, the town is great, and the race administration was well done.  They wanted the world to see it all, and the minor complications were completely outweighed by the all the positive feedback from the exposure.

I asked Brad why he was so quick to embrace SA, and so open to being completely public.  He said, “I want every sailor in the world to know about Charleston, and there’s nowhere better than SA to do that.  I’ve known Scot forever, and what he’s created is incredibly far-reaching.”  Brad lived the solo Open classes for 7 years, and he wants to bring that philosophy to this regatta.  “Race Week has grown every year since it started, but I want more.  We’ve already got over 150 boats, but within 5 years this should be a national event.  It should be a carnival, it should be completely memorable, and it should be the one regatta that everyone wants to travel to,” Brad said, “This should be a race that is equally exciting to the TP52 crew as it is for the local PHRF non-spinnaker sailor.” 

More Scenery

Why was he so motivated to work day after 20-hour day?  What’s in it for him?

“What I want is really simple: I want this event to be huge so that we can make some real money and pump it right back into the Tall Ship program.  Within 5 years, I want to be maxed out with entrants, and we will continue to do what it takes to get them here, and to make it even more fun.  We’ll be maxed out when we get another 50 boats, and every one of those 200 teams should not only have the time of their life in one of the greatest cities in the U.S., they should be able to walk away feeling great about contributing to an educational program that the kids in the state need desperately – and next year, the Spirit of South Carolina will be here as our flagship.”

They’re well on their way, and I expect the friendship between SA and the Charleston sailing community to last.  They’ve got the energy, the background, and the right ‘tude – competition, technology, parties, and marketing are all equally important.  The old way isn’t working in the U.S.  The numbers show it.  It’s time to move forward, and these guys are on the right track.  Had they screwed it up, I would have been the first to say something, no matter how nice they are.  Truthfully, I was just honored to be a part of the show. 

The cutest spectators

I’ll let Brad and Meaghan thank the event sponsors in their own way – I’ve got a list of people who helped us do our thing.  Ocean Sailing Academy and Leonhardt Vineyards for appreciating SA for what it is, and for making it possible for us to go out and do those daily on-the-water reports.  I want to thank L_Z and Tim Wilkes for being consummate professionals, but also great drinking buddies.  To Hall Marine, for everything but the fuzzy dice, and to Katie M. and Anna H. – your hospitality goes completely above and beyond, and to Anna’s parents, well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.