Sailing in Hamburg

submitted by Manfred Schreiber

Sailing in Seattle

submitted by Bob Reitz

Well, strictly speaking it's not Seattle; it's the city of Bellevue in the background. The boats are San Juan 24s being sailed on Lake Washington with the Cascade mountains just visible behind the city. These boats are part of a one-design fleet raced on Wednesday nights out of the Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle.

The Cat is Dead

The cat is dead.

The ISAF Council has decided that the 10 sailing events for the 2012 Olympics will not include a catamaran. I'm sure there will be a huge outcry from the catamaran sailing community.

Some dude called Nick who apparently is a big wheel in UK cat sailing said, "You can sail in the Games standing up, with a lump of metal to slow you down, in something slow or unpopular and with one, two or three men in a boat, but you can’t do what the sailing public wants, which is to sail the fastest and most exciting kind of boat with a member of the opposite sex, because it has two hulls. You can’t race in either the third most popular boat in the world (Hobie Cat) or the fastest one (Tornado), so if the Sailing Regatta is not about diversity, popularity or excitement, what does ISAF think it is about?"

I really don't care.

The cat is dead.

Fish on Fridays

Most Pointless Blog in the World

What is the most pointless blog in the world?

No, no, no. I'm not angling for you to say that Proper Course is the most pointless blog in the world. Please read on and contain your anger at me for a while.

This whole blogging thing is pretty pointless, when you think about it. Sure, sure, sure, there are some blogs about science and history and the environment and so on that are worthy and educational. Political blogs help to stir the pot of our great national debate and/or give millions of readers validation of their prejudices. Some blogs even manage to break some news or reveal stuff that the main-stream media missed. And blogs with a theme such as cake-icing, dog grooming, or even Laser sailing satisfy the multitude of minority interests with which many of us choose to occupy our time on these potentially monotonous annual elliptical rides around the sun.

But 99.99% of blogs are just daily journals written by ordinary boring people like me and are only read by the writer's relatives, three friends, and that guy in Croatia who has nothing better to do. However even those blogs have some merit. Every human life starts from a tiny seed planted by God that grows into a beautiful flower that blooms in the sunshine and provides ineffable joy to every passer-by that gazes on its beauty....

What? Where was I? Where am I? Where did that last sentence come from? Am I channelling Oprah Winfrey or St. Francis? Where is the whisky bottle?

Anyway. Forget about blogs with genuine themes that are of interest to as much as .000023% of the human population (including the guy in Croatia). Forget about ANY blogs that are daily journals of an individual's boring job or unfulfilled social life. At least it's a life. And ignore the 27 million blogs that start with a post saying, "I've decided to start a blog," and then stop.

No. To qualify as The Most Pointless Blog in the World, a blog must...

• have been running for several months at least
  
  
• have several dozen posts at least
  
  
• have a theme
  
  
• but the theme is the most useless, pointless, nit-picking, tiny, worthless, uninteresting subject you can imagine.
  

Let me put it another way. If you met a stranger at a party and you asked them what they do and they said something like, "I teach Zen," or "I play the guitar," or even "I sail a Laser," and, "by the way I write a blog about it," your reaction, even if out of politeness, might be something like, "Oh, that's interesting. How did you get started in that? Where do you do it? I have a friend who does that. Please tell me more."

To qualify as The Most Pointless Blog in the World, the theme of the blog must be something that if someone at a party said, "I do 'theme of pointless blog'," you would immediately blurt out, "Ohmigod, is that the time? I forgot I have an appointment with the dentist for a root canal. I must rush. Nice meeting you. Bye." And you would be thinking, "Geeze. Is this guy off his meds? How could he be interested in that? If he spends even ten seconds talking about that I will die of boredom."

A couple of examples to give you a flavor...

Why a Tittle? A blog devoted to examples of writing where i's are dotted when they shouldn't be. (Hmmm. Can a blog be pointless when it is dedicated to pointing out the existence of points that are pointless? Oh, never mind.)

