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Sailors' maneuvers produce a lazy circle
By ANGEL BEDINGHAUS ZENT GULFPORT -- This was no ordinary parking job. Corinne O'Donnell was responsible for helping captains guide their sailboats, valued from $5,000 to $200,000, into a tidy circle in Boca Ciega Bay. One by one. Stern to stern. Bow to bow. "Ease the bowline, snug the stern line," O'Donnell directed the Mach 1, Two, a 34-footer, as it glided in beside the 28-foot OK 3. O'Donnell brought in about half of the 43 boats that formed Sunday's floating circle in the Boca Ciega Yacht Club Annual Labor Day Sunflower Raft-up. "She's going to need help on that stern line," someone shouts. "I've got it," says the Catalina's Ursula Raia. "Okay, we're good," said O'Donnell. "Welcome to the Raft-up." Raia's husband, Phil, a former military pilot, said rafting up to another boat is kind of like flying. "You want to grease it in, but sometimes you plow it in." For many years, the Boca Ciega club has had a Labor Day event out in the bay, back before the shifting sands eroded away Beer Can Island. The first official Raft-up, when boats tie up to designated anchored boats and form a shape, was in 1989. Tony Angel, coordinator of this year's event, said the club has experimented with different configurations -- one time, a wedding bell when two couples married during the weekend -- but the circle seems to work best. For years, Angel said, the Raft-up was open to all sailors. One of the largest had 180 boats and made the cover of Boat/U.S. magazine in 1996. That was too much work, Angel said, and the members scaled it back. Now, the only outsiders are members from the Windjammers of Clearwater and the Tampa Sailing Squadron in Apollo Beach. As the gap in the Raft-up circle narrowed, so did the margin for error. The stress in O'Donnell's voice increased. She still had one more boat to bring in. "Powerboat, get out of the way!" she yelled to a sightseer puttering by. Into her hand-held marine radio she told the captain of Foolish Pleasure, "You absolutely cannot go through the center of the raft." "Okay, she don't back up too good," responded Rick Price. As Price maneuvered the Morgan 32 into place, O'Donnell pelted him with directions. "Keep coming, keep coming, keep coming. Get your stern line, get your stern line. . . . Perfect," she said. O'Donnell calculated the radius of the circle based on the number and size of the boats. The night before, plastic piping was stuck into the muddy bay bottom to serve as markers for the circle. Early Sunday morning, O'Donnell and a couple of owners of larger boats set anchors in strategic places on the circle to which the other boats would tie off. But even with that planning, some factors cannot be accounted for: the weather, wind and skills of the sailors. Daughter Cheryl O'Donnell, 21, has attended numerous Raft-ups with her parents during their 14-year membership. But nowadays, few kids are present. "It's become an adult party group," O'Donnell said. It's 12:15 p.m. "The circle is complete," O'Donnell announces. Horns blasts and sailors, armed with floats and drinks, jump off the boat transoms into the bay. Music blares from speakers aboard the Big Easy, the one houseboat in the crowd, and an inflatable dinghy drifts into the center with its cargo -- a keg. Event coordinator Angel swims up to the stern of Thursday's Child. "It's the end of summer and the beginning of sailing season. Praise the Lord," he said. "What a way to celebrate it."
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