After three Fridays with pictures of two tennis stars and a naked swimmer, here is one of a female athlete who in my opinion outranks them all, a real Laser sailor.
Can you guess the year?
Clue: you may be able to see dinosaurs hiding behind the trees on the shore.
Bonus points if you can guess the sailor. I've already given you a clue to that.
Thanks to everyone who has participated so far in this month's group writing project Write a Review. What a creative bunch you are! The reviews already submitted cover such diverse subjects as...
A couple more entries came in yesterday...
Captain JP is on a roll. He's writing a whole series of reviews of the places he visited on his recent Aegean bareboat cruise, complete with charts off his iPhone for each port. First up is Orei, "best bit: the marble bull so if that doesn't float your boat go elsewhere."
And Adam of Messing About in Sailboats has compiled a link list to a whole bunch of book reviews he has written to help you select some Summer Reading about sailing.
So what are you waiting for? Write a Review. Do it now. Do it for fun. Do it as a service for your readers. Do it to make yourself famous. Just do it.
Aidan: What's this Grandad?
Tillerman: It's a magazine called Sailing World, Aidan.
What's it about?
Sailing... sort of.
You mean racing dinghies such as Lasers. Like you and Daddy do?
Not really Aidan. There's not much of that kind of sailing in Sailing World these days.
What do you mean Grandad?
Look at all the pictures. What do you see?
Lots of big boats.
Exactly. Sailing World seems to be mainly about big boats these days. Giant multihulls in the America's Cup, Volvo 70s, a Gunboat 66, Farr 40s. Articles about big boat stuff like electric winches, building a well-rounded sail inventory... Yawn.
Are you tired Grandad?
No Aidan. Just bored with all this big boat stuff in Sailing World. They don't seem to care about dinghy sailors any more.
What about this article by Andy Horton on How to Win the End Game?
It's OK. But a lot of his advice is only relevant for boats that take a long time to build up speed, such as the Etchells. Some of it applies to Laser sailing but not much.
How about this Dick Rose article on the Racing Rules? Don't dinghies have to follow the same rules as big boats?
Yes Aidan. But almost every article I have read about the new Rules this year can be summarized as "a lot of the words in the Rules have changed but the game hasn't."
What about this article on wind and strategy by Stuart Walker? Surely that is interesting to dinghy sailors?
Have you read it, Aidan?
Grandad, you know I'm not quite one year old yet. Even Goodnight Moon's plot is a bit too complicated for me. And Dr. Walker's article has a lot of really long words.
It sure does, Aidan. Frankly I don't understand most of it myself. Dr. Walker is a great sailor and he knows a lot about wind, but he's a terrible writer. Even your Daddy who's awfully smart and very clever with words agrees with me on that one.
But doesn't Sailing World have people who know how to write clearly? Couldn't they help poor Dr.Walker to write in a way so that ordinary sailors could understand him?
Apparently not, Aidan. Apparently not.
So why do you buy this magazine Grandad if it doesn't have much stuff about the kind of sailing you like?
Good question Aidan. I'm certainly not going to renew my subscription this year. But it used to be better. Look at all these old copies I saved from the early 90's. Full of articles about dinghy sailing technique and new small boats and what to wear for dinghy sailing and reports of dinghy regattas. It was a good magazine back then.
Thanks for explaining all that Grandad. When I'm older will you teach me how to sail a Laser?
Sure Aidan. It will be a pleasure.
Can I go and play in my pool now Grandad?
Sure Aidan. Have fun.
Thanks to O'Docker, master blog comment writer and the currently reigning Sailing Blog Reader of the Year, for submitting this review for the July group writing project...
I read a lot of sailing blogs and leave a lot of comments. Without a blog of my own, I have more time to do that than many bloggers.
Most people who read my comments naturally assume I write the first thing that pops into my head - without thinking at all. But, there's really a lot more to it than that. I'd be absolutely lost without Blog Commenting For Dummies. Between the covers of this thin volume is everything you need to write intelligent-sounding comments - even if you're a complete idiot.
I've been wanting to tell people about this book for a while, but the 'Write A Review' writing project is the perfect opportunity. I never could have become Tillerman's 'Blog Reader of the Year' without it. It's just loaded with great advice.
Take the chapter on relevance - wow what an eye-opener! For months I'd been leaving comments on people's blogs without really understanding what they were talking about. I couldn't figure out why bloggers pretty much ignored those comments.
But the book explains - and this is just brilliant - that if you try to understand the point a blogger is making and then respond to that point, the comment makes a lot more sense to everyone.
Blog Commenting For Dummies is written very clearly, in plain English, so people like me, who aren't smart enough to write our own blogs, can understand every word.