Change is Good A blog that reports nothing more than the loose change that the author has found, mainly on the ground (posting almost daily since September 2003).

Let's just play out that party conversation test. You meet the author at a party and the conversation goes something like this...

You: Hi! I'm Joe.

Him: Hi. I'm Brian.

You: Nice to meet you, Brian. What do you do?

Brian: I pick up loose change.

You: Hmmm

Brian: On Sunday I found two cents, amazingly, given that I barely saw the light of day. The first penny was on the ground in the parking space next to mine at work. The second was on the ground inside work.

You: Really? You work Sundays? What do you do?

Brian: On Monday I found eleven cents--a dime and a penny--on the ground in the locker room at the gym.

You: Fascinating! You work out? Which gym do you use?

Brian: I didn't find anything on Tuesday. Liza found a dime at CVS, but I'm not yet certain if she's going to donate it to the quest.

You: Quest? Ummm. Ummm. Liza, is she your wife?

Brian: I didn't find anything today. Liza found a dime yesterday, at CVS, and is donating it to the quest.

You: Yes, you said. Ummm. Ummm. Oh, I think my wife needs some help over there. Will you excuse me?

You get the picture? There must be other Brians out there. Please submit your suggestions for the title of Most Pointless Blog in the World in the comments.

More City Sailing Photos

Thanks to all of you who have sent in photos for our Sailing in the City party. New today are...

Sailing in San Francisco
Sailing in Milwaukee
Sailing in London

Updated with more new photos since yesterday are...

Sailing in Boston
Sailing in New York
Sailing in Sydney with some spectacular new shots of 18ft Skiff sailing in Sydney Harbour.

And if you haven't done so already, check out...

Sailing in Cape Town
Sailing in San Diego
Sailing in Stockholm


There must be more great city sailing shots out there. Full instructions at Sailing in the City. Keep 'em coming.

Sailing in San Francisco

submitted by Edward of EVK4 SuperBlog
He says this is what the city looks like from the water most of the time

Hmmm.
Ever the joker is Edward.
But he has more...

"my crew kind-of-hiking with the SF skyline and the Bay Bridge in the background"
more photos of San Francisco from Edward

submitted by Emory Heisler
dipping rail, spray bowing to Alcatraz!

submitted by Gail Hine
The all-female team practicing for the 1997 Transpac
on Dan and Linda Newland's 'PEGASUS XIV"
- a custom 37-ft designed and built boat by Dan Newland.
Linda Newland was the skipper of the vessel for that Transpac race.

from Steve Bodner's blog

submitted by Zen

more photos at Zensekai II - By Sea
and even more at bilgewire

Sailing in Milwaukee

submitted by John Strassman

From the 2003 US Youth Champs in Milwaukee.
The photo shows eventual Doublehanded champs
Zach Brown and Melanie Roberts
in front of the Calatrava designed Art Museum.
Photo credit to Thornton, the ex-Vanguard dude.

Sailing in London

submitted by Adam Turinas
Canary Wharf

Holy Cow!

Holy cow! The response to my request for photos of Sailing in the City has been tremendous. Thanks to everyone who has responded so far. And a special thanks to Scuttlebutt for passing on my request for photos to their readers.

I'm going to publish the photos here organized in separate posts for each city. Several people have submitted multiple photos; in these cases I will post the picture from their collection that I like the best and if the others are on another blog post a link to that blog.

One thing that's already obvious. San Francisco is a superb location for sailing in front of a dramatic city skyline. Either that or there's something in the water there that motivates all the sailors to take out their cameras every time they go sailing. Several people have submitted photos of San Fran. I'll collect them all in a separate post tomorrow, along with other photos of other cities still in my inbox.

Meanwhile for your viewing pleasure, here are...

Sailing in Boston
Sailing in Cape Town
Sailing in New York
Sailing in San Diego
Sailing in Stockholm
Sailing in Sydney

Plenty of time to send me your photos of city sailing. Keep 'em coming.