The weather gods were smil­ing the week­end of May 10–13 as an enthu­si­as­tic group of Grand Banks own­ers gath­ered at beau­ti­ful Roche Harbor Marina and Resort for the 2012 PSGBOA Rendezvous. Looking ahead to a pre­dicted week of sun­shine, boats started arriv­ing as early as Wednesday and by Thursday evening the guest docks were lined with Grand Banks from all over the Northwest. By Friday after­noon we had wel­comed a total of 60 GBs, rang­ing from a 72 Aleutian to sev­eral 32 Sedans, and span­ning the his­tory of GB pro­duc­tion from a 50 year-old Chantyman, to a brand-new 46 East Bay. We were also thrilled to wel­come 8 “First-timers” to our ranks and hope that they enjoyed their expe­ri­ence and will be back next year along with every­one else. As always, it was a beau­ti­ful sight to look across the water from the lawn and see our gor­geous boats all lined up along the docks.

After an ini­tial after­noon of relax­ing and meet­ing old friends, the activ­i­ties offi­cially got off to a start on Friday morn­ing with cof­fee and Lime Kiln Café donuts and the first in our series of ter­rific sem­i­nars. Speakers edu­cated us on marine bat­ter­ies and charg­ing sys­tems, the lat­est in border-crossing reg­u­la­tions and the best tech­niques for trap­ping crabs and prawns. This year we exper­i­mented with a new venue for the talks down on the docks, tak­ing advan­tage of Roche Harbor’s addi­tional “Party Barge”. This turned out to be quite suc­cess­ful and we will quite prob­a­bly move all of the talks down to the barges next year.

Back by pop­u­lar demand and thanks to the spon­sor­ship of NW Explorations, the first of four Women-on-the-Water train­ing classes also kicked off Friday morn­ing. The 4 2-hour ses­sions for 4 women stu­dents each were filled quickly dur­ing pre-registration and proved to be a good incen­tive to reg­is­ter early. Despite the unex­pected depar­ture of our pri­mary trainer due to a fam­ily emer­gency, the classes con­tin­ued and were well-received as always. We are explor­ing ways to offer a range of train­ing boats next year to try and sat­isfy the needs of those with both sin­gle and twin-engine vessels.

Friday after­noon was ded­i­cated to the fan­tas­tic group of spon­sors whose sup­port is vital to mak­ing our annual event pos­si­ble, and the spon­sor booths gave every­one a chance to talk with these folks one-on-one. Their logos and links are posted at the bot­tom of our home page and we encour­age you to look them up and sup­port them in return when you need their prod­ucts and ser­vices. This year we kicked off the spon­sor time with a “New York Street Dog” lunch on the party barge, hosted by Garmin, and this too seemed to be a big suc­cess. The after­noon was also a time to walk the docks and visit with own­ers who opened their boats dur­ing “Open House” time, as well as a chance to browse the Grand Banks Store and check out the mer­chan­dize in per­son, and to scan the DVD Exchange which we hope to con­tinue next year.

A beau­ti­ful Friday was capped off with the now-traditional Appetizer Pot-luck and Wine Tasting, hosted once again by our good friends at Wells Fargo Insurance. In keep­ing with this year’s “Mediterranean” theme, the fea­tured wines were from Italy and every­one enjoyed sam­pling the mar­velous selec­tion cho­sen by Greg Richmond. The food was deli­cious, as usual, but was con­sumed so quickly that we have decided we need to find a way to increase the amounts next year.

Saturday morn­ing dawned even more gor­geous than the day before and once again began with cof­fee and Lime Kiln Café donuts on the dock. The morn­ing talks pre­sented by Grand Banks and Bob Smith of American Marine gave us a good dose of GB past and future, while con­cur­rent talks by two diesel mechan­ics from Bellingham made sure every­one had a chance to ask spe­cific ques­tions about their own on-board power plants. The lunch hour out­door cook­ing demon­stra­tion pre­sented by Roche Harbor Executive Chef Bill Shaw was another instant hit as he wowed us by prepar­ing tra­di­tional Spanish paella cooked over the fire pit at the “Shipwreck Beach” venue on the Resort’s shore­line. All atten­dees received a gen­er­ous sam­pling, pre­ceded by wine and Spanish bruschetta. It was delicious!

Three more sem­i­nars on Saturday after­noon were kicked off by a hilar­i­ous send-up of on-board “night­mares” pre­sented by our own team of “Carnac the Magnificent” (Jeff Bland) and his straight-man Brian Pemberton. This hour begs to be repeated next year with all-new mate­r­ial. The final two talks cov­ered the always-popular topic of marine weather as well as a quick overview on the advan­tages of using Ham radios while cruis­ing. We thank all of our speak­ers for tak­ing the time to both enter­tain and edu­cate us.

