Just Another Week in Paradise

A couple of weeks ago I spent a rewarding (and exhausting) five days working on my Laser skills at the Laser Training Center in Cabarete in the Dominican Republic. The week was billed as a "Pre Brisbane Master Worlds Clinic" but of the eighteen sailors on the course, only a handful of us were planning to go the Master Worlds in Australia. In fact I'm not going to the Master Worlds this year myself. (More on why not in another post perhaps.)

There were a bunch of us from southern New England most of whom who had conspired to go together, several other Masters sailors I had met before, and some whom I hadn't met before including a couple of guys from Europe and two from Japan. No doubt informed of the reputation of Cabarete for big waves and heavy winds, almost half the group had chosen to sail Radial rigs, or were switching between Radial and Full rigs depending on the conditions. A healthy sign I thought. There was only one female sailor. Why is that? Don't women sailors know that Laser Radial sailing is an Olympic sport for women and that Laser sailing is the best way to meet gazillions of tall, fit, handsome, charming men? Come on girls.

Where was I? Where am I? Oh yes. The Cabarete Pre Brisbane Laser Master Worlds Clinic Mainly For People Who Weren't Going To The Worlds.

It was a lively and convivial bunch. Our core group from New England dined together every night often with many of the other sailors too. There are a dozen or so low-priced friendly restaurants only a few minutes walk along the beach from the Laser Training Center, and many hours were also spent hanging out in the legendary EZE Bar right in front of the Laser Training Center enjoying their excellent healthy meals and healthy fruit smoothies and not so healthy extensive cocktail menu. The camaraderie of the whole group was one of the most enjoyable things about the whole vacation clinic.

The fifth and final day of the vacation clinic was a regatta (more on that in another post perhaps). The format for the first four days went roughly like this...

8-8:30 - roll out of bed in my hotel and wander down to the restaurant for a healthy meal of fruit and yoghurt etc. with other sailors and the beautiful Tillerwoman.

9:30-10:00 - stroll along the beach to the Laser Training Center and rig up a Laser.

10:30 - 12ish - listen to head coach Rulo explain the drills he planned for the day and his instruction on various aspects of Laser sailing and watch video of us not sailing Lasers properly from the day before and of good Laser sailors sailing properly. (More on what I learned about the finer points of Laser sailing in another post perhaps.)

12ish - 12:30ish - change into sailing clothes and eat healthy snacks and drink healthy sailing drinks possibly including a healthy fruit smoothie from the EZE Bar.

12:30ish - launch. Launching at Cabarete is more adventurous than at most locations because there is quite a significant shore break in which the waves could easily grab hold of a Laser and smash it into the beach or onto the sailor or both causing permanent damage to aforementioned Laser and sailor. Thankfully this never happens because of the very helpful young men from the Laser Training Center who hold the boats through the shore break until the moment when they tell you to jump on to the boat and when they throw you and the boat over the last breaking wave into the only slightly less hairy waves beyond the break.

12:30ish - 3:30ish depending on the wind conditions, and stamina or otherwise of the sailors, perform drills and drills and more drills and even more drills to refine our Laser skills while the coaches make videos of us to show all the Laser sailors later how awful our Laser sailing techniques really are. (More about the "interesting" weather conditions we experienced in another post perhaps.)

3:30ish - return to beach where the helpful young men helped us to navigate the shore break again without smashing up our Lasers or ourselves or both. Rinse boat. Derig. Change into something more comfortable. Consume our favorite post-sailing drinks and food possibly including a healthy fruit smoothie from the EZE Bar or more likely unhealthy beer or girlie rum drinks from the EZE Bar.

4ish until Rulo runs out of things to say or the sailors' rumbling stomachs say it's time for dinner-ish - debrief from Rulo about the drills and how terrible we all were, illustrated with many video clips proving what crappy Laser sailors we really are, thereby motivating all of us to start thinking about when we can get back to Cabarete for another vacation clinic.

(I hope you know that I'm only joking about Rulo and those videos. He really is a very supportive and helpful and positive coach - even to a crappy Laser sailor like me.)

5:30ish - return to hotel and shower and change into something even more comfortable possibly with palm trees or turtles or big fish on it.

7:00ish - stroll back to the EZE Bar and start evening festivities. And that's all I'm going to say about that. What happens in Cabarete stays in Cabarete.

