Opening Day Photos

[Marty Loken (Norseboater)]

For the second year in a row, Northwest Classic Boat Club won an award--this time Second Place in the "Spirit" category, with First Place deservedly going to the Northwest Chapter of ACBS for their clever, well-executed "conehead" costumes.

There were about 22 people in our little fleet of nine boats...the skippers being Chuck Carey, Tim Mattson, Andy Eoff, Ken Cook, Greg James, Gordon Davies, John Nelson, Brian Flaherty and yours truly.

Brian filled his Chris-Craft runabout with eight wonderfully-costumed, enthusiastic aliens, who carried the club banner and led us through the parade route. I'm sure we won an award because of their extra efforts...with the rest of us wearing white alien masks during the parade.

As mentioned last evening, the weather was better than it might have been (considering the previous night's forecast). The lesson is to totally ignore the forecasts (remember the earlier talk about high 60's--ha!) and just get out on the water. If the forecast is overly great, you're always disappointed. If it's wildly ominous, the actual weather invariably turns out better than forecast....so it all works out, and you just go for it...as long as the event is in a relatively protected body of water.

Many thanks to those who made it yesterday, good weather or bad, and best wishes for a swift recovery to those who were sick and couldn't make it.

Photos follow...

- Marty

[Marty Loken (Norseboater)]

One of the Better Parade Entries....

After the parade, we caught up with some of the entries that had gone through earlier. This was one of the best we saw--a space shuttle mounted on trimaran hull, representing Seattle's Museum of Flight.

Well done!

- Marty

[Skagitguy]

Marty, Thanks for the great pictures. Hey that was great we won ( thanks Brian ) Second Place in the "Spirit" category . Yes you are right about the weather ! We even saw the sun while we were waiting at the south end of Lake Union and Portage bay. I think this was the best weather we have had since we have been going the last four years as far as no rain to speak of. I even got "California Girl" home and gave her, her bubble bath wash before going back into the garage waiting for her next trip to Lake Alder event later this month. Maybe next year it will be 80 out ! Best,Chuck.

[Sammamish1]

The masks and costumes were great, not too scary, but that guy in the G3 gave me the shivers. I wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley! :shocked4:

Glad you all had a great time, next year we'll make it for sure. HMMMM, I've been saying that for 5 years now........

[Skagitguy]

Yea Yea Jack ! Quite a few people knew that "California Girl" was a G-3 from the log boom. They must be REAL old guys. Next year i will be back with another Skagit 17' Express. Chuck

[Tim_Mattson]

Opening Day Pics

Hey All,
Kudos to Brian Flaherty and his always well prepared and enthusiastic participatants.
Seems the number of boats and people on beaches have seriously dropped over the past few years......BUT the people who are out in masse on the Logboom AND our group always make enough noise to make this worth doing.
Hope you enjoy these pics taken by my special guest Stan Davis and his wife Carol of Kenmore.
The Space Shuttle looked too real ,almost thought it was going to fire up!.
Also saw some wild life out there.....
TimM

Way to go everybody!! If I had been feeling better we would have been there, especially since we made a spaceship and everything. Oh well. Hats off to you all!

[Bflaherty]

Thanks for the awesome photos everybody. It is awesome that we won an award but we can't take all the credit, the group did a great job of staying in formation and with the alien masks, from Marty, we had a great unity between boats. Coming in second to the 50,000 dollar mahogany runabouts with their always unique costumes is fine by me...

We had a great time and for the first time in our own boat we didn't get harassed by the SPD for being overloaded.:shocked2: Although it might have had something to do with the fact that all the police patrol boats were busy rescuing the Cougar Band's tug boat from the swamp at the southeast corner of the cut... VeryBigSmile

Can't wait for next year!!!!

(We will post our pics as soon as we get all 8 cameras uploaded)

[GregJ]

Fun on Opening Day

Here are some more photos from Opening Day. Lots of fun!

[Stan D]

Sorry for this, I couldn't help it.

[Andy E.]

I had, as usual, a great time. All the years I've lived in the Seattle area and owned a boat this is the first Opening Day for me. It could not have been a fraction of the fun with out such a fun group of people. It just adds so much to share it with other enthusiast.

Missed you...

Hello Classic Award Winning Aliens,

CONGRATULATIONS to everybody and way to go Brian and gang for another amazing performance!

Wow, I knew we were gonna regret working instead of playing (usually do...) but seeing the photos made us all yearn for next year! So, this time I promise to get 2011 on the calendar early. Sigh....wonder what the theme will be?

Hope to see you all soon at a summer event.

Lauryn, Chris and Dylan

[Ken]

...and a great time was had by all!

I had a great time yesterday sharing the event with club members and a couple of buddies. For awhile I felt like one of those dogs you see in the back of an old pickup...running from side to side in an effort to see everything! The run afterwards down to Coulon was pleasant--just putting along enjoying the day... A great day! Thanks to everyone involved--and an extra "yup, yup" to Tim for staying on top of the water!
-Ken

[Bflaherty]

We made the news with the club banner!!!

Did anyone happen to catch the Q13 news saturday??? Apparently one of the ACBS guys saw my boat with the Northwest Classic Boat Club banner on the news!!! We were in transit back to Bellingham and missed the coverage, I have been searching the interwebs but haven't found any pictures or video from this year's parade...

Happy motoring!!! :boater1: