March 8 Club Prep Day at Tom's Garage 2025

You really realize an event you are having is going to be a success, when people start showing up a half hour early! That’s what happened at MMYC’s recent boat clinic. We decided to hold this hands-on event due to the recent surge of new members into the club. We wanted to make sure anyone who had any questions or problems with their boats, could get them resolved before the start of the season. That way, people would be racing, not fixing or dealing with issues the first race day. Who knew (maybe Dave Branning) that it was going to be such a success? It was a very satisfying time seeing around 20 people talking sailing, tinkering on boats, and socializing.  To me, that’s the core mission of any club, to deliver to its members!

We had six or so workstations set up in Tom Walsh’s garage for people to work on, examine, test their boats. Thanks again to Tom for the kind use of your heated (very important) garage. Attendees ranged from Champion Sailor Walter House, past IOM World Champion Steve Andre, to our most recent members and rookie sailors Eric Griesinger, assembling his brand-new DF 65 and Kevin Brennan working on his rebuilt ODOM. Again, that’s the purpose, to hand down the vast experience of our senior members to newer members. That gets more people on the race course and everyone benefits! In addition, a couple of attendees actually didn’t have an RC boat, and they were there to actually check out our club. I feel pretty confident they will have transmitters in their hands and big smiles on their faces in short order!

There were plenty of adult beverages and snacks for everyone. We also ordered pizza, and everyone had their fill before the end of the day. I was very happy to receive many emails thanking us for hosting this event and confirming how much useful information so many people took away with them. Again, the main purpose is to help people get better racing RC boats and to have more fun. In retrospect, I hope we didn’t do too good of a job, winning at MMYC is hard enough! I predict this year it’s going to be a really competitive year!

Thanks again to everyone who came out, helped and participated. That’s what it’s all about!

John Ebel