Blogging the Worlds

photo © Matias Capizzano / capizzano.com

There are some bloggers sailing in the Laser World Championships in Canada this week. Amazing! Where do they find the time to train for a world championship and write a blog? Some of them even have full-time jobs too. More to the point how do they find the energy to go Laser racing all day and then write a blog post in the evening?

The sailors are currently split into three fleets for qualifying races so the top guys are not all racing against each other yet. Even so, blogger Clay Johnson of the US had a Great Start to the Laser Worlds with a second and a third in the two races, and is currently in fourth place overall.

Meanwhile blogger Brian Raney, also of the US, was Making a Splash capsizing in the second race.

Blogger Raul Aguayo of the Dominican Republic was kind enough to write the title of his post about Day 1 of the Worlds in English, And We're Off. The rest of the post is in Spanish but I think he's saying that he had a good first race, not so good second, but he's doing better overall than he did in Australia last year.

My favorite post of the day is from blogger Colin Cheng of Singapore, who already has one world championship to his credit: Colin won the 2006 Laser 4.7 Worlds in France besting 236 other competitors. His entire post is "colin goes to the laser worlds and finds himself too exhausted to finish this senten ".

Hang in there Colin. In anticipation of losing a day of racing to Hurricane Bill at the weekend the organizers are planning to add a third race to the schedule today. Good luck guys.

Lasers Lasers Everywhere

This one is for you Joe. I know how much you like Lasers.

It Could Be Worse

I'm still feeling pretty ticked off about the theft of my Laser dolly wheels at the weekend. Especially as when I went to buy new wheels from the Laser dealer in Portsmouth (right next door to the factory where they build the boats) I was told that the shop and factory were totally out of dolly wheels. Apparently they are expecting a shipment of 1500 wheels in the next few days. So, no sailing for me until then. I was so desperate I actually went for a long bike ride today instead.

But it could be worse. Our intrepid LaserPerformance duo, Brent and Josh at the Laser Worlds in Canada, the guys handing out all the charter boats, have had their 16 foot inflatable motor boat stolen!

Geeze. You can't trust anybody these days. Not even Canadians.

So if anyone is offered a snazzy inflatable boat covered in LaserPerformance logos... or for that matter three manky old dolly wheels... report the seller to your local police. Everyone else is advised to lock up your boats, your trailers, your dollies, your daughters... whatever. There are some bad people out there.

Laser Worlds Practice Day

All photos © Matias Capizzano / capizzano.com

The Laser World Championships start today in Canada. Here are some of the superb pictures from capizzano.com of the Practice Day yesterday. Many more pics here.

To the Members of ICI (Slough) Sailing Club c.1983-1985

Thank you.

Well, I could stop there but I had better explain what this message to the past in a reverse time capsule is about.

A few months ago I ran some kind of contest here (its details have already slipped from my memory) and the contest was won by Carol Anne of Five O'Clock Somewhere, the wonderfully diverse blog on which Carol Anne covers such subjects as Etchells sailing, New Mexico rural life, pole dancing, grammar, and motivational messages on the wrappers of her feminine-hygiene products. "You go girl!"

Where was I? Where am I?

Oh yes. Carol Anne won the contest and her prize was to choose a subject about which I had to write a blog post. (Note the careful placement of the preposition in that last sentence. Carol Anne teaches grammar and knows that a preposition is not a thing to end a sentence with.) Anyway, Carol Anne assigned me the subject of Who Inspired You? or something like that. It's been a while. My memory isn't what it was.

Anyway. She had probably forgotten that I had already written a post about who inspired me to take up sailing, the punningly titled Men from Mars in which I credited two former colleagues, who also happened to be Olympic sailors, with inspiring me to try out this wonderful sport of sailboat racing.

Then, a few weeks ago, I received an email from a member of what is now called Taplow Lake Sailing Club but which, when I was a member, went by the snappy title of ICI (Slough) Sailing Club. I wrote about their club, my first sailing club, in Where It All Started.

The email rather aggressively asked..

Who are you Tillerman?

I am Redacted Redacted. Do you remember me?

Or Redacted Redacted, my husband? Redacted Redacted, Redacted Redacted, Redacted Redacted, etc etc? Please reply and identify yourself. I would like to know who you are and get in contact.

