My 2013 Sailing Goals

Here is why I am NOT going to blog about my goals for 2013...

 

Downhill

I think my blog is going downhill.

R.I.P. That Guy 1948-2012

Long time readers of this blog will be familiar with a character I called That Guy. I introduced him in 2007...

There's this guy. About my age. Good Laser sailor. I've known him for years and after we moved to this area he was one of the first to welcome me to the local fleet. We've raced in a few regattas together this season. And every single time he finishes in front of me. Not by much. A place or three. A few points maybe. And it's driving me crazy. 

And he made regular appearances over the years in my accounts of Laser racing on this blog. Almost always the same story. I was forever chasing his transom around the race course and could hardly ever finish ahead of him.

I haven't mentioned him for the last couple of years as he had to give up Laser sailing because of health problems. Then earlier this month, actually while we were away on our vacation in the BVI, I received the sad news. That Guy passed away on December 9 after a long battle with cancer.

That Guy was the well-known and much-loved New England Laser sailor John Bentley. Here is his obituary.

One of his many sailing friends wrote that "John was the best thing about Laser sailing." There's a lot of truth in that. It seemed like he befriended everyone with whom he sailed and his outgoing personality and sense of humor livened up every regatta in which he sailed and every party he attended. He knew how to have fun and he helped everyone else to have fun.

He wasn't the kind of guy you expected to be winning every regatta but, all the same, he was a hell of a good sailor, full of enthusiasm, always working hard on the race course, and always sailing fair. He almost invariably finished a few places in front of me when we raced and I never really minded because he made me try harder and, in any case, he was so likable that everyone enjoyed his company.

I think the last time I talked to John was when we did race committee together one Sunday last winter for the Newport frostbite fleet. By then his illness had already forced him to give up Laser sailing, but he still showed up on a cold winter's day to do RC duty for others. That's the kind of guy he was.

Here are some pictures of John...

 How I will remember him. 

Big smile after a day of sailing.

John on the left wearing his trademark 'do-rag' 

at the Caribbean Laser Midwinters Regatta in Cabarete in 2007.

Frostbiting at the New Bedford YC in the winter of 1992/93.

Ted Scott, John Mayer, Bob Saltmarsh, Peter Seidenberg, Mark Bear, John Bentley.

The photo is from the Spring 1993 edition of The Laser Sailor.

John on the left with Mark Bear and Peter Seidenberg again

at the Laser Masters Worlds in 2009.

Thanks to Kim Ferguson for the photo.

There will never be another "That Guy."

I'm Going Out In Style

I've seen a lot of sights and traveled many miles
Shook a thousand hands and seen my share of smiles
I've caused some great concern and told one too many lies
And now I see the world through these sad, old, jaded eyes

So what if I threw a party and all my friends were there?
Acquaintances, relatives, the girls who never cared
You'll have a host of rowdy hooligans in a big line out the door
Side by side with sister barbara, chief wells and bobby orr

I'd invite the flannigans
Replace the window you smashed out
I'd apologize to sluggo for pissing on his couch
I'll see mrs. mcauliffe and so many others soon
Then I'll say I'm sorry for what I did sleepwalking in her room

So what if I threw a party and invited Mayor Menino?
He'd tell you to get a permit
Well this time tom I don't think so
It's a neighborhood reunion
But now we'd get along

Van Morrison would be there and he'd sang me one last song
With a backup band of bass players to keep us up all night
Three handsome four string troubadours and Newton's old Fat Mike
I'll be in the can having a smoke with Garv and Johnny Fitz
But there's a backup in the bathroom 'cause the badger's got the shits

You may bury me with an enemy in mount calvary
You can stack me on a pyre and soak me down with whiskey
Roast me to a blackened crisp and throw me in a pile
I could really give a shit - I'm going out in style

You can take my urn to fenway spread my ashes all about
Or you can bring me down to wolly beach and dump the sucker out
Burn me to a rotten crisp and toast me for a while
I could really give a shit - I'm going out in style

