Hunkered Down

We traveled up to Massachusetts on Friday for the christening of the cutest granddaughter in the world, planned for today. Guess we should have checked the weather forecast earlier. The north-eastern US is now hunkered down as the blizzard of '06 sweeps through the area. I can barely see across the road outside and the local TV station is promising 20 inches of snow before it's all over. The christening has been postponed until next Sunday.

Meanwhile sailors in warmer climes are torturing us with news of their sailing adventures. Carol Anne at Five O'Clock Somewhere in New Mexico is doing some serious training for her Adams Cup qualification event in a few weeks; OG at Live Sail Die is doing a spot of night racing in Queensland; and the Handleys are preparing to transit the Panama Canal prior to crossing the Pacific. What am I doing here?

Well, at least I can research Laser regattas to sail in the spring. Day by day more and more regattas are being posted on the North American Laser class website. Cedar Point YC starts their frostbiting season four weeks today on March 12 and their spring regatta is on April 29. That's the easy option as I have left my Laser there this winter but I may be digging it out of the snow before I can sail. Wonder if there are any good regattas further south?

Ahah. Down in North Carolina the District 12 Championship is at the Carolina Yacht Club at Wrightsville Beach on April 22 and 23 with a clinic the day before. And then there's another two day regatta, the North Carolina State Championship at Lake Norman Yacht Club the following weekend. Maybe I could do a road trip to take in both events?

I sailed for the first time at Wrightsville Beach last April. Notable for being one of the few locations on the east coast to host dinghy sailing out on the Atlantic Ocean, as opposed to a sheltered bay or sound, it could well be a weekend of strong wind and big waves. I haven't sailed at Lake Norman before but it's always good to try new places.

Hmmm - a week of sailing and seafood, beachcombing and barbecues ... And warm(er) weather. The snow continues to fall outside. Tempting. Very tempting.

The Curmudgeon

Every sailing club has one. An old curmudgeon who complains about the way the club is being run now, how it's not the same as when he was commodore back in the 30s, writing obnoxious notes to the committee, how dare they charge such exorbitant fees for regattas, blah blah blah ...

Here's ours, sitting by his trailer after racing, filling out a request for redress for some imagined error by the race committee that screwed him over once again.

But at least he had the nouse to do it right away. Unlike Neal McDonald and his professional crew on Ericcson in the Volvo Ocean Race. They filed for redress because they claimed the race committee incorrectly recalled them for an early start in the in-port race in Melbourne. But they took 30 hours to do it and had their request thrown out by the International Jury for being too late.

Neal, if you want to hire a protest expert we would be glad to make the curmudgeon available. More than glad. Really.

Winter Project

Want a project for the remaining weeks of the northern hemisphere winter and a cool boat to sail in the spring?

Then check out Greg Wise's photos of building a plywood over styrofoam Moth.

Go for it.

A Typical Day at the Forum

You just have to chuckle at the characters who post on Sailing Anarchy's forums. The way this thread developed today is typical. (For the sake of brevity, I haven't listed all the posts).

4:26 am: The Editor posts a question about the headlines over the photos on SA's front page today Birth, School, Work, Death asking which band and song inspired those titles and offering some SA swag for the first right answer.

4:29 am: Shorthanded has the answer. Thanks to a quick Google one suspects.

4:38 am: Fluffy posts a wrong answer! You don't have too be smart (or even be able to read) to post here, it seems.

6:03 am: redlola accuses the editor of trivializing the fatal accident covered in one story by making a competition of it.

6:11 am: MetricOClock posts another wrong answer. Duh!

6:40 am: boatschit weighs in on the appropriateness of running a quiz that partly depends on a picture of an accident in which several sailors died and scores the first use of the F word in this thread.

12:35 pm: Apology from the editor saying no disrespect intended. Don't often see one of these in SA!

2:05 pm: clubsailor has a go at the editor. Another F bomb.

3:39 pm: Knothead congratulates the editor for "pissing people off again" and notes it is "good for the website business".

4:03 pm: The Pope posts, "Surprised that folks still get surprised by what goes on here. Really, check your standards at the door when you login, as this ain't no place that momma wants you to go."

Well said your holiness.

And this is one of the more restrained threads!

Update 5 hours later. I spoke too soon! The tough guys at SA have now lost all restraint and are throwing barbed posts at each other in an orgy of language escalation. "Sanctimonous pr*ck" is one of the kindest terms used. SOME PEOPLE ARE SHOUTING and others are thumping the table. STFU is being uttered more frequently as tempers rise.

Along the way someone took the obligatory swipe at competitor Scuttlebutt. And even that started a side argument about whether the swipe was accurate. It's like a bar in one of those old western movies when everyone is throwing punches and occasionally someone is thrown bodily out of the door.

