Boat Watching from the Highway

I'm always on the lookout for boats going down the highway.... sort of like bird watchers or those who sit by airports watching the planes landing and taking off; its a secret test to see if I can correctly ID that boat that is quickly disappearing in my rear view mirror. I was floored about two weeks ago with an extremely rare sighting. I was bombing westbound over the Rt. 50 Severn River Bridge about 4:30 pm. The eastbound lanes were slowed to a crawl as they came up on the bridge, as is typical at that time of day. And then I saw a strange boat being cartopped on what looked to be a Volvo station wagon. In that one or two seconds I had available to glance over....bingo.....paydirt! For I knew immediately that there were probably only 20 or so people in the U.S who had a chance at ID'ing this craft and I was one of them.

The sliding seat strapped next to the hull gave it away. It was an International Canoe, but not just any International Canoe, the low chine indicated the latest generation International Canoe and not the old Nethercott hull. The long mean bow with the rig set aft looked like the latest Chris Maas design, probably the fastest IC going at this time.

Well, the Maas International Canoe is known to primarily reside on the West Coast; it was indeed a rare event to see one on the East Coast. I needed a confirmation since it's been close to eighteen years since I was active in the class. I called up good friend Bill Beaver and, "Yessiree Bob", I mean Bill, who said it must have been Chris Maas driving up to Rhode Island to catch a container to Germany for this year's World Championship.

Well, this sighting of a cartopped International Canoe brought back memories of an eccentric fellow from Annapolis who cartopped an International Canoe on a rusty Karmann Ghia during the 1980's. Never too far mind you, maybe 30 miles max. Believe it or not, the IC never fell off.

All my International Canoe Posts can be seen here .