Saturday, June 08, 2013

Where am I?



This week's picture quiz is a little different because there are two answers to the question, "Where am I?"

The first answer requires you to work out where I am in this picture. There are clues littered all over this blog so that should be easy.

The second part is to tell me where and when this picture was taken.

That's a bit harder. Obviously I didn't take the picture myself (because I'm in it.) And I don't actually know where and when it was taken. But I suspect there are enough visual clues for one of my clever readers to be able to find the answer.

The picture is being used as a header photo by Regatta Networks the online regatta management tool provided by US Sailing. For example, check out the Regatta Networks home page for the 2013 Laser Atlantic Coast Championship being sailed this weekend at Little Egg Harbor YC, New Jersey and you will see a version of this photo.

So where am ?

Good luck!



Clue #1 - posted Saturday 4:08pm - I did write about this regatta on my blog.

Clue #2 - posted Saturday 5:43pm - Dennis Conner's bowman.

Clue #3 - posted Sunday 6:40am - The photo was taken at a multi-day regatta but you can see which exact day it was.

Clue #4 - posted Sunday 7:00am - There is one sailor, whose sail you can see in the photo, with whom I have only raced a regatta once (as best as I can remember.)

Clue #5 - posted Sunday 10:44am - The photo I have used in this post is not identical to the one being displayed on the Regatta Networks site. No, really, this is a major clue. If you can work out why this is you will be well on the way to solving the puzzle.

 

33 comments:

Tillerman said...

For what it's worth, I think I do know the answer to my own question now. (The second one.)

Baydog said...

Your boat is 157812, that's easy.

Tillerman said...

Correct. I think it's sort of cool that you can only just see a small part of my sail but you can make out the whole number. And I'm right in the middle of the picture. And the middle of the fleet - story of my life.

The other sail numbers might be a good way to answer the second question. Or there could be other ways perhaps?

Baydog said...

This spring at the Pete Milnes regatta

Baydog said...

Hey, why aren't you down bay?

Tillerman said...

At Little Egg Harbor for the ACCs?

Three reasons I suppose...

1. There is so much good sailing around southern New England that I am less inclined these days to travel even a few hours to a regatta.

2. The CT tiller extensions are visiting this weekend.

3. Mommy Boats.

Tillerman said...

It was not the Peter Milnes regatta this spring. Not least because I wasn't at that. That was the day I did the Newport 10 mile run.

Tillerman said...

Why did you think it was the Peter Milnes?

Baydog said...

W.A.G.

Tillerman said...

If you are making WAGs I had better start giving some clues. First clue now posted in the body of the post above.

Where is everybody else? This quiz is perfect for the Google-meisters.

Baydog said...

May 18-19 in Wickford, RI. Otherwise there are 136 other posts I need to scour.

Everybody else is off and sailing or something. I'm at work waiting for the dinner rush.

Baydog said...

BTW: You're in a bunch of photos on that regatta's site. A couple of them are definitely worth getting from the photographer!

http://wickford.sailspace.net/

Tillerman said...

No. Check out the sail numbers against the results. You won't find many of those numbers in the results.

Was this another WAG or was there some reason for this suggestion?

Baydog said...

I recognized 188854 and just went with it. Where is everybody else?

Tillerman said...

Good thinking. You are on the right track by working out what sailors (or more precisely what sail numbers) sailed in various regattas.

And where is everybody else? If you look at the results for the 2013 Wickford Regatta you will see that some of those sail numbers weren't there. 189811 was registered but didn't sail for example. You could have worked that out from a very recent post on this blog.

I am 99% certain that the sail numbers you see in the photo can narrow the answer down to one regatta, and only one regatta, where all these sailors competed together.

Tillerman said...

I have posted another (enormously helpful) clue.

my2fish said...

These “What is it?” quizzes are incredibly annoying and time-wasting.

my2fish said...

Fat Boys 2012?

Tillerman said...

They are, aren't they?

Tillerman said...

That's not a bad guess.

I was there. Scott Vogel was there. Peter Seidenberg was there. David Frazier was there.

But was 297 there? Was 157957 there? I don't think so.

gomer said...

2012 Maters New England Championships - third beach

Tillerman said...

I have a suspicion that you are just going back through the regatta reports on my blog and guessing each one in turn. That will of course eventually give you the right answer.

But you could at least make an attempt to find the results of the regattas you are guessing and see if all those sail numbers are present. That would be a way to eliminate any guesses that are clearly wrong.

