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Oriental Boat Show 2012
Rotary Club Gets Great Weather and A Crowd of More than 1700
April 19, 2012

N
ot much wind, and that was a good thing, for the 2012 Oriental Boat Show.

Scene along one dock at the 2012 Oriental Boat Show.

Oriental’s Rotary Club says that the 4th Annual Oriental Boat Show set a record for attendance. More than 1730 paying attendees came to the show laid out in the waters and grounds of Pecan Grove Marina on Saturday and Sunday, April 14 and 15. 957 attended on Saturday alone. Hundreds more attended on Friday when the Rotary wasn’t charging admission.

Boats of many sizes and types were at the show. About half were in the water, and half, like these on trailers on land. A Key West gets a look-over from a boat show attendee.

As much as sailors might appreciate a steady wind, boat shows do not. At the Rotary’s Oriental Boat Show in 2011, strong winds — associated with tornadoes elsewhere in the state — dampened attendance and caused a number of vendors to leave early.

Not so this year.

Sam Myers officially opens the record-setting 4th Annual Oriental Boat Show on Friday, April 13, as Pete Parham, trumpet in hand, prepares to play “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Sam Myers who has organized the event for Rotary the past few years says that at this year’s show — the 4th Annual — there were 66 vendors, more than 80 boats on display – half of them in the water, as well as attendees from ten states.

“Based on the combination of number of vendors, number of boats, sales attributed and number of attendees,” says Myers, “the Oriental Boat Show has every indication of having become one of the largest and most successful in-water shows between Annapolis and Savannah.”

It wasn’t a little boat that was attracting attendees.. but the even smaller WaveFront TillerClutch holding the lines in place on the tiller. The device was tested in the waters off of Oriental — and lakes near Raleigh where WaveFront’s Pete Crawford and Katherine Smart live.

Boat brokers from Oriental and beyond showed off their vessels, and at the vendors tents, new products were touted. Among them, electronic navigation systems that relay info to iPads and the WaveFront TillerClutch, a tiller-controller that was tested in the waters off of Oriental.

Pete Waterson of Seacoast Marine Electronics shows off the new navigation equipment that can put all the information in to a nearby iPad.

There were also seminars where talks were given on first-aid, fishing regulations, efforts to make the Neuse River cleaner, and safety demonstrations on how to use a flare in an emergency.

Machine Technician Butterfield of the US Coast Guard guides Carina Doyle of Raleigh on how to use a flare in an emergency. Looking on are two of her children. It was one of several demonstrations and seminars given at the Boat Show.

According to a press release, the Boat Show may lead to some boat sales. “Many dealers and brokers reported garnering substantive leads on boat purchases. Last year’s show accounted for over $500,000 in boat sales along with $135,000 in sales of complimentary products and services. Early vendor reports indicate that 2012 might well top that sales performance.”

Sosegada, Caliber that Triton Yachts brought to the show.

Sam Myers says 2012’s vendor list and updated information about the show’s evolving sales performance can be found at “orientalboatshow.com”.

The Rotary held a Nautical Flea Market as part of the Boat Show.

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86-year-old Pete Parham of Oriental, who got his first trumpet almost 75 years ago, played the National Anthem to help open the Boat Show. The event, now in its 4th year, is organized by the Oriental Rotary.
Dave and Chuck from St. Barts were showing off Beneteaus.
Down beleau on a Beneteau.
In addition to sails, other forms of power in evidence. These solar panels and huge outboards were in side by side slips.
At the Rotary Club’s land-based galley, Bob Miller — with help from Paul Olsen and others — was flipping burgers.
John Deaton at the Deaton Yacht Service booth.

