DATE: Saturday, August 30, 1997             TAG: 9708290064

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 

                                            LENGTH:   89 lines

CHESAPEAKE BEACH LAMENTS THE DEMISE OF THE LOW RENTS

THE EMOTIONAL state of Chesapeake Beach - normally as carefree as a young sailor on shore leave - has lately been as flat as the tops of cars driven into the Bay by drunks on rowdy weekends.

It happens sometimes. You can see the car tracks leading to the water and the car top bobbing way out there. Just the top - looking like a metal Ping-Pong table drifting on the water.

``Four-wheel floaters,'' the Chick's Beach locals call them.

You don't see them as often at other beaches in the city. Those ``floaters'' are one reason our little neighborhood has been called ``low rent.'' That and the fact that cars the giant tow trucks winch out of the Bay on cables tend to be old models with dented fenders and toy dogs with bobbing heads planted on the dashboard.

The reason everybody in Chesapeake Beach is on a downer is that this weekend will be the last ``Low Rent Regatta.''

For 20 years, the Low Rent has been the signature event for that chunk of real estate hugging the beach between Little Creek Amphibious Base and the Lesner Bridge in Virginia Beach.

The regatta gave the neighborhood an identity and was a sort of open house with catamarans for the Hampton Roads community.

``It's very sad,'' said 79-year-old Vallie Trent, a retired schoolteacher.

``I believe I got my first whiff of marijuana in that tent where they sold T-shirts. All my family has loved it . . . uh, the regatta. My granddaughter helped with the event last year.''

Wayne Smith, the owner of Alexander's on the Bay, displays a framed collection of official regatta T-shirts on his restaurant walls. All 19 are there, colorful sailboats printed on each.

``It's awful to think there won't be another one,'' Smith said. He's thankful to have the shirt collection and the memories connected with them.

Thousands used to come to the Low Rent on Labor Day weekends. It once drew 112 catamarans, scattered over the water like a collection of colored butterflies with wings folded.

And lots of water dogs splashing in the water around the beached cats and the girls in bikinis. Plenty of beach coolers, blankets and Frisbees. And shouts of ``Let's get naked!'' and such.

Dogs were always a big part of the Low Rent. Butch Parkerson, a sailor in the regatta, had a dog named Hobie - a black Lab - on his catamaran. When the boat heeled up, the dog would scramble to the highest part of the trampoline and cling there with his paw nails, like a man hanging to the roof of a building.

There wasn't a Low Rent Regatta until a bunch of guys sat around drinking one night in a tavern. They included Beetle Bailey, Jim Milby, Jim Allman and Gee Faison. Ain't it amazing how many brilliant ideas are born in bars?

The important historical background: Some of the guys had been to a meeting of North End sailors (north end of Virginia Beach) when a sailor asked why the Chesapeake Beach cat sailors didn't enter more North End regattas.

The questioner was told that it was because not all could afford trailers for their cats. Bailey says that someone at the end of the hall shouted: ``We don't want you people from the low-rent district at our regattas anyway!''

Until the organizers decided to hold a regatta and name it the Low Rent, the regatta thing was foreign to most of us. About the closest thing we got to it was when the tide would suck some of our locals in sleeping bags from their resting place beneath the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

I remember the first regatta. Arguments broke out over what the winning sailor should get as a prize. One group argued for an engine block. But the majority argued for something handsomer.

They settled on the prize - a Cadillac. It was 10 years old with a busted muffler and a bank lien on it. And the official shirts for the original regatta were so cheap you could pull a thread on the sleeve and the entire sleeve would come off.

The guys who started the Low Rent raised thousands of dollars for charities - for rescue squads, volunteer fire departments, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Virginia Marine Science Museum.

My hat's off to them.

What killed the event? The popularity of personal watercraft, rising insurance costs and concerns over lawsuits and various regulations, they say.

The running of Sunday's race will be at about 10:15 a.m. Bailey, Allman, Milby and Faison say they have a nice T-shirt for the last regatta - a $20 commemorative job with the sails of vessels on all 19 previous shirts printed on the back. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

TING-LI WANG / The Virginian-Pilot

Among the organizers of the first Low Rent Regatta were, from left,

Gee Faison, Beetle Bailey, Jimmy Allman and Jim Milby. They are

still involved in planning this year's regatta, which will be

Sunday.

The design for this year's Low Rent Regatta at Chesapeake Beach

notes that it will be the last.

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