Make me up dress me up, feed me a big old shot
Of embalming fluid highballs so i don't start to rot
Now take me to Mcgreevy's, i wanna buy one final round
What cheap prick would peel an orange in his pocket
Then hurry up and suck 'em down

If there's a god the girls you loved will all come walking through the door
Maybe they'll feel bad for me and this stiff will finally score
You've got the bed already and nerve and courage too
Cause i've been slugging from a stash of desi queally's 1980s bathtub brew

You may bury me with an enemy in mount calvary
You can stack me on a pyre and soak me down with whiskey
Roast me to a blackened crisp and throw me in a pile
I could really give a shit - I'm going out in style

You can take my urn to fenway spread my ashes all about
Or you can bring me down to wolly beach and dump the sucker out
Burn me to a rotten crisp and toast me for a while
I could really give a shit - I'm going out in style

You may bury me with an enemy in mount calvary
You can stack me on a pyre and soak me down with whiskey
Roast me to a blackened crisp and throw me in a pile
I could really give a shit - I'm going out in style

You can take my urn to fenway spread my ashes all about
Or you can bring me down to wolly beach and dump the sucker out
Burn me to a rotten crisp and toast me for a while
I could really give a shit - I'm going out in style

You may bury me with an enemy in mount calvary
You can stack me on a pyre and soak me down with whiskey
Roast me to a blackened crisp and throw me in a pile
I could really give a shit - I'm going out in style

You can take my urn to fenway spread my ashes all about
Or you can bring me down to wolly beach and dump the sucker out
Burn me to a rotten crisp and toast me for a while
I could really give a shit - I'm going out in style

You may bury me with an enemy in mount calvary
You can stack me on a pyre and soak me down with whiskey
Roast me to a blackened crisp and throw me in a pile
I could really give a shit - I'm going out in style

Spread all my ashes about
Dump the sucker out
Toast me for a while
I'm going out in style

End of World Confirmed

It's official.

Mayan archaeologists have met in Guatemala and confirmed that the end date for the Mayan Prophecy is December 21, 2012.

The world will end in 13 days.

How will you spend the last 13 days ever?

Reading blogs like this one?

I hope not.

Wake up and smell the bougainvillea, people.

In any case, I'm certainly not going to spend the last 13 days ever writing more utter nonsense on this blog.

I plan on going out in style.

It's Time for a Change

It's time for a change 

I'm tired of that same old same 

The same old words, the same old lines 

The same old tricks and the same old rhymes

Web Orgy

On Wednesday evening this week I participated in a Laser racing webinar.

For those not familiar with the term "webinar', it means a web-based seminar. An interactive presentation over the web using videoconferencing.

Tillerwoman wasn't familiar with the word "webinar." One of her most endearing features (especially to someone like me who spent all of his career in technology) is that she is an old-fashioned girl and she is into all the old-fashioned pursuits like gardening and cooking and knitting. She is not into technology. She does not use a computer. She does not have a smartphone. She never (knowingly) uses the Internet.

She seemed to have a lot of trouble with the word "webinar." On Wednesday she kept referring to is as a "webology." As in, "What time is your webology? Will you want dinner before it?"

Then on the following morning as we were driving to Massachusetts to see our grandsons, she asked me out of the blue, "So how was your web orgy last night?"

Web orgy! What is she talking about? What does she think I am doing on my computer down in my basement man cave? Having orgies????

I almost drove the car into the ditch. But just in time to save us, I realized she was talking about the webinar.

Phew!

The Laser webinar was conducted by Javier Borojovich, universally known as Rulo, who is the head coach at the Laser Center at Cabarete in the Dominican Republic. I understand that Rulo will be launching a range of sailing webinars in the near future, but this week's event was a bit of a dry run with a small group of four sailors to test out the concept and fine tune it for future sessions.

The topic was "How to sail your Laser fast upwind" concentrating especially on techniques for strong winds. God knows this is an area I need to improve.

