Pilgrimages to the town of `What if ... ?' begin today

Boating

It's show time again, folks.

Over the next two weeks, we can all make the annual pilgrimage to Annapolis to dream about sailing away from it all and choosing the boat we would like to do it in.

The United States Sailboat Show opens today for VIPs and tomorrow for the general public and runs through Monday at the Annapolis City Dock. Its sister United States Powerboat Show runs Oct. 12-15.

Only about one in 10 of the 50,000 or so enthusiasts who pay the $13 entrance fee ($6 for children) will be seriously in the market for a new boat. The rest of us will be there simply to enjoy a brief interlude of "what if ...?"

The 31st sailboat show is two years older than the powerboat show, but powerboating is now at least twice as popular as sailing on the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere in the United States.

This year's shows will have 250 sailboats and 450 powerboats, and new boat registrations in Maryland run 2-to-1 in favor of powerboats.

It makes you wonder why Annapolis likes to style itself "the sailing capital" instead of "the boating capital" of the nation.

Could it be that the city fathers and the influential citizenry who gather at the Annapolis Yacht Club still look down their sunburned noses on what sailors call "stinkpots?"

But certainly the sailing history of the waterside colonial town, which today is blessed by more graceful yachts than ever, lends enough truth to make the city's claim understandable if less than precise.

Equally obviously, Annapolis, with the domed state capital rising above the sloping dockside streets of colonial-era homes, affords the perfect, picture-postcard backdrop for both shows.

When the sailboat show started in 1970, just a handful of boats were displayed. Today, the layout of both shows extends on a latticework of floating docks from the pontoons of the Annapolis Yacht Club toward the U.S. Naval Academy.

Over the years, the city and Annapolis Boat Shows Inc., the company that stages the shows, have developed a relationship of mutual benefit, with the city halving the ever-increasing gate fees in return for leasing more and more of the waterfront to the exhibitors.

"I believe the city believes the shows are good for the city, for the marine industry, and also part of the fabric of the city," says Jim Barthold, general manager of both boat shows.

He notes that the ever-increasing number of exhibitors and visitors translates into more and more tax revenue from related expenditures - accommodations, meals, drinks, and general purchases.

If the shows are good for the city, the state, and the marine industry, they are perhaps best of all for us boaters.

Here, we can see what modern sailing and boating are all about. Not only can we go aboard the newest yachts, cruisers, trawlers, and fishing boats, we can see all the latest marine products and attend seminars on everything from diesel maintenance to the live-aboard lifestyle, surely the ultimate dream in today's pressure-cooker world.

Lin and Larry Pardey, perhaps the best-known live-aboards in the nation, if not the world, spent all of yesterday telling a sell-out audience how to cruise cheaply, happily, and safely.

If you missed that session, you can catch up with the Pardeys at 7 p.m. tomorrow at "CRAB Bash III," a casual food and music evening at the Annapolis Elks Club, 2517 Solomons Island Road.

Proceeds from the $35 entry fee go to Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating (CRAB), which runs four Freedom day-sailers for the disabled out of Sandy Point State Park but needs money to renovate an old Marshall 22 for overnight cruises

The Pardeys also are opening Taliesin, the boat they built as their second floating home 17 years ago - Seraffyn was their first for 11 years before that - to the public during the sailboat show. Visitors' donations go to CRAB.

And legendary hat-maker Alex Tilley also will be doing his bit for the organization. He will be signing his eponymous hat. It was test-marketed in Annapolis 20 years ago and is now the basis for a $15 million, worldwide business. Each Tilley hat sold will boost CRAB funding by $3. Now that's a worthy cause.

On the shows' sidelines, I'm particularly drawn to a lecture by Tom Neale, editor-at-large for Cruising World.

At lunchtime tomorrow in the Marriott Waterfront's ballroom, he addresses "What Do You Do All Day Out There?" The subtitle: "How to cope with sailing in Paradise with nothing to do." We should all be so lucky.

One particular convenience that has developed at the shows is the clustering of boats of similar style. There is now a Multi-hull Lagoon in each show, displaying the attractions of catamarans and trimarans, both sail and power.

These broad-beamed craft offer more space and stability than the traditional mono-hull, and their tendency to flip has been all but overcome by design. And so the market is steadily growing, as are the lagoons - sponsored by Multihulls Magazine - in Annapolis.