Wednesday, July 26, 2006

A Rockville Regatta Disclosure

I emailed a friend of mind, let's call him "Tony," about a visit we're planning to Richmond, VA, where he now lives with his family. Tony is a Charleston, SC native and a former member of the Sea Island YC, so naturally I directed him to my recent post on the world-famous Rockville Regatta.

Here is his response, verbatim.

any mention of the masses of rednecks mud rasslin' on the bank? any mention of boats dodging beer cans in the water. any mention of the throngs of young girls losing their virginity this weekend. how about the schools of jellyfish making urinating a hazardous endeavor? we were members of the Sea Island Yacht Club back in the day and spent many a weekend in Rockville. the regatta was quite the proving ground for young (too young) kids

Thank you Tony for adding your native flavor to my admittedly mundane perspective. This (really) sounds like my kind of party. So why can't New England unclench and get a hoedown along these lines on the books? I'm not certain Block Island Race Week quite measures up...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed the little article about Rockville Regatta. I am 24 now and have been going to rockville ever since I was born! It is such a fun family experience. My Dad used to race and it is time to cut loos and enjoy the sunshine and all the great joy that comes with being out in the water. Yeh for Rockville!

Zephyr (Sail) said...

Thanks for your comment Emily...I've had a lot of readers coming to Zephyr after searching the Rockville Regatta. It has a special place in peoples hearts!

Anonymous said...

I've known Emily since she was a sprout and where ever she would be there would be fun. She is just one of theose wonderful, good people.
But the Regatta is known also as one of the greatest disasters waiting to happen on the water. The amount of booze consumed is staggering. The number of total idiots, drunk ones, on anything that floats is frightening. The overloaded water craft some with mere inches of freeboard abound. Amid this flotilla of madness a boat race is attempted. It will all come to an end one day when there is a large disaster and young people are drowned. Perhaps one day it will return to a series of boat races rather than a floating drunk-fest. Its no safer ashore. The small road to Rockville is a death trap on that weekend.
Like so many things that once, when life was simpler, the Regatta was great fun. Now its an excuse for bad behavior, dangerous behavior, drunken behavior buy hoards of people who wouldn't know a Sea Island Scow from the Queen Mary.
I won't take my boat near the place.