Topics covered included...
•How to improve your hiking technique

•How to steer on the waves

•Torquing and body movements

•How to trim your sail for different wind and waves conditions.
•Sailing high mode vs. Sailing on low mode

Rulo covered all these subjects in depth using bullet point slides, photographs, and a lot of video footage. Most of the videos showed top sailors demonstrating excellent technique, but there were also shots of not-top sailors demonstrating poor technique as a contrast. I kept expecting to see myself in some of the shots in the latter category.

Rulo did an excellent job of pointing out all the finer points of technique and then at the end we could submit our own questions (in a text window) for him to answer.

One of the topics was how to avoid hiking injuries, including my own bête noire, lower back pain. Rulo ran through four things to do to avoid back pain. I now understand that the reason I hurt my back in May last year (and missed out on most of the summer's planned sailing as a result) was that I had been breaking all four of Rulo's rules for avoiding lower back pain.

Hmmm. The webinar was worthwhile just for that.

If you want to know more about Rulo's future plans for webinars, check out Rulo Sailing.

I think I will go and have a web orgy now.

Helle Mardahl - The Orgy - 2009

Allegra LaViola Gallery 

Summer Salon 

 July 16 - September 7, 2009

Some Random Thoughts on Blogrolls

Most blogs have blogrolls.

A blogroll is just a list of links to other blogs that the blogger likes, almost always in the sidebar of the blog.

A blogroll is a reflection that, for most of us, blogging is not just about spewing out our thoughts and photos down a one-way pipe to all the great unwashed on the Interwebs; it is, at least in part, about connecting with other people with similar interests, being social, making online friends. It is about saying, hey I am not just a writer, I'm a reader too and here is what I like to read.

It's part of the Blogger's Code that if some other blogger includes your blog on their blogroll, you should at least consider adding that blog to your own blogroll.  Just like if someone sends you a Christmas card it is polite to reciprocate. But just like the Pirate's Code, the Blogger's Code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. So you don't have to reciprocate.

Personally I put blogs on my blogroll if I find them interesting and if I think my readers will find them interesting too. I do prune my blogroll from time to time. If someone's content is not so interesting to me any more I take their blog off my blogroll. If someone doesn't post anything for many months I drop them from my blogroll. Please don't beg to be on my blogroll, or whine if you get dropped. Some people do. For christ's sake people, get a grip. It's only a blogroll.

I use the feature in Blogger that sorts my blogroll by the date of each blog's most recent update. That way I see blogs with new posts at the top of my blogroll, and the ones that haven't had a new post for several months near the bottom. Every so often I lop blogs off the bottom of the list. Let's see who is there now. Apparent Wind and O Dock. Hmmm. It will be a shame if those blogs really are defunct and have to be pruned.

Some bloggers have cutesy names for their blogrolls. O Docker has Blogs Way Better Than This One. Baydog has My Daily Bread. I call my main blogroll Elite Media. What's in a name anyway?

Blogrolls vary in length. Some people seem to have hundreds of blogs on their blogroll. I have about forty. One blog that I really like, Improper Course, has only one.

Some blogs don't have blogrolls at all. I guess the authors have a different purpose for their blogs than most of us. Often they are blogs that are clearly designed to make money through advertising and sponsorship, or are written to promote an author's books, for example. I still think it's a bit of a shame that those folk don't at least make an effort to tell us what blogs they like to read. For some reason, a blog with no blogroll always reminds me of this...

But, hey, I'll get over it.

What do you think about blogrolls?

Incredibly Below Average Day of Sailing

"Sorry for an incredibly below average day of sailing today," wrote our race officer in a message publishing a link to the results of frostbiting on Sunday.

I know what he means. The winds were extremely light and patchy and shifty. It was a real challenge to set courses and run fair races in those conditions, but all things considered he did a damn fine job, as he always does.

But let's look on the bright side. Just as half of Americans are of below average intelligence, so are half the days of sailing in Newport, yes even Newport, below average.