On the Wall

I had an eerie experience yesterday. A crossover from all this virtual blogging nonsense into the real world that was totally unexpected and somewhat weird.

I have become used to people copying and reproducing material from my blog. There are all those annoying websites that just "scrape" content from my blog for god knows what purpose. Then there are sites like Scuttlebutt and Destination One Design that occasionally repost my nonsense. I'm always happy when they do that, not least because they always include a link back to the original blog post which generates gazillions of hits to my blog for a day or two... and maybe even one or two new regular readers.

This weekend both my sons and their families came over to our house on the Rhode Island Riviera. Son #2 is very partial to English pork pies - well, we all are to be honest. So before son #2 arrived on Saturday morning, Tillerwoman and I headed up to Hartley's in Fall River to buy some genuine English pork pies (or at least as close to genuine as you can find over here in the colonies.) Thomas Hartley opened his first shop in Fall River back in the early 1900's. His pies were a familiar comfort food to the many English who worked in the mills of Fall River back in those days, and they quickly gained popularity with other mill workers because English pork pies are the best food in the world for hungry mill workers.

When you walk into Hartley's it's easy to believe that the shop hasn't changed much since the early 1900's. It's a pie shop, for Pete's sake. It's not a fashionable cyber cafe. We are not in Starbucks any more, Toto. As Tillerwoman ordered the pies I casually perused the various magazine clippings and newspaper stories that were on the walls (all singing the praises of Hartley's Pork Pies, of course.)

I looked at a long piece of text in the middle of one frame on the wall. I blinked. Wait! I've seen that before. Hold on! I've not only seen it before; I wrote it.

I looked up and down the text. It was a list of 50 items. I remembered it then. It was the complete text of my 2009 blog post 50 Great Things To Do In And Around Tiverton Rhode Island. And #41 on the list was Go to Hartley's Original Pork Pies in Fall River to buy the best English-style pork pies in America. And someone had highlighted that item.

I had written the post in response to a challenge from Carol Anne of Five O'Clock Somewhere to write a post to persuade a sailing buddy to bring his non-sailing wife along when visiting our area to sail. She wanted us to write about activities in our area, especially ones that might not be on the radar of the average tourist.

For some reason, the fact that an old-fashioned pie shop in Fall River had stuck on their wall one of my blog posts just seemed totally bizarre to me. There was an old guy (presumably the owner of the shop) chatting up Tillerwoman and doing the familiar, "Are you from Britain. So am I. Which part are you from?" patter. I went over to him excitedly and burbled something about, "Do you know who wrote that? It was ME!!!" He didn't seem at all interested and just changed the subject to the story of how Manchester United visited New England in 1955 and he and a bunch of buddies put together a New England team to play them and how they lost 11-0. I told him I thought United probably went easy on him. I showed my superficial knowledge of (real) football by muttering the hallowed words "Matt Busby." Then the pies arrived and we paid for them and left.

How strange is that, possum?

Pas de Pain aujourd'hui

Regular readers of this blog will know that Pain and Rum are two recurring themes.

I have always felt that Laser sailing and Pain and Rum go together like... well like fish and chips and mushy peas or.... trucks and beer and Jesus in country songs... or ... those three little dots in a row that are littered at random all over this post.

Brad Funk told me years ago that if it's not hurting you're not hiking hard enough. And I warped my sons' minds at an impressionable age by telling them that Laser sailing is mainly about pain. After a few hours of hard Laser sailing at a regatta or a clinic (like the one in Cabarete last week) I am usually aching in my back, my arms, my shoulders... well, pretty much all over.

If you happen to be sailing in the Caribbean then the best medication for Laser sailing pain is, of course... rum. The last time I was at a clinic and a regatta in Cabarete under the tutelage of Head Torture Master Rulo I was self-medicating with rum every evening.

But something changed. Last week there was no pain... and consequently no need for rum. (Although I do confess to consuming some of those girlie mixed rum drinks at the EZE Bar, purely to be sociable of course.)

What was different? Could it be that I am physically fitter than I used to be? I have been working out with weights a couple of days a week in my basement for the last few months. Trying to get some minimum level of muscle tone in my back, my arms, my shoulders... all those bits that usually hurt after Laser sailing. I have been steadily progressing to heavier and heavier weights but it hasn't been particularly intense... could it have actually worked?

