“THE SHOW MUST GO ON” THE SUNNYLAND ANTIQUE BOAT FESTIVAL UP DATE—OCT 2017

Here is it, an official report on the Lake Dora show from Terry Fiest himself. And from the look of things, may be one of the more fun and interetsting shows to date.

As you all know by now, according to NOAA, Florida just endured perhaps the most devastating storm of the past 100 years. It spared very little in its path from Key West to Georgia, touching virtually the whole state, it slowly marched through our state with high winds, mini tornados, and massive flooding. Fortunately, we had ample advance warning and because of that, we suffered very few fatalities. We did, however, suffer devastating property losses and extensive damage. Many of you have seen the pictures of the Show site at Tavares and all the destruction.
We are not going to let that stop us!! Our Chapter Leadership has been working with the City of Tavares and we have devised a plan to make Lemonade out of lemons and we will have the 2018 show at the show site in Wooton Park in Tavares. This Show will be our 37th annual event and it will be the “First Annual Sunnyland Beach Party”. All the events will be the same with a Beach Theme.
We had our first planning meeting with City and the Show Committee on Oct 17th. We are looking at several options:
We are working with a Florida Dock Company that may be able to provide temporary floating docks that would replace the damaged docks. If we get these floating docks, we should be able to have an in the water show.

Launching at Mt Dora

The City of Mount Dora has offered their docks and the use of Gilbert Park; If we can’t get the Floating docks, we will offer Boaters the option of Launching at Mount Dora and shuttling back and forth to the show site. You will be able to leave your boat in the water at Mount Dora. We will have adequate locations to pull your boat up on the beach. We will have our traditional Friday Picnic at Gilbert Park in Mount Dora—this is a change from the past. We will also have the Ladies Luncheon on Saturday at the Yacht Club in Mount Dora.

The old location in Mt Dora

Our Field of Dreams with boats for sale, The Nautical Flea Market, Woody Cars, Antique OutBoard Motor Club and all our Corporate Sponsors will utilize their same locations as in the past.
There will be a new Train operating between Tavares and Mount Dora—This will be something special.
ACBS will have their Quarterly meeting at the show site and the ACBS Symposium will be an outstanding presentation this year
We have made contact with two different “Beach Bands” and this promises to be a event you won’t want to miss.
Friday Night at the Show will be the Captain’s Party with a costume beach theme and we are considering the Saturday Night Event to be a “Jimmy Buffett Theme” with Cheeseburgers and Margaritas in Paradise !!

As you can imagine, we have a huge challenge this year and we will be using our web site and other means of communications to keep everyone informed. We are not going to let anything stand in our way and we promise you a great event!!!

Dates are March 22, 23, 24, 25, 2018 and the Classic Race Boat Association event is the week prior. In Addition, we will have both the North and South River Cruises. Business as usual here in the Sunnyland Chapter.

Terry Fiest, Chairman, Sunnyland Antique Boat Festival

A note from Woody Boater, we will be there Terry.