This wine practically jumped from its bin into my shopping cart.
These days, how can you pass up a wine that calls itself Premium
California Table Wine? At $6.49 a bottle, I had to try it.
Well, it was okay. I was really trying to find a redeeming quality
about it, but it was just okay. Sure, the closer you got to the
bottom, the better it tasted. But in the long run, if a friend shows
up at your door with one or two better bottles, the Cheap Red
Wine is gonna be poured into the pot behind it to make sauce.
One of the reasons I shop with frugality is the need
to be able to swing the Yacht Club fees for the
upcoming season. According to Tillerman, "My kind
of club! Club membership at $40 a year is exactly the
kind of solution that we need to encourage more people
to get involved in sailing." I would pay forty bucks just
to say that I'm friends with these people. They enjoy the
act of simply being with other people who like sailing as
they themselves do. Everything else is gravy. I can't
frickin wait until the first race. And the party afterward.
Ah, that spurred me to think about mine...
ReplyDeleteArizona Yacht Club, $150 initiation, $125 per year, paper club that owns some race committee boats and sailing dinghies that members can "adopt"
... US Sailing, annual family dues $90 -- not so much in benefits
New Mexico Sailing Club, $45 per year dues plus relatively low-cost slip fee in coop/club-owned and operated marina that is open six months per year
Rio Grande Sailing Club, $30 annual dues (paper club)
All of the clubs are affiliated with US Sailing and their regional sailing associations and host regattas, socials, etc.
Yeah, I wish it were that easy to get into the Annapolis Yacht Club. You have to have two sponsors and then go through an application process for them to decide if they find you to be a good fit for the club.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.annapolisyc.com/Default.aspx?p=DynamicModule&pageid=256835&ssid=117445&vnf=1
Ah, the quest for the holy grape.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the search for drinkable cheap wine is one of life's most noble missions.
I've managed to get down to about $7.99, but below that I think you risk doing permanent damage to your palate.
Finding the right wine and just a few good sailing companions can do away with the need for a sailing club altogether. Think how much wine you could buy for $40.
Or, you could form your own club and make the regatta entry fee a bottle of wine.
The Cabernet Cup!
I don't want to be a "good fit" for a sailing club. I want to be a trouble maker, a stirrer, a change agent, a rabble rouser, a stone thrower... There's no fun in being a "good fit."
ReplyDeleteDear Mr. Tillerman: Thank you for showing interest in our Yacht Club. We have carefully considered your application for membership, and after much painstaking and agonizing discussion, we have determined that you would not be a "good fit" for our club. At this time in our Club's storied history, we feel that a trouble-making, stirring, stone throwing, rabble-rousing change agent like you should go find a rock to live under. Next..........
ReplyDeleteMy favorite club is Na Hoa Holomoku of Hawaii Yacht Club. $60.00 a year, $30.00 for off islanders, $60 extra a year to sail Sunfish, Walker Bays, Hobie Ones, Hobie Cats any day you want. So for $90 you can take a trip to the Big Island and sail everyday. Beats the rentals. I'm a member...it's the only club I belong to.
ReplyDeleteTillerman, you can join our Yacht Club anytime! Tall Oaks YC is one of the best deals going. After-race food-fests include clams and London broil to name a few. And Baydog has one of the best crews going for those races!
ReplyDeleteBaydog....you missed one of those hats in the photo album. A little red number with "Tim" on the back!
Thanks MilliMac. I would join you if I lived closer.
ReplyDeleteJoe's yacht club sounds like my kind of place too. If I ever take that trip to Hawaii I must look them up.
I really don't understand why so many yacht clubs actively discourage people from joining them with their stupendous "initiation fees" and ridiculous procedures to vet folk interested in joining them. What are they afraid of? Is it just a not so subtle way of saying they want to keep out people who are "not like them"? And we all know what that means in America today.
I'd be afraid to belong to any yacht club that would accept me as a member.
ReplyDelete