Grand Banks - Our Boat U.S

Boat/US Magazine, Jan, 2003

www.grandbanks.com

"You don't want to get a trawler unless you're retired or a sailor," said BoatU.S. member Dave Green as our dinner table erupted with laughter as we sliced through our crab cakes at a gas station-turned-restaurant outside Oxford, MD. A survey of the dining room brimming with other Grand Banks owners proved his point. I was in a sea of salty-gray hair and smiling, wind-lined faces.

On an Indian Summer weekend the owners had gathered for the 17th Annual Chesapeake Bay Grand Banks Owners Association Rendezvous.

I quickly found that this was no stay-at-home, empty-nester boating fraternity. Grand Banks owners are all about adventure, but at a pace where shoreline and sea pass by in focus. Uniting both the sailing and motorboating credos, they've found the journey and the destination equally important.

Jim and Judi Watson, BoatU.S. members and "pseudo organizers" of the event, hail from Elizabeth City, NC, and are owners of Castoff, a 46-footer -- their second Grand Banks. Jim, a physician, says their group used to be aligned with a dealer, but is now more loosely affiliated. There are about a dozen owner's groups worldwide. Watson's Grand Banks gang started as a way to teach diesel engine mechanics and it's now evolved to serve both educational and social purposes.

Starting at Oxford Yacht Agency in Oxford, MD, the four days of activity saw a predicted log event to St. Michaels, MD, presentations by suppliers, and an update on the Grand Banks line, all coinciding with a small craft festival at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

The Watsons say that when they went to replace their sailboat, they wanted three things in their next boat: a place for Jim's easy chair, an island bed that Judi could walk around, and a down galley "so you didn't have to look at it all the time."

"We really enjoyed our sailboat but the problem was each summer we spent most of our time motoring on the Chesapeake," said Judi.

Jim Logan and his wife, Lucy, are owners of Lucia, a wooden-hulled 1973 Grand Banks 36. The Logans had owned runabouts, but it was a trip to Scotland that eventually brought them to a Grand Banks. "Once I saw a trawler with its wood and classic design, I knew what I wanted," said Jim.

These BoatU.S. members took a long time before finding Lucia, and they haven't looked back. "I retired from the engineering field and Lucy quit her job. We sold the house so we could live aboard. It's been a new adventure for us," he said. They now hail from a Coan River marina at the mouth of the Potomac.

Instead of slowing down, the Logans have rewed up this latest chapter in their lives. "What's nice about owning her (Lucia) is that we can go anywhere we want, right into the downtown of a city, and stay, if we want. If you do that on land, there's so many more hassles," he continued.

Since she is wooden, Lucia does have a more rigorous maintenance schedule than the usual Grand Banks. "But I don't mind varnishing and maintaining her. I have the time it takes to keep her looking good," he says with a proud smile. He jokes that some of his marina mates think that he has a paintbrush permanently attached to one hand -- a new twist on the old Captain Hook story.

Ron and Ann Peterson's Shenanigans is a 1977 Grand Banks 42 -- one of the Singapore-based company's most popular time-tested models. The Petersons also own a Beneteau 35 sailboat and a Proline 23, and have had Shenanigans less than a year. "She's special because we can go someplace in comfort. It has all the amenities," says Ann.

The Petersons have sailing experience from the Caribbean to Tahiti, but Ron says that as he got older, he lost some of his sail-handling strength. They found themselves traveling afar less and less. But, now that they have Shenanigans, they can still enjoy the romantic serenity of slow, long-distance cruising.

These BoatU.S. members belong to a social cruising club, and Shenanigans is always the party boat in the middle of the raftup. "We are always the Race Committee boat. We can hold a lot of coolers," says Ann.

Sometimes, adventure is found close to home.

For more information on Grand Banks owners groups, visit www.grandbanks.com.

Are you a member of an owner's group who would like to share your reasons for owning a particular boat? Let us know by sending an e-mail to scroft@BoatUS.com