A typical day at the forum indeed!

Perfect Partner

There's one of those silly "tag" games going around challenging those tagged to list 8 points that their perfect partner would have. Malaysian kayaker fh20 answered on his blog kuching kayaking with a twist I wish I had thought of first.

In any case I already have my perfect partner and it's her birthday today. She claims not to like sailing but I have several pictures to prove otherwise. There's one photo of her on my desk, tiller in hand, sun sparkling on the water behind her, with a huge smile on her face. But I have to confess all such pictures are the results of tricks I played on her.

You see my wife enjoys sitting on a sailboat if someone else does all the work. "Don't expect me to pull any of those strings!" is the usual condition she makes before she will step on to the boat. (Yes, after being around sailors and sailboats for 25 years she still says things like that.)

But if I trim the sails and steer the boat -- and make sure the boat doesn't heel more than five degrees -- she will come out for an hour or so. So the trick I play (and I can get away with it about once every five years) is to take her out for a sail in something like a Rhodes 19 on a beautiful, sunny, not too windy day and then, once out in the middle of the bay, pretend that there's some task I have to do up near the mast.

"Just hold the tiller for a second dear while I fix this." Then before she knows what has happened, I pull out my camera and take a shot of her steering the boat and laughing all over her face once she realizes she has been fooled again.

Happy birthday dear.

Moses Lovstad

In a week when Denmark is in the news for all the wrong reasons, check out the website of Danish sailor Moses Lovstad.

Starts out in Danish in 2003 with him racing his Contender, switches to English in 2004 and most recently has him sailing the RS:X, the new Olympic windsurfing equipment, as he sets his sights on Beijing in 2008. In between lots of fascinating stuff on training, keeping fit, running a marathon, racing a Dragon, trying out a Moth and even a long distance sail in a Laser. Plenty of pictures of sailing, friends, skiing, and his cute daughter Naomi.

Fascinating stuff. Much much better than ranting about cartoons of Mohammed.

Annapolis Performance Sailing

I don't normally use this blog to promote particular vendors but I do have to put in a good word for APS, Annapolis Performance Sailing. This is the first place I go to whenever I need sailing clothes, equipment, line, books etc. etc. etc. Their website is superb, their prices are good, the service is flawless -- stuff I order on the web is usually delivered to my home the next day via standard UPS Ground even though I live about 200 miles from the shop.

Check them out. You won't regret it.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Did you catch the Rolling Stones concert in Detroit on Sunday night? Great that ABC showed it on prime-time TV. (Shame that it was preceded and followed by several hours of coverage of overweight, overpaid, overexcited, overdressed men in tight pants running into each other and falling over.)

Keith Richards is five years older than me. It actually makes me feel young to think of that and then watch and listen to him and Ron Wood jamming away at the end of an old classic like Satisfaction. OK, he may look like a dead man walking but the guy still has amazing energy. Rex Hammock was dead right in his post yesterday about why old farts in their fifties like the Rolling Stones.

I have Start Me Up on my CD of "get hyped up for sailing" songs that I play in the car on the way to races. Of course that's without the censorship of the lyrics that apparently was necessary for the tender ears of all those shy, sensitive football fans in the USA.

And for the best take on the censorship issue check out the Times Online on What the Rolling Stones really meant to sing.

Succulento

I came across an Italian blog sNIPEOUT that is about sailing so, as I don't read Italian, I used good old Google Translate to check out what he (or she) is saying. A recent post liNKS (what is it with this mixing of upper and lower case characters) appears to be an article about the links from my Top 10 Sailing Blogs of 2005. (Except one is missing and one is in twice.)

Anyway, for what it's worth here is what Google made of it ..

succulento a directory of blog that they deal of sail!

it is clear: They do not only deal of sail, best ONLY SOME ONLY deal of sail, but ce they are also various that face the argument with a cut say. more heuristic?
In any case the sail guesses there always, a lot that are agonistica sail, cruise, bricolage, photography, etc, but other guesses also a lot there, therefore the heterogenous offer e quantomai, without to count that with all the connected ones link, can be gone to ravanare goodness knows where.
Those under are already active here, how much before will be available also in bottom to the right column, therefore good travel, to how many will attempt!

OK. I'm off to "ravanare goodness knows where" for a spot of "agonistica".

Word Clouds

The folks at snapshirts have a tool that lets you create a word cloud from your blog and print it in a T-shirt. A word cloud is a visual depiction of the words used in a body of text depicting more frequently used words in progressively larger fonts.

This is what my T-shirt would look like ...
And here's one for a fellow blogging sailor.
Can you spot who he is?

And this one?

How sad that the word "work" is so prominent in all three clouds!