Although we had fewer chil­dren in atten­dance than in past years, those who did come were treated to an after­noon of crafts and fun lead by a “Grannie Julie” of Roche Harbor, as well as a spe­cial movie treat on Friday evening which was capped off by a birds’ eye view of the Roche Harbor Colors Ceremony. Saturday after­noon the kids were also an inte­gral part of our annual Dog Show, which fea­tured our four-legged crew in all their glory; every­one had a good time and all the dogs went home as winners.

Finally, Saturday evening brought a close to a mar­velous week­end with our annual ban­quet hosted by Grand Banks and Cummins. Chef Shaw and his crew out­did them­selves again with a fan­tas­tic “Little Italy” menu fea­tur­ing a vari­ety of Italian pasta dishes, chicken picatta and pork marsala, accom­pa­nied by san­gria and capped off with creamy tiramisu. In cel­e­bra­tion of Mother’s Day, all of the ladies were treated to long-stem roses to take home as part of the cen­ter­pieces. Unexpected dona­tions from some of our spon­sors ini­ti­ated a last-minute door prize give-away and have inspired us to look into rein­stat­ing a raf­fle of some sort next year.

At the oblig­a­tory Member’s meet­ing before dessert, we elected by a show of hands next year’s offi­cers and most impor­tantly the 2013 Rendezvous Chairs, Bill and Brenda Davis. You can find a list of the 2012–13 Board of Directors on our web­site.  We also took the oppor­tu­nity to thank out-going President Greg Richmond and gave long-deserved spe­cial recog­ni­tion to Bob Smith who helped develop the Ford Lehman engines and is a long-time friend of GB and GB owners.

Thanks to all of you who worked so hard to make this event a suc­cess and to those who joined us at Roche Harbor. It was won­der­ful to see so many old friends and to wel­come new ones. Those of you who couldn’t make it missed a great party! Keep check­ing this web­site for updates and tim­ing for the 2013 PSGBOA Rendezvous. We look for­ward to see­ing every­one next year.

 Happy cruis­ing!  Sue and Byron Richards, 2012 Rendezvous Chairs

Below is a blog post­ing from one of our 2012 Grand Banks Rendezvous atten­dees, Kim Mayer.

Roche Harbor, Roche Harbor

It had to have been a dark day in January when a “Save the Date” card arrived for the Grand Banks Rendezvous, May 10–13, at Roche Harbor Marina on San Juan Island in the Puget Sound. I’m sure I looked at the pho­to­graph like I was look­ing at another life, long ago and far away. Nevertheless I posted the card on the kitchen wall, and last week we packed up, grabbed a good friend and our dog and headed out.

First I should explain that my hus­band has had two expres­sions of mid-life cri­sis that I know of, one is a sil­ver Boxster Porsche, and the other, a 36’ Grand Banks trawler. One is speedy and the other, slow. Boating has so cap­sized our world, we are begin­ning to dream of liv­ing on the boat in all the sum­mer months of our retire­ment. Cares are left on land and water becomes an elixir. But that’s another story. The one I want to tell now is of the annual Grand Banks Rendezvous, which is fast becom­ing more fun than col­lege reunions. More fun than anything.

People from all over–Aspen, Philadelphia, and some­where in Texas, as well as some of our own neigh­bors in Seattle— keep their boats in the Puget Sound. Grand Banks own­ers tend to be for­mer sailors who have moved onto some­thing that is a lit­tle less work. This sets every­one apart from other stinkpot own­ers, or so we like to think. Grand Banks slip in and out as qui­etly as kayaks. And while many other boats are designed to be con­dos at sea, there is some­thing so out­doorsy and friendly about the Grand Banks. Like a row of front porches tied up to the dock.

That’s the nos­tal­gic qual­ity of both the boat and Roche Harbor, which has to be one of my favorite spots on planet earth. For me Roche Harbor is rem­i­nis­cent of The Bandbox, a big music hall on a small lake in my child­hood in Connecticut. For my hus­band, it’s the Catalina Casino build­ing, where he sum­mered. Everyone has some­place. It’s sunny, peo­ple look healthy, and I think it’s the light. Have I men­tioned the whole sub­cul­ture of chil­dren and dogs? Papa may be in an engine class, mama busy mas­ter­ing nav­i­ga­tion, but chil­dren are end­lessly enter­tained with a sim­ple fish­ing pole or just a bucket and a net. In all my times out there, I have yet to hear a baby cry, a child whine, or an adult have a cross word. Everyone is away from cell phones, ipads and com­put­ers, and our dogs get a taste of life off-leash.

All my bright col­ored clothes come out here, I stow them on the boat, all the reds, whites and blues–saving the khakis, blacks, browns, and grays for Seattle. But that down pour­ing of light, nos­tal­gia, and par­tic­u­lar patriotism—with a call to col­ors at every sun­set, salut­ing the British, Canadian, and American flags and proudly play­ing all anthems. Here it feels almost like inter­na­tional waters, and it’s rather fun for an old counter-culture girl like me.

You can read more of Kim’s blog at http://alittleelbowroom.wordpress.com