If you're like some of us, you've been around the marks a few times. You are no rookie. You've brought some silver or some glass or some terrycloth home from some regattas. If you've been fortunate, or sailed for a REALLY long time, you have a lot of beautiful trophies perhaps so many that you've had to negotiate with a significant other over which ones you can keep. You might even still have a few in your car right now. Your dog might eat out of a one.
After awhile in your jaded 'Ok, let's get this prize giving done so I can start driving home' attitude, you might even start taking the trophy terribly for granted. That's a shame and it is precisely that for granted at which Jason Bemis of our 2014 Lightning North American Championship Organizational Committee (he's also President of Sail Sheboygan one of our organizing authorities) has taken dead aim.
Give the North American Championship Trophies a little consideration for a moment...Women's, Masters, Juniors, Blue, Green, Yellow Fleets, 3 trophies per boat...it adds up to more than 125 trophies. The challenge is how to hit a price point that will make the trophy memorable and affordable at the same time?
If you're Jason, you dream it up, you get it designed. You digitize the design and you start getting them cut out of solid aluminum on a multi-million dollar industrial water cutter that just happens to be operating deep within your company. This reporter has been told that each trophy requires 6 minutes of machine time and then some buffing and then some cleaning and then coloring and then some engraving and then some assembly. How can what is being done in these videos be accomplished for the paltry sum Jason has in the trophy budget? Not your problem!!
Check out the first trophy being created in these two videos:
(The path of the cutting head on the digital plotter)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
(The cutting in progress)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Behold the first prototype:
From here, the trophies will be burnished before being shipped to Pioneer Metal Finishing's Portland, Oregon Anodizing and plating facility http://www.pioneermetal.com/portlandor
where they will be given color. I don't know when and where they get engraved, but you can bet they will be beautiful when they are complete.
Perhaps you should solidify your plan to attend this regatta. We're reasonably sure you'll be completely bummed out if you miss it.
Sounds like your organizing efforts are yielding shiny fruit!
ReplyDeleteThe trophies look very nice; thanks to you and to Jason Bemis!
Yes indeed Mrs. Linton, those trophies are going to be neatO.
ReplyDelete