You might even try to identify who the owners of those sail numbers are and that might also help you to avoid some wrong answers too. For example one of the sailors whose number you can see isn't even a Master. So no, it wasn't the 2102 New England Masters.

Tillerman said...

Posted another clue.

By the way, I don't think the full results of this regatta are online so the puzzle can't be solved by simply typing all the sail numbers into Google. But there is a regatta report online which can help a lot.

Tillerman said...

Posted another clue.

Tillerman said...

Posted another clue.

Anonymous said...

Wickford Regatta 2010

redstar

Tillerman said...

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Redstar got it.

I was beginning to think that this quiz was too hard and nobody would get it. I hope redstar will explain how he worked it out.

Anonymous said...

I followed the same process as some of your other readers, just with an extra dash of obsession. I have plenty of that - don't all Laser sailors? I just looked back through your regatta tagged posts and hit the google looking for the non-Masters regattas with the right combination of sailors.

I guessed that it was a while ago for two reasons - there are no recent sail numbers visible, and the guy that won the regatta this year (188854) is getting hammered off the line in your pic. Guys who win tough regattas don't start like that. It seems like he's a young guy and they do improve quickly as he obviously has, but this photo was evidently early on his learning curve.

It didn't take very long at all to find that regatta but it took a little longer to confirm that it was correct seeing as the only regatta report online didn't list sail numbers and the link to the results was broken. It did seem to match all of your clues though, except for the last one. I'm still not sure what that's about. I eventually turned to the wayback machine and found this:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100813142923/http://d7.laserforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/wickford-results.pdf

redstar

Tillerman said...

Well done redstar. It needs more than a "dash of obsession" to solve a puzzle like this.

Some of the sailors in the picture 189811, 297 and 161100 are regular sailors at New England regattas. It sometimes seems they are at every regatta I sail. So they are not much help. I always felt that the other three sail numbers you can see would be more helpful.

I've only sailed a few regattas where Scott Vogel 175753 also sailed. So focusing on him would help a lot. That's why I pointed people at him in clue #2.

Sail number 157957 Dave Reed might have been the biggest help. I think the Wickford Regatta 2010 is the only regatta at which we have raced together. The trouble is that it's hard to find his sail number at all on the Google as he sails so few Laser regattas. He does sail in the Newport Laser fleet regularly (he is one of the fleet captains) but those results only show the last 3 or 4 digits of the sail number.

Interesting that you focused on 188854, Ian Ikeda. He is a young guy as you say, and I think he also sails with a higher sail number, so that might confuse things a bit. I have sailed a few regattas with him but I like your logic about his learning curve being a clue to the date of the regatta. I didn't think of that at all.

The puzzle was made harder in that the report on the district blog only lists the top 10 sailors and without their sail numbers. And the link to the full reports is broken, as you say. But it does, at least, confirm Dave Reed's presence at the regatta which, as I say, was a critical clue. I also resorted to the wayback machine to try and see if I could find the actual results, but I was looking at where I thought the results might be, not where that broken link actually said they were. So kudos for being smarter than me on that one.

The last clue refers to the fact that the photo I used is a bit of a wider view of the scene than the one that Regatta Networks have, so I couldn't have copied it from there. The photo I used can be seen in the slideshow used as a header on the current Wickford Regatta site. Not sure how that could have been discovered though. And of course who could be 100% certain that Wickford YC were only using pictures of their own regattas? But if anyone did track my photo down to there it would be another piece of evidence strongly fingering the Wickford Regatta, and 2010 was the only year I have sailed it other than this year.

So huge congratulation to redstar. This was a tough one.

O Docker said...

I went down most of the paths that Redstar followed, to similar dead ends, but soon discovered there was some beer in the fridge I had completely forgotten about.

Looks like you need to watch out for that Ikeda kid, who didn't have the common courtesy to graduate high school before he started winning regattas. The nerve of these youngsters today.

Tillerman said...

That's the beauty of the Laser class - always talented young people joining the fleet and coming out to sail with us old geezers. Actually there seem to be people of all ages who I haven't seen before coming out to play with us at almost every Laser regatta I go to these days.

I was just talking to Tillerwoman this morning about this after looking at the results of a recent regatta for another dinghy class. Almost the names on those results were of people who have been sailing that boat for decades. Hardly any newcomers.

Joe said...

Tis true, Lasers do attract new sailors. The other dinghy classes are either full of greying sailors or expensive playtoys of kids with wealthy parents...think the skiffy classes.

Tillerman said...

The 4th sentence of my post at 2:05pm should have read, "Almost ALL the names..."

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