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Henry Frazer of Oriental Yacht Sales on the back porch of “Back Porch” one of the boats he was brokering at the show.
Below on “Back Porch” a sleeping area that seemed to go on forever.
A more ‘enclosed porch’ on “Back Porch”.
Stan Spitzer on board a Rhodes 22. He owns General Boats, the Edenton company that makes the boats.
Pete Crawford of WaveFront was showing off the TillerClutch which he designed and tested in the waters off of Oriental and near Raleigh. It drew a lot of interest at the show. The clutches were not only designed in NC but are made in Cary and Charlotte.
A WaveFront TillerClutch modeled at the Boat Show.
Some boating action at the show, as Alexis Edwards and Ben Bruno bring boats from Bow to Stern Sailing to the dock. One of the WaveFront TillerClutches was going to be installed on the sailboat.

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Boating to the Boat Show. Carina and Jon Doyle of Raleigh arrived with their three children via boat. They were camping in the area and looking for a bigger boat…. A while after arriving they’d take part in the Coast Guard’s safety demonstration on flare use.
Coast Guardsmen gave a demonstration on how to light a flare in an emergency — strike one end against the removable end that serves like a match book. Here, a smoke flare to use during daytime hours
At the Coast Guard’s flare demonstration, a flare for use at night. It came with a visible lesson in why you would hold a flare out over the water in an emergency: molten magnesium drops periodically from the flare during the three minutes it’s lit. It can melt through a boat’s deck, exacerbating the emergency.
Bob Webster of the local Coast Guard Auxiliary which had a fire extinguisher demonstration planned. (The Coast Guard’s own demonstration on flares did not require use of a fire extinguisher.)
Down below on “Sosegada” a Caliber brought to the show by Triton Yachts.
Capt. John Arliss of Beaufort advertised that he made boat deliveries and boat models. He might even deliver a model….

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.A sense of place on a T-shirt from Nautical Wheelers. This new design features the wide and not so wide bodies of water near Oriental.
And lest there be any doubt, you are here. (The Long and the Lats according to Seacoast Marine Electronics.)
Scene along one of the docks at the show just before it opened.
A fashion statement available for purchase: a wet suit at the Rotary’s Nautical Flea Market.
There were more boats on trailers than in previous years.
Jim Moore at the Nautical Wheelers booth.

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Carolina Shuckers was selling wrought iron, hand-crafted shucking knives.
The oyster shell art on display alongside the Carolina Shuckers’ other art – hand-wrought oyster knives.
Gene Wooster on the C-Dory line he sells.
A C-Dory.
Rusty Meador of the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. He spoke at a seminar about fishing regulations that he enforces in the area.
Billy Creech says he milled the wood for this boat years ago. He had it on view, for sale, near the Nautical Flea Market.

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Sam and Stanley. Boat show organizer Sam Myers with Stanley Feigenbaum of Beta Marine.
The Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation’s new Lower Neuse Riverkeeper Mitch Blake gave a talk about the group’s work to improve the water quality in the river.
The Oriental History Museum was selling raffle tickets for its dragon quilt. (The museum nest month will commemorate the 1862 sinking of the Oriental off of the Outer Banks — the event that gave the town its name. A 150th Anniversary Shipwreck Party is planned.)
Grosvenor Barber, dockmaster at Pecan Grove. The ‘s’ is silent (and on this day, missing from his nametag.).
Bow to Stern, one of numerous brokers at the show.
Bryce Kaye was selling marriage counseling and a sailboat cruise as one package. (He’s a psychologist and a boat captain.)

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“Nunc Pro Tunc” was on display near the Nautical Flea Market. The name, according to a dictionary search, comes from the Latin and now in Legalese means “Now For Then.”
A conversation over “Nunc Pro Tunc.”
A trawler that Deaton Yacht Sales was showing.
Above the attendees, the flags of two brokers – St. Barts and Triton Yachts – were flying.
Sonny Conover of Cape Lookout Yachts.
A FSBO at the docks..

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A cruising boat at the show.
Rotary member Al Herlands’ t-shirt advertises Rotary’s next big fundraiser, the Tarpon Tournament, which this year moves to August.

Posted Thursday April 19, 2012 by Melinda Penkava


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