A new concept for me was irony (chapter six). Apparently, this is very popular on many blogs today. The idea is that you say something just the opposite of what you really mean, but, somehow, it comes out sounding like what you were trying to say in the first place. That's supposed to make it funny. Only the best bloggers can pull this off, and, honestly, I still don't know how they do it.
A real time saver is the included CD of pre-written comments. I don't know how many times I've used that over the past year. Just copy a comment from the CD and paste it into the comments page of your favorite blog. What could be easier? There are comments on every subject you can imagine. And they check all the grammar and spelling and sentence structure for you, so everything sounds pretty slick. I mean, who has the time to do all of that today?
I actually haven't finished the book yet. There are some chapters at the end about keeping your comments short so you don't bore people to death and about how blog readers usually read a blog for the blogger's opinions - not for the goofy thoughts of other commenters. I can't wait to get to those chapters.
Three more entries for our July group writing project, Write a Review.
Smilicus of Sailing Catch 22, my blogging friend from South Africa, has written News Review, his take on three of his favorite websites for finding news about sailing.
Steve Bodner, the top ranked US sailor on the Formula Windsurfing World Tour, asks himself the Z question in a review of the latest version of the Formula board from F2, and agonizes over whether he should use the Z in the upcoming World Championships.
Tim Coleman has submitted a second entry (hey that's OK - the more the merrier) in which he encourages you to Start racing and reviews some sources of information for that endeavor.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed reviews. If you haven't yet done so please have a shot. Closing date is next Monday July 13. Full details at Write a Review.
Jay Livingston of Laser Sailing Notes recently wrote a post titled Getting Warmed Up, which is all about the routine he follows on the water to prepare himself for the first race of a day or for some boat handling drills.
It's quite an impressive program. He begins with a whole series of roll tacks starting off with a relaxed style and then getting more physical. Then he heads downwind and executes various kinds of gybe. After some reaching practice he launches straight in to some mark rounding drills and then practices his starting skills: holding position and accelerations. He then warms up his hiking muscles with some upwind work while simultaneously working on his awareness of shifts and puffs.
After all that, he says he's ready to race.
Wow. I'm impressed. I thought he was describing the whole of a day's practice session at first, but this routine is what he does before boat-handling drills or racing. I should be more like Jay. My typical pre-race routine is to to sail out to the course, grab a drink and an energy bar, and then to relax and conserve energy before the real action begins. If there are any Mommy Boats in the start area I either scowl at their drivers, or hang out close to them so I can overhear the secret tips they are giving to their little darlings.
Jay doesn't mention anything about checking the favored end of the start line or developing a strategy for the first beat, but he seems such a well-organized guy that I'm sure that he has another whole routine for all that race prep stuff.
"Two thumbs up" for Jay's warm-up routine. (By the way I have no idea what "two thumbs up" means but I know movie reviewers write it all the time and I think it's a good thing. I hope it's not rude?)
Captain JP has an excellent review of Sailing with Navionics iPhone Charts. "There was something on the paper charts which might have been a reef or it might have been a smudge due to a retsina spill, but which was it? Out with the iPhone, couple of drags and zooms, and yup it's a smudge!"
Bonnie of frogma has a Review of a New Sailing Blog! It's always good to hear of a new sailing blog and I hadn't come across this one before. Thanks Bonnie.
There's still plenty of time for you to write a review. Full details of how to participate in this, our July group writing project, at Write a Review.
The first commenter on my recent long rambling post about kayaking latched on to my observation that a shared experience of some kind (in this case a kayaking trip) can be a superb present.
Just by chance, one of my favorite non-sailing blogs Zen Habits makes exactly the same point today in a post titled Love Live Not Stuff. As one example of several ways to replace lust for stuff with lust for life, the author Leo Babauta advises...
Give experiences as gifts, not stuff. Instead of shopping for someone come birthdays or Christmas, think of an experience you can give them instead. A date with you, doing something fun, hanging out, cooking, playing, talking, exploring. A fun time at a park or beach. Something other than everyday. An experience is much more meaningful than an object.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Do you agree? Have you any good examples of "experience gifts" that you have given or received recently?
Two thumbs up for Enterprise road warrior extraordinaire Tim Coleman - "some of us don't look that hot in rubber" - for entering our group writing project Write a Review with an hilarious discussion of the pros and cons of wearing a wetsuit in the English summer. Check out Boil-in-the-bag - the pros and cons of wetsuits in summer.
(Warning some of the images may not be suitable for persons of a nervous disposition.)
There's plenty of time for you to write a review. Check out the rules at Write a Review. If you want a good example of how to write an excellent review then read Captain JP's review of Bareboat Sailing with Sunsail in the Greek Aegean. Do it now while you are fresh with enthusiasm. Don't delay.