6 Reasons I Need This Gadget

As I was closing out my account at the shop at the Laser Training Center in Cabarete on Saturday, feeling mentally and physically exhausted after four days of Laser training and a one day regatta, my head still spinning with all the tips on the finer points of Laser sailing I had picked up over the week from head coach Rulo and assistant coach Colin, I noticed that one of the European sailors who had been on the clinic, actually one of the best sailors there last week, was buying one of those nifty Sail Pro onboard video cameras and a carbon rod for stern mounting it on his Laser. Hmmm. So that's what the good guys are buying these days to get even more gooder, I thought.

I didn't buy one for myself. I thought it might be ridiculously expensive. I thought it was probably only worthwhile for the really good guys looking to be even more gooderer. But since returning home I'm not so sure. I've been doing a bit of research online and am beginning to think I should treat myself to this camera. Here are Six Reasons Why Tillerman Needs a Sail Pro Video Camera.

1. I do a lot of training by myself. With this camera I could record my own clumsy attempts at Laser boat-handling and compare it with video of how the experts do the same maneuvers from the Advanced Laser Boat Handling DVD made by my friends in Cabarete, spot the differences, and then work on them.

2. I learned last week that sometimes a video is the only way to convince yourself that you are making mistakes in your boat handling. I thought I was doing some things right, only to be quickly disabused of that notion when Rulo showed me (and all the other students on the clinic) video of exactly what I was doing wrong.

3. According to the Laser Training Center website, this onboard camera package was actually developed by Rulo after he became frustrated with the performance of 26 other different cameras. It certainly sounds as if he has come across most of the potential issues with such cameras and found solutions for them.

4. There is a stern mount that is custom designed to fit the Laser.

5. The examples in the videos (like the one below) certainly suggest that it gives an excellent view of all the actions of the Laser sailor, better than you would even see from a video taken from a coach boat.



6. I could always post a bit of video of my own sailing on the blog one day if I can't think of anything else to write about.

The price is $380. About two thirds of the price of a new class-legal Laser sail. Or, I am somewhat ashamed to admit, only about twice my total tab at the EZE Bar in Cabarete last week.

But is there anything else that I can buy that will cost less than $400 which would help me to improve my Laser sailing as much or more than this camera would?

World Youth Sailing Trust

Thanks to the Twitter machine I was made aware yesterday of some good news in the War on Mommy Boats. Well sort of...

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been ranting for years about the evils of coaching during regattas. At the levels at which I race Lasers (local and district open regattas, and master regattas up to and including world championships) I would like to see those pesky coach boats (aka mommy boats) totally banned. They get in the way. They contribute to the wussification (or pussification if you prefer) of our sport. And worst of all they give an unfair advantage to the sailors that have them.

But I am realistic to know that in youth sailing and at the highest level regattas (open Worlds, Olympics, ISAF level 1 events) they are here to stay. The majority of the competitors have their mommy boats. However, it's still unfair to those that don't have them.

But what if there's another solution than banning mommy boats from regattas? How about if we stop the class warfare and envy of the rich and provide mommy boats to everyone? (Or is that socialism?)

Thanks to Dan Jasper of SailCoachUK for bringing to my attention the work of the Word Youth Sailing Trust...

Just for a moment imagine you are a 17 year old again. You have arrived in a new country for the first time to race at the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship.

You have no coach to help you and only a practice day before your first race.

A new country, a new boat, your first time at a major international regatta and you come face to face with your competition - some of the best young sailors in the world with the best kit, supported by a team of coaches.

Exciting? Yes, but also more than a little bit intimidating. How do you go about competing under such circumstances?

The Trust supports young sailors from emerging sailing nations at the ISAF Youth World Championship by funding coaches to help them compete on a more level playing field with those sailors from the better-funded countries. As well as helping with racing skills, the coaches play a vital role in supporting the sailors in all on and off water aspects of the Event and deliver daily briefings and de-briefings to all competitors. It is the Trust's aim to ensure the young sailors return to their home waters enriched by their experience, with new friends and an enhanced love for the sport of sailing.

Hmmm. This seems like a pretty good idea to help these kids and make the game fairer. But I'd still like to see those damn mommy boats banned at the kind of regattas I sail in.

Related Posts
Mommy Boats
Ban Mommy Boats NOW
The Other Side of the Argument
Bad Mommies
One Hundred Mommy Boats
Mommies Gone Wild
A Wise Man Once Said
Fairness
Sailing and Baseball

Are Laser Sailors Crazy?

