2020 BOATBUSTERS A SUCCESS!
Saturday morning on Halloween started with the Boatbusters Boat Parade, led by Le Peniche – with Captain Jim Chambers at the helm. Le Peniche led the 9-boat parade along the Morris Canal from the fuel dock west and then back east towards green buoy 1 at the entrance to the Morris Canal. The parade participants stepped up for the game with decorating their boats, having Halloween theme accessories and costumes. A few kids were sited on board the different boats, and in spite of the cold temperatures, everybody seemed delighted and amused. After the boat parade, 7 of the boats prepared for the race start.
Race Committee boat – which was donated by Pat Kenny, set anchor between Liberty State Park and the green buoy 1. Race Committee President – David Spence announced the race course to be: Start >> G35 Buoy >> G1 North of Governors Island >> Finish. Apparently most boats didn’t hear the course announcement, so boats were late to cross the start line. But hey – it’s Halloween and these were the Boatbusters – so give them some slack! Assisting on Race Committee boat were Tucker – David’s 12yo son – who was in charge of raising the race flags and Nitzan Levy – who was in charge of photography.
With light winds coming from the north and the end of slack, it took the boats a while to get to the first rounding mark. Once rounding the mark, the light wind shifted to the south and the ebb current kicked in, which made 3 boats (Dulcinea, Mary Ann 2 and New City Kids) to resign from the race. The course was slightly shortened for the rest of the fleet and Feng Shui was the first to cross the finish line, followed by Koinonia and Synergy – neck to neck, and Liberty a bit after words. The final race results with corrected times can be found in the table below.
| Yacht | PHRF | Start time | Finish time | Elapsed Time | TCF | Corrected Time | Place | |
| Synergy | 93 | 10:50:31 | 12:49:18 | 1:58 | 1.011 | 2:00:05 | 3 | |
| Liberty | 213 | 10:50:31 | 13:15:30 | 2:24 | 0.852 | 2:03:31 | 4 | |
| Mary Ann 2 | 120 | 10:50:31 | 18:00:00 | 7:09 | 0.970 | 6:56:40 | DNF | |
| Feng Shui | 90 | 10:50:31 | 12:48:33 | 1:58 | 1.016 | 1:59:53 | 2 | |
| Dulcinea | 198 | 10:50:31 | 18:00:00 | 7:09 | 0.869 | 6:13:13 | DNF | |
| Koinonia | 133 | 10:50:31 | 12:49:19 | 1:58 | 0.952 | 1:53:04 | 1 | |
| New City Kids | 163 | 10:50:31 | 18:00:00 | 7:09 | 0.912 | 6:31:32 | DNF |
After the race, boats returned to the docks and the third part of the event started – Trick or Treat! There were 3 different teams – Team Feng Shui – that collected donations from Hudson Point Marina Tenants, Team Moochie & Jim – that collected donations from LLM docks C, D and E, Team Liberty – that collected donations from LLM docks K, L, M, N, O. LLM docks F, G, H, I and J brought their donations to the collection table in front of I dock.
Moochie led the sorting and recording mission of all the donated items with the great help of volunteers Lisa King, Peggy Dougherty, Camille Cesari and Neelum Kumar. After finishing the task, everybody helped loading Barry’s van with all the bags.
All to all, we raised over $2,000 for Sailors & Seniors Helping Jersey City Homeless through the Go-Fund-Me campaign. In addition, the Trick-or-Treat teams collected 206 clothing items and 148 food items. What an amazing turnout!
We are pleased to announce the winners of the different categories:
- Best Decorated Boat: Le Peniche – Captain Jim Chambers with the help of Moochie Corrado, Lisa King, Peggy Dougherty-Hayes and Camille Cesari
- Best Costume: Heather Peet – the Voting Pirate with a Parrot
- Boatbusters Race Winners:
- Koinonia – Ashley and Mark Thorne
- Feng Shui – Rich Christie
- Synergy – Henrik Pedersen
- The team collecting the most food items: Team Moochie & Jim – who collected a total of 42 items!
- The team collecting the most clothing items: Team Feng Shui – who collected a total of 120 items!
In addition to these prizes, Michele, Barry and Nitzan decided to give special awards to recognize the efforts of a few other volunteers who worked hard to make this event a success:
- David Spence – for organizing and governing the Boatbusters Race
- Lisa King – for helping with coordinations of the donation collection table and decoration of Le Peniche
- Peggy Dougherty-Hayes – for helping with sorting and recording donations collected and decoration of Le Peniche
Winners of prizes will be contacted individually to coordinate the delivery of the special custom made prizes, created by glass artist Stephanie Baness of Moxie Sorbet Designs
Thank you Liberty Landing Marina and Dockmaster Andrew Licata for your help and support in coordinating the event.
A couple of other special thanks to:
- Event committee members: Kim McIntyer, Beth Daugherty, Michele Wiemer, Moochie Corrado and Lisa King. You did a great job to support this event and bring as many as people on board! And thank you for being so very responsive and flexible throughout the whole time!
- The resourceful power-house Moochie Corrado – who helped passionately with many of the behind-the-scenes details of the event, to name a few: coordinating the hanging of the event signs in the gates, decorating Le Peniche – the leading parade boat, soliciting and promoting the event amongst LLM’s tenants, coordinating and organizing the donation collection table as well as sorting and recording all donations meticulously.
- Liberty Yacht Club officers, especially David Spence and Beth Daugherty – who believed and supported the idea of creating a new fun boating fundraiser in spite of this year’s challenges.
- Michele Wiemer and Barry Richards – while we all care and occasionally voice our concerns about our society and community, Michele and Barry took another step forward and started cooking and serving meals and masks to Jersey City homeless. Your initiative is inspiring and everybody was happy to contribute in any possible way.
And last but not least, a Big Thank you to Nitzan Levy for creating a such great event for the club, connecting all the dots, and making it all happen.
If you still want to donate to Sailors & Seniors Helping Jersey City Homeless – it’s not too late! Feel free to make donations through Go Fund Me: https://rb.gy/e9v5ni . If you wish to donate clothing or food items – please contact Michele at michelewiemer@gmail.com
Go to the Club’s Gallery for more Pics or Check out the attached link for more capturing beautiful moments from the day: https://photos.app.goo.gl/nJaLBaGGJDeKBiGZ8
Photo credits: Barry Richards, Peggy Dougherty-Hayes, Jolanda Blum, Andy Licata and Nitzan Levy
Looking forward to Boatbusters 2021!