Jenny left a comment on my post inviting you (and her) to Write a Review. Jenny asked, "What if you know nothing about boating?"
Hmmm.
My knee-jerk reaction was to be a jerk (regular jerk as opposed to knee jerk), and ask her why she's lurking on a boating blog if she knows nothing about boating. But then my true nature took over. (That's the polite, thoughtful, kind, tactful me that I do such a good job of hiding most of the time.)
It's actually a good question. Can you write a review of a product or service in a field about which you know nothing? Well, sure you can... assuming you are interested in that subject and want to learn something about it. You just write a review from the perspective of a newcomer or a beginner in the field.
Jennifer, maybe you could take a boating lesson and write a review of the school or the instructor. Perhaps you could borrow a book about learning to sail from your local library and review that. Geeze, you could even write a review of Proper Course from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about sailing.
So, to demonstrate, I will now write a review of something about which I know nothing: kayaking. I've been following bonnie's frogma blog about kayaking for some years now, and have even promised here from time to time that I'm going to have a go at the sport. It seems that for someone who now lives by the sea, owning a kayak would be the perfect compliment to owning a Laser. Good wind days go sailing; no wind days go kayaking.
One of my sons is an excellent kayaker. He learned the sport as a teenager on some adventure trip around the islands off the coast of Maine, and has had his own sea kayak for years. So, for my birthday this year he offered to take me (along with his fiancee and his brother) on a kayaking trip. (Note to anyone who struggles to find the perfect birthday present for one of those old dudes who already owns all the toys he needs: a shared experience - as opposed to more objects to clutter his life - makes a superb present for aforementioned old dude.)
So, on Sunday morning the four of us went off to Osprey Sea Kayak Adventures in nearby Westport to rent three more kayaks and spend a few hours on the East Branch of the Wesport River.
Here is the review part. I can't rate OSKA on their courses; we didn't take one. I can't rate them on their tours; we didn't take one. But judging by their website they provide a good range of kayaking instruction, and an interesting variety of tours "from tranquil sunset sojourns to exciting open water paddles, to multi-day overseas adventures in Greece, the Bahamas, and more." I especially like the sound of their Winery Tour. (More on that later.)
However, as an outfitter who provides a safe, welcoming, kayaking experience to a complete kayaking bozo know-nothing like me, I give them 5 stars. They were friendly, efficient and informative. The formalities were quickly completed and our kayaks and associated equipment were organized. A helpful young man gave us instruction on how to set up our kayaks and demonstrated how to do a basic kayak stroke as we all tried to imitate him on land ...
"Hands further apart."
"Keep your arms more straight."
"Make a more vertical stroke."
"Use your upper body not your arms."
Geeze, this kayaking thing is more complicated than I thought...
The helpful young man held the kayaks steady as we clambered in and we were off.
We headed south on the Westport River. The first section was quite narrow and it broadened out as we headed downstream. Various obstacles presented themselves and were successfully avoided. Sunken trees. Rocks. Gusts of wind (yikes). Swans. Do swans ever attack kayakers?
Before leaving OSKA I had asked the helpful young man how far we could reasonably paddle (and return) in our allotted three hours. "You can make it to Hix Bridge and back if you paddle hard," he told me.
Hmmm. Not sure if we want to paddle hard.
After about an hour we could see the bridge. "It's further than it looks," explained my expert kayaking son. Other son and I ignored him and paddled ever onwards to the distant bridge. Fiancee (soon-to-be wife) and expert son took a break and turned back before the bridge. Non-expert son and I made the bridge. Hmmm. Interesting. Just like a bridge.
The wind had built up over the morning which made the trip back a little more challenging. It was more of a side wind than a head wind and it had the tendency to turn my kayak into the wind, which seemed strange. Non-expert son propounded various theories as to why this might be as I tried to ignore him and keep the kayak going straight. Now what did Helpful Young Man say again?
The East Branch of the Westport River really is idyllic. If I was any good at writing about nature and stuff I could tell you why. But I'm not so I can't. Just take my word for it.
We arrived back at OSKA around lunch time. Non-expert son and I both confessed to numb bums and stiff legs. This kayaking business sure stresses some different muscles than Laser sailing.
So what to do next? Did someone say there's a winery nearby? Expert son and fiancee are wine buffs so we just had to head off to a tasting at Westport Rivers Vineyard. I know nothing about wine so I can't write a review of that. But I do know what I like...
Seriously, I think I'll be going back to OSKA to see if I can learn how to do this kayaking thing properly.
See Jenny. That's how to write a review of something you know nothing about. Now it's your turn. Write a review on a subject related to boating by July 13, post it on your blog, and send me an email at tillermeister@gmail.com to let me know about it.