I might be crazier than I had imagined.

Last week I was at the Laser Training Center in Cabarete in the Dominican Republic attending a 4-day Laser racing clinic followed by a 1-day regatta. There were about 18 sailors on the clinic, mainly from the USA but also from Europe and Japan, including a bunch of us from southern New England who already knew each other. We sailed every day in all sorts of winds and wave conditions. We listened to instruction on the finer points of Laser sailing from head coach Rulo. We watched videos of us Laser sailing and videos of good sailors Laser sailing. We discussed sailing over breakfast. We discussed sailing over dinner. Speaking purely for myself I also dreamed about sailing. I didn't wear socks or long pants all week.

The picture above is of me, surfing down a wave, crossing the finish line of the final race on Saturday. I do recall that I was whooping, "Woo hoo!" in celebration of completing a fantastic week of sailing in warm weather and warm water. In January! Woo hoo!

In the few hours of free time last week when I was not sailing or learning about sailing or talking about sailing or dreaming about sailing, I read a book. The book was not about sailing; it was about madness.

The book was The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson. Among other things the book explores the theory that many important CEOs and politicians are actually psychopaths.

The book also takes aim at the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association which attempts to list every known mental disorder. The first edition of DSM was only 65 pages long, but the latest edition is 943 pages long and lists 374 different mental disorders. Of course the drug companies love this. The more disorders there are, the more opportunity there is to market drugs to "treat" all these disorders. But it is certainly questionable whether the DSM now labels as mental disorders many ordinary behaviors which are perhaps only slightly unusual or a little difficult for others to deal with.

In The Psychopath Test Ronson describes how he got hold of a copy of DSM and was quickly able to diagnose himself with 12 different mental disorders. There was Arithmetic Learning Disorder (sums are hard for him) and Parent-Child Relational Problem (tense homework situation with his mother brought on by sums being hard) and Caffeine Induced Disorder (feeling jittery after drinking coffee) and so on and so on. Ronson concluded that he was much crazier than he had previously imagined.

I haven't seen the DSM but I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is a mental disorder called Irrational Exuberant Vocalization Disorder (IEVD). This is characterized by spontaneous utterances of incoherent and meaningless whoops and squeals, sometimes accompanied by tics such as pumping one fist in the air. If there was a video, and not a still shot, of me crossing the finish line in that race on Saturday you would clearly see and hear that I am suffering from IEVD. I might be crazy after all.

On the plane ride back from the Dominican Republic on Sunday afternoon I began to realize that IEVD might be much more common than I had imagined. From time to time the quiet atmosphere of the darkened airplane cabin would be punctuated with infantile squeals of glee emanating from otherwise apparently normal American male adults. It seemed like half the men on the plane had IEVD. I saw a man across the aisle in front of me pumping both fists in the air and heard him emit a few screams of "woo hoo" after which he was blathering "yes yes yes" and drooling a little.

What on earth was going on? I got up to walk to the bathroom at the back of the plane and on my return I noticed that most of the seat-back TV screens were tuned to some channel which was showing that weird American game where men in tight pants bend over with their bums in their air and then run into each other and fall over when the pretty white boy throws a pointy object away. It seemed that all the IEVD sufferers were watching this channel. How odd!

Anyway, I need to get hold of a copy of DSM to see if I am really crazy. Perhaps all Laser sailors are crazy?

Dancing Girls

Who says you can't have dancing girls at a boat show? They did at the London Boat Show in 2010.

Go for it New England.

Boat Shows

What do boaters do in the winter when it's too cold actually to go boating? (Not counting those crazy frostbite sailors of course.)

Well, it's kind of a tradition in these chilly northern climes to check out a boat show or two. Kick the tires (metaphorically speaking) on all those expensive yachts that you will never be able to afford to buy. Talk to the sales people and do some comparison shopping on the boats that you might actually be able to afford to buy. Visit the stands of all the other vendors for everything boaty under the sun - from resorts to refrigerators, trailers to telephones, binoculars to bilge pumps. I usually leave a boat show having bought huge bags full of nautical swag of various sorts.

