POSTPONED

Fellow Navy and Marine living historians and visitors,

In consultation with other NMLHA members, we've come to the painful conclusion that we need to postpone the National Naval Event planned for 14-16 October in Plymouth, NC.

The decision to postpone was forced upon us by a variety of circumstances, most of which can be laid at the doorstep of the summer  hurricanes. The instructors responsible for running the popular afloat classes, (i.e., boat handling, sounding lead, navigation, etc.), are active duty Coast Guardsmen. They have been on the Gulf Coast for the  past three weeks and, although they were told that their tour would last but a month, are having difficulty getting any information about when they will be returning to Virginia. Similarly, the spike in gas prices has limited our anticipated participants to only fifty people--with some of these dropping out for a variety of reasons as each day goes by. This drop in attendance also affected the Friday Symposium planned by the NC Civil War Tourism Council, where enrollment is well below their break-even point; it has been cancelled as well. Lastly, another of our instructors--and a key one--notified us on Wednesday that he had badly sprained his ankle and would not be able to attend; as he was also responsible for providing the torpedo display, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

We consider it better to disappoint people by postponing than disappointing them with a scaled-down event. Stay tuned for further updates!

Regards,
Chuck Veit
President, Navy & Marine Living  History Association
president@navyandmarine.org