When you speak of a sailboat, you hope to hear that she is agile, quick to the helm, and easily manoeuvred. In a word, you hope that she is ‘yar’. Yar is everything that a sailboat should be. When we think back on 2018, it was not a year that was necessarily, easy, agile, or quick, but it was everything that we had hoped it would be and more!
Looking back on it from the beginning, 2018 had big shoes to fill, but then again so did 2017, and it passed with flying colors. Follow along and discover why, and how, 2018 did not disappoint…
If we go back as far as January—we’re talking about a year, it’s as good a place to start as any—we can start with January 17th. With a simple and friendly “Thanks For Visiting!” Captain Kurt let everyone know that we would be having regular blog posts. It’s been a lot of fun keeping everyone abreast of our latest developments and the feedback has been terrific! Thank you to everyone who has been leaving feedback, and sharing our posts. We really appreciate it.
Our blog posts continued on a monthly basis outlining the history of Edgartown Harbor, the history of the catboat, and a little history of Captain Kurt himself—a little insight, maybe, into why he is so passionate about both the ocean and the catboat he sails.
Then, in June, once we got our heart rates back to normal, we wrote about our winning Best Of The Vineyard 2018! We still get goose bumps when we think about that incredible night! When they called our name as the winner, we all stared at each other in disbelief! We were up against very impressive competition! The fact that people thought highly enough of us to give us top prize was overwhelming. Truly. Thank you everyone for your continued support!
The beginning of the season also saw us partner with Backwater Trading Co. of Edgartown! Helping us to get the Catboat Charters name out, Backwater started selling our long-sleeve logo tees! It’s been a real joy for us to see our brand out and about! Toward that end, our on-line store went live this season, and it’s had a great response. All of our merchandise is available there. If you haven’t yet, take a look! We like to think there’s something for everyone.
As the summer sailed on, 2018 was quickly becoming our busiest season to-date. Somewhere along the line in August, Catboat Charters was mentioned in VOGUE Magazine! Talk about a coup! Also, with the help of Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, we raised $3,250! At the annual Possible Dreams auction, people bid on the opportunity to go sailing with us and, the esteemed Martha’s Vineyard photographer, the late Peter Simon. We think you can easily imagine just how much that sail meant to us. Thank you, Peter.
Then, in the fall, we did something unexpected. We had been talking about it since June, but it was a closely guarded secret. We doubled our fleet! The aptly named ‘Surprise’ joined our ranks. Surprise needed some TLC, but fortunately we had just the man for the job—Captain Kurt’s brother, Ryan Peterson! Ryan with the help of other family members, friends, and of course, our Captain, returned Surprise to her glory days! She’s a beautiful boat. The men were on a deadline because an idea was brewing. Her maiden voyage was going to be epic! It’s already the stuff of legend…
Catboat Surprise was to set sail for New York City! Captain Kurt and Ryan decided that it would be a wonderful tribute to our great country if we could sail Surprise—with her red, white, and blue—around The Statue Of Liberty on Veteran’s Day! It worked out even better than we had planned. The impressive seafaring skills of Ryan Peterson and the incredible professionalism of New York Media Boat added up to some of our best photographs to-date! They were well-appreciated across all of our social media channels. That really made us happy. Thank you to everyone who supported that venture. It came from the heart.
So, here we are. It’s the end of 2018. Thank you so very much for sharing it with us. How do we surpass a year like that? Well, we couldn’t be more excited about 2019! Just you wait and see… It’s going to be yar.
Keep sailing!
