ZDO Blog
Match Racers, keep your eyes on Chicago
By now, if you’ve read my blogs, you’ve discovered that I am involved with match racing (America’s Cup style sailboat racing) by being involved with an organization known affectionately as WIMRA, the Women’s International Match Racing Association.
This past weekend, we spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday and part of the day Sunday in Belmont Harbor, just off Lakeshore Drive in Chicago at the July Invitational Match Race Regatta, the second of four events put on this year by the newly-formed Chicago Match Race Center.
We were at the event to market WIMRA and shared a tent with the CMRC on the shoreline just above the seawall north of Belmont Harbor talking to spectators, joggers, dogwalkers, moms pushing strollers and sailors who came to be part of the action or to watch as their friends or relatives raced.
The Chicago Match Race Center did an amazing job under the leadership of Mary Anne Ward and Bill Hardesty, who organized the event and ran it like a well-oiled machine.
The Center’s yacht club is actually a 100-foot two-story houseboat that, as soon as the race action started, made its way out into Lake Michigan and onto the racecourse. Spectators who wished to view the races from the water were shuttled out to the houseboat every fifteen minutes or so, as needed, and got to watch in a giant screened-in deck on top of the boat. Those who watched the races from the seawall, where we were situated in our tent, got to listen to the commentary of Tucker Thompson as he described in play-by-play format the starts and finishes of each race that took place over the course of the weekend.
The competition was close to shore. And it was fierce. Ten U.S. teams and two international—one from St. Thomas, USVI and the other from New Zealand—fought to outwit, outsmart and outmaneuver their opponents in the hopes of being crowned the winner.
Not only did we get the chance to talk to dozens upon dozens about WIMRA and its role in getting women’s match racing as an event in the 2012 Olympic games, but we got to watch as people—just everyday people who may or may not have come to the seawall that weekend to watch the regatta—turned into fans of match racing.
—Bryon D. Zimmerman, CEO
29.07.2009. 10:09
a fan of ZDO on 29.08.2009. 12:02
Great comments about Liz Baylis. It's refreshing to hear about someone who is at the top of her game but is still able to appreciate good conversation at any level. It seems that "top guns" are frequently full of themselves and their expertise and aren't interested in the expertise of others. The more varied one's knowledge, the more one comes across as a "top gun."
Write a comment