By Laura Almond member of the Long Island chapter
The Huntington Waterfront Festival is the final event of Safe Boating Week. Held in May, it is a nautically themed fair with boat dealers displaying new & used boats, vendors selling boating equipment, safety gear, nautical (and not so nautical) antiques, crafts, home décor, art, paddleboards, kayaks, fishing gear, information about nautically related clubs, food and adult beverages. Live music rounded out the festivities.
“Second Chance” was a huge hit with the crowd as well as the people who ran the event, especially since she is a locally made boat. Over the winter, Chris completely sanded and repainted her and overhauled the motor. He had club member Ernie Perry, of Perry Upholstery in Patchogue, make her new, white cushions with red piping. She finally has her name on her transom, done in vinyl gold leaf on removeable plastic signboard (makes it easy to sand and re-varnish the transom without sacrificing the lettering – Chris’ idea). Chris had spent the day before the Festival waxing the boat; between the smooth as silk paint and the bright shine, people constantly tapped on the hull and asked if it was fiberglass! With smiles, and sometimes tears, visitors stopped and told us of their own memories with boats like her.
The antique outboard engines always draw a huge amount of attention. You never see those kinds of designs on modern engines – they are works of art. People are fascinated by them and Barbara always has information and answers to their questions. We give a huge thanks to the Meads for bringing them.
It was a very profitable day for the Club – we brought three (3) new members on board! We are very excited about this since our membership is very small. Even more exciting is that one member has young sons that are enthusiastic about boats.
The wind never did die down and “Second Chance”, even though she was now encased in a layer of ball field dirt, made her way out, past people still remarking about how beautiful she is. Event organizers enthusiastically called out “thanks for coming, see you next year”! It is a wonderful thing to preserve a piece of local history and be able to share it with everyone!