The Commodore of the NYYC this week commented that America’s fight against Covid was “limited, like the final leg of a race where a dying breeze and foul tide conspire to reduce your VMG to close to zero.” Once again, we have to reflect on how fortunate we are to be in Bermuda. However, he goes on to say: “this coming summer will be far more normal than in 2020. And, as we move into the second half of the summer, we will see the social distancing restrictions under which we’ve lived for the past 12 months ease off, if not disappear.” I’m not sure I would be brave enough to make that statement, although there is encouraging evidence emerging from Israel and the UK that vaccination reduces transmission as well as infection, so maybe? Will social distancing ever really disappear? Are our memories really that short? Can anyone ever really feel comfortable going to a concert with 50,000 people in attendance? Do you really want to see a play that badly that you will sit jammed next to a random stranger in a theatre? I guess we’ll see. I just feel happy that I saw all the shows I ever wanted to see before the pandemic! Ted says he was already seeing revivals of revivals, so he doesn’t feel the need to ever go Broadway again….. but that’s the cynical New Yorker talking.
What I do know is that I am suffering from what my medic daughter describes as “Corona-coaster”. Apparently, it is a thing in the UK. Where mood swings are directly aligned with how one views our emergence from the pandemic. On the one hand, some things are encouraging: it looks as though the Sail GP event will go ahead and we will have an international sailing event here in Bermuda in late spring. On the other hand, holidays and events that had been (optimistically?) planned for June 2021 are already being cancelled. The biking holiday in Portugal that I was supposed to do with my daughter in 2020 is now postponed (again) until 2022. I will definitely need an electric bike by then! If it gets postponed any more, we might both need electric bikes!
We are cautiously optimistic that our own Marion to Bermuda race will continue, but we fully expect that Covid regulations will still determine how and in what manner the arriving crews will move around our marina & Club upon arrival. If we can make it work, we will and plans are already underway to have separate marina areas for quarantined arrivals v. locals, separate “bubbles” in the Clubhouse etc. Here’s hoping. R/C Roger Beach is spearheading the Marion Race responsibilities and we have every confidence that he will “bring it home”. Unlike Sir Ben Ainslie who maybe needs to find a new slogan?
Random question: what happens to BritRITAnnia now? They pay to ship a slow boat back to England? For what? Or they donate a lump of useless carbon to NZ? It does make one more sympathetic to those who talk about the unsustainability of sailing in general and the America’s Cup in particular. Actually, the more amusing question is about American Magic where I have it on good authority that, according to their contracts, all the crew were paid until the end of the month in which they were knocked out, so ….. January. Like 2 days after they were knocked out. I would have loved to have been in Auckland to see what happened. Did Terry Hutchinson pack up 65 shipping containers on his own? Or did some folks get their contracts extended? Maybe I’ll ask during the NYYC AC36 post-mortem members night next week!
Closer to home, let’s talk about the tennis courts. You’ll all have seen the almost-completed building work to create much expanded hardstand storage space for boats and a new ramp to make access much easier and more practical. Soon members will have allocated spots for dry boat storage and the plan is to offer a launch service so that you can call or email to have your boat splashed on a Friday (or any other day) and then just leave it alongside the dock when you have finished using it and it will be hauled and returned to your spot for you.
The Finance Committee wanted all the boat dry storage slots to be fully allocated prior to the building work being done, but I know that wasn’t the case, so if you have a boat that you don’t have a berth for and you might be interested in a dry-sailing option, please contact the chairman of the Dock Committee, R/C Scott Powell – scottpowell@rhadc.bm
Elspeth Weisberg
Commodore
February 24, 2021