Of course not all boat shows are equal. When I used to live in the UK I was spoiled. The London Boat Show is amazing and the Dinghy Show at Alexandra Palace was even more my cup of tea (as we say in England.) When I first came to the US I was somewhat disappointed to discover that some apparently important boat shows have nothing but powerboats. Yes, it is true that if you Google "best powerboat blog on the planet" you will arrive at Proper Course. But I'm not actually a powerboat guy; I'm a sailor. If I'm going to go to a boat show, I want to see sailboats and sailboat stuff.

But some boat shows in the US don't have any sailboats at all. (Or hardly any.) Can you believe it possum? I was most disappointed in that regard when, on our first week in the US in 1989, we went to the New York Boat Show. And there is another boat show, not a million miles from where I live now, that it is mocked every year by a group of guys from Sailing Anarchy who meet up for a few beers first and then proceed to have their photo taken in front of what they consider to be the most hideous powerboat in the show.

But I digress. There is a boat show in New England next month that definitely looks like it's worth a visit. It is called, strangely enough, the New England Boat Show. It's at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center from February 11-19.  And right at the top of the Features page on their website there is an article about something called SailFest. And it says...

Featuring the latest in Sailboats for your racing and cruising pleasure. See, board and explore sailboats from 8’ to 42’ from more than twenty manufacturers. Shop more than 100 booths of sailing related products and services including sailmakers, canvas, sailboat hardware, cordage, marine electronics, rigging equipment and services, time share companies offering large sailboats for fractional ownership, sailing schools, foul weather gear, sailing gear, clothing.

(OK. I admit it. I bolded all those references to sails and sailing and sailboats. I was just so excited to see them.)

Wait. Boston Convention Center? One of my three readers works just across the road from there. Let's do lunch. Have your people tweet my people.

Wait. Where was I? Oh yes, New England Boat Show.

Another pet peeve of mine about boat shows is that some of them are just rows and rows of vendor booths pushing their products or services. When I go to a boat show I want to be entertained and educated too. I want stuff going on that is not all about trying to make me buy a bilge pump or a seat cushion (neither of which would be of much use to me on a Laser anyway.) I want seminars. I want interactive exhibits. I want to meet famous sailors. I want scuba diving lessons. I want Jimmy Buffett. I want dancing girls... No wait. I'm getting a bit carried away here. But you get the idea.

And it does look as if the organizers of the New England Boat Show have made the effort to offer many of my "wants" (but perhaps no dancing girls this year?) There's a chance to meet Abby Sunderland, the youngest solo sailor ever to circumnavigate the globe. There is radio-controlled sailboat racing. There are seminars on all sorts of yachtie topics from How to use your boat's radio to Lines and knots, from How to love the fog to Ethanol. Mmmm. I love ethanol.

And there is a Power Boat Docking Challenge. Hmmm. After that little incident with the fuel dock in Stamford on my Bareboat Cruising Preparation course I think I'll keep clear of any docking challenges that might be watched by persons of a nervous disposition. I didn't really totally demolish the fuel dock... honestly. Well, it didn't actually explode... much.

Where was I? Oh yes. The New England Boat Show.

Oh look. There's even a booth devoted to Old Charts of New England where you can learn about "the history behind the surveying of the U.S. coast, how chart making got its start in the United States and the importance nautical charts played in the growth of our nation." I'll definitely have to check that out. I have one of those old coastal survey charts on my wall, a much appreciated present from my son when we moved into this house. I would love to learn more about how it fits into the history of chart making in this region.

OK. That's it. I'm definitely going to go to the New England Boat Show. Any readers or other bloggers from New England want to join me?

Sock it to me, PUMA

Steam and Spray

Steam and Spray - a great article by Ned Hepburn (one of the Puma Ten) on The Classical. He does a terrific job of capturing the excitement of racing in Abu Dhabi on Mar Mostro in the pro-am race.

Here is one extract to give you the flavor...

Ken Read asks you to grab the steering wheel for a while and you feel how surprisingly mallable the thing is; it's not unlike steering a Cadillac. It's a giant fucking thing; wide as a card table and as tempermental as one too... you can barely keep the thing from going haywire. "Hands at 10 and 2!" you hear in your head, some distant driving instructor from a decade ago tells you. You pull hard to the right. The boat makes the sound a camel might while achieving sexual climax except LOUD and INCREDIBLY FUCKING CLOSE to you – everyone lurches in the opposite direction as the team swerves to avoid the fucking French boat; those Gallic bastards not knowing the havoc they caused on the American boat.

Check out Steam and Spray for the full article.