And I learned a lot...

In the first race I learned that if I am on a run in incredibly light air and the wind dies altogether and my light wind cassette tape wind indicator hangs straight down, it doesn't help at all to do a couple of random gybes just to see if it makes any difference, especially if I am totally crap at doing roll gybes like the kids do that can actually accelerate the boat (leaving aside the issue that that would be totally illegal anyway.)

In that same race I also learned that if the 20 boats in front of me are going around the left hand leeward gate and I can't work out why they are all doing that, then there probably is a very good reason why they are going that way but it can't be all that significant a reason or I would have spotted it, so I might as well go round the right hand gate and sail in clear air instead of sailing in dirty air from 20 boats, and if I do so I can easily pass 10 boats on the final short beat.

In the second race I learned that in very light winds the boat does actually go faster upwind if I sit on the daggerboard in front of the mainsheet.

In that same race I also learned that if the wind goes hard left just before the start and I go off the right hand end of the line, then I may be going relatively fast doing my scrunched up yoga imitation squat on the daggerboard but that doesn't help much when there are 35 boats inside me on that shift so I was toast anyway.

In the third race I learned that if I can make a decent start and then tack away in a clear lane to a little more pressure on the right I might just get lucky and round the first mark with the leaders.

In that same race I also learned that if the final beat is longer than normal there are people in this fleet who are seriously fast and will be able to pass me, and I will end up 15th but, hey, that's not too shabby in a 45 boat fleet and it will be my best finish of the day, so look on the bright side.

And I learned that the progress I had made in the summer in learning to do not at all bad almost decent roll tacks was totally irrelevant because doing roll tacks in a T-shirt and shorts is totally different from trying to do roll tacks in a clunky big drysuit and clunky oversized hiking boots - (oversized in order to fit over my drysuit bootees and thick socks.)

So it was all (well mainly) good.

And I see my overall score for the day was 22nd out of 45 boats.

Which by my calculations is above average and incredible.

The Wisdom of Crowds?

Last week everyone was buying into the idea that Sunday was going to be an "epic" day of frostbite sailing in Newport. 

It was going to be warm, way up in the 50s!!! (That much was true.)

It was going to be blowing 12-15 knots from the S or SW.  "All" the forecasts said so. Champagne sailing conditions. Woo hoo!

When I arrived at Newport at around 11:45am there as no wind at all. Zero.

One of my friends was very confused. What's going on? All the forecasts say there should be 15 knots.

Well. Not quite all the forecasts.

As I wrote last year in All Weather is Local (I Hope), just because the overall wind forecast for Narragansett Bay is X it does NOT mean that your little corner of or sheltered harbor off Narragansett Bay will see X. And the higher the resolution of the weather model you use, then the more likely you will be reading an accurate forecast for where you actually sail.

True, most weather forecasts had been forecasting 10-15 knots from the S or SW for Narragansett Bay on Sunday. But when I checked SailFlow on Sunday morning and looked at the WRAMS 2km model (instead of the default that SailFlow uses) it did predict that there would hardly be any wind at all at Rose Island before 4pm.  Rose Island is the closest SailFlow site to our sailing area in Brenton Cove but it is outside the harbor so, if anything, I would guess it has more wind than our racing area.

Here is what was actually recorded at Rose Island.

We raced from just after 1pm to about 3:30 pm. There was no wind at all as we rigged from 12-12:30pm. We launched in a SE zephyr just before 1pm. There was a very light breeze from the SSE for our first race. Then the wind went round to the SW but shifted back to the S as we started our second race around 2pm. And then there was a reasonably steady and slightly stronger S wind for our third and final race around 3pm.   I think the winds we experienced where we were racing were actually even lighter than the winds recorded at Rose Island.

What do you think?

Is there a wind forecast that you trust?

Do you have the same suspicion as me, that for short course racing the higher resolution models are more useful?

Idiot Wind

Moon over Newport

Moon over Tiverton