Top Banana

It might be worth it just to make them realize that these are just pieces of fiberglass with auto engines.

A few years back, there was a big fleet that showed up for a poker run in Florida. When the run started, it headed out of the sheltered waters into open ocean waters.......uh oh!

Yup, the first card stop just five boat showed up. Apparently the other boats were not actually boats that could be used in open ocean waters safely....or so their owners thought.

Gentlemen and ladies....these are boats designed to run across open ocean waters safely and bring you and your family home, even if a big storm comes up quickly. They are not the latest wrist watch or handbag or whatever else people buy to impress others.

Please don't anyone tell Brownie, that when he delivered small Donzi's from Miami to Nassau on their own bottoms, those boats were not capable of making the trip......never mind the fact, that he navigated with a small compass not the latest GPS.

SkaterMike82

True but notice who's in the helm and was really running the show yrs ago while big daddy just sat in his office playing with remote control cars. Neil Hernandez

SS930

Honestly, I suspect everything for these promotional videos (helo, videographer, director, etc) is lined up pretty far in advance. If so, water conditions are mostly up to mother nature at that point.

Regardless, even in that last video they aren't pushing the boat that hard, the props aren't even coming out of the water (which I'm sure takes some decent water or speed to do in a true 50).

Jupiter Sunsation

Yeah your right but then again these machines need talent behind the wheel also (especially in bigger seas). But then again, if people ran offshore boats offshore then they might have to use their 4X4 trucks/SUVs off road too!

Top Banana

LOL........Boy you hit that right on!

BajaFresh

Given the recent sad events in this hobby, I would really like to see the focus of attention go from the high speed shoot outs to real off shore running. Not sure how to do that though. Shoot outs can have spectator boats and I guess it's the same reason why off shore racing goes around in circles instead of point to point.

Top Banana

It is a bit early, but at the memorial that was held for Mike Fiore in Rhode Island last week, a few of us sat around and talked about what we could do to increase the safety factor. It all came back to going back out in the ocean and bringing back navigation and seamanship.

We tried before yes, but we are going to try again. In June we hope to hold a distance race on Long Island sound. This will be a shorter version of the race we hope to hold in September......the Infamous Don Aronow Around Long Island Marathon a full 271 miles.

In June we are framing a race that will help people to use the skills of navigating, but never be too far out of sight of land. The confidence gained in June will encourage more entrants in the September race. There will be a race within in the race with some classes doing much less mileage.

Bottom line .......this stuff was really a lot of fun and helped many people try new ideas and show their talents. We are sure there are more people like that out there today, they just need the venue to show their talents.

If anybody out there likes the idea, let me know. We are trying to make these two races be as easy as possible to enter and compete in. Leave your ego at home and let us show you how to acquire the skills and then use them to really use your boat in all conditions and have a great time.

frickstyle

What classes are you thinking of having? Will there be a "pleasure" or "recreational" class. Something for people who don't have "race prepped boats"?

ICDEDPPL

271 miles , Seamanship and navigation is great , just bring me back to the 80`s when gas was $.99/gallon

SS930

For around LI there's not too much seamanship and navigation required, just hug the shoreline and follow the island.

It can be tough finding the people willing to pay for the event, spend the coin on the fuel (for my boat fuel alone would be about $1600-$2200 depending how hard I ran it), plus risk doing significant damage to their stuff. Yes, running hard over a long distance is cool and sounds like a ton of fun, but with a min. 'entry fee' of over $1750 and possibly a hell of a lot more (especially if things go bad), that narrows the field of interested parties significantly. There's only a handful of folks out there with the $ and the desire to run their boat hard for 3+ hours straight.

With that said, I'm interested in chipping on on expenses if someone wants to do it... with their boat.