I'm sure lots of other older members would like to know too. Maybe I can fill you in with whats happening at Taplow Lake.

Awaiting your reply,

Redacted et al

(These people weren't really all called Redacted Redacted. I am just respecting their privacy.)

Actually I didn't remember Redacted. Or al. It's been a while. My memory isn't what it was. But I replied to her and explained that I was the tall skinny (I really was skinny back then) guy with glasses with the orange Laser and mentioned a few names I did remember... Redacted whom I met in Minorca... and that old Redacted guy who was the secretary... and Redacted Redacted who was the club hotshot. I was looking forward to a friendly email exchange that would jog my memory about happy days at my first sailing club in the 1980's. No such luck. I heard nothing more from Ms Redacted. Or al.

Anyway (geeze this is turning into a long post) I've been racking my brains for how to give Carol Anne her prize (remember her? the one who shared the messages from her feminine-hygiene products with the world? "Reach for the finish line!") and I thought, "Ahah. I should write about the members of my first sailing club. They might not have been the ones who inspired me to take up sailing but they were certainly the ones who really showed me what a terrific sport this is and motivated me to make it the primary sport of my life."

I almost wrote a post along these lines until I looked back at Men from Mars, and saw that I had effectively already written that story in the last section of that (also way too long) post. I had totally forgotten doing this. It's been a while. My memory isn't what it was.

Anyway, now I can give Carol Anne her prize by recycling that section slightly and saying...

To the Members of ICI (Slough) Sailing Club c.1983-1985,

Thank you.

You inspired in me a life-long passion for the sport of sailing.

You passed on to me your sense of fun and enthusiasm for sailboat racing.

You taught me tactics by pulling moves on me on the racecourse and then explaining to me afterwards how I should have countered them.

You taught me respect for the rules by winning protests against me but always treating me in a friendly and sportsmanlike manner.

You encouraged me to travel and to compete with sailors from other local clubs.

You showed me that ice and snow are no reasons to stop sailing in the winter.

And every other place I have sailed since then I have found sailors just as welcoming, just as helpful... and just as competitive as you.

Thanks to all of you.

From the tall skinny (yes I was) guy with glasses and orange Laser.

Original MIT Tech Dinghies - Where Are They Now?

Thanks to Tweezerman, who writes the excellent sailing blog Earwigoagin, for bringing to our attention this old video of wooden lapstrake Tech dinghies participating in collegiate sailing at MIT around 1945. He wonders if any of these beautiful examples of wooden boat-building survived.

Great question Tweezerman. And not just because they were beautiful boats. The fleet of Tech Dinghies that you see in the video gave birth to American college sailing as it we know it today. The Tech was designed specifically for MIT by Professor George Owen, and the first boats were made for the opening of the MIT Sailing Pavilion in 1935 by the famous Herreshoff Yard in Bristol, Rhode Island. In the following years, the first ten Dinghy Championships of the newly organized Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Association (ICYRA) were sailed on the Charles River in that fleet of cat-rigged, wooden Tech Dinghies.


So what happened to them?

In 1952, MIT's Second Fleet of Tech Dinghies was built in fiberglass by Cape Cod Shipbuilding in Wareham, MA. (MIT are now on their Fifth Fleet.) I don't have a clue what MIT did with the First Fleet after taking delivery of the Second Fleet, but if modern day practice is any guide they probably sold the old boats to another college (or perhaps high school) sailing team.

Using the most sophisticated and powerful research tool known to professional historians I have discovered the following information about the whereabouts of some surviving boats from the First Fleet.

The website of the Little Boat Shop in Maine has pictures of the hulls of two of the original MIT Tech Dinghies. One is described as "on display at the Cape Cod Maritime Museum" and the other is being restored by the Little Boat Shop and is said to be "scheduled for complete restoration this year and is available for sale." (It's not entirely clear to me whether these are two different hulls or whether the shop is restoring the boat that was in the museum, or indeed if the website is actually current.)





There are also some pictures of an old wooden Tech dinghy on Flickr.


The caption is a little confusing in that it doesn't specifically say it was one of the First Fleet (but that was the only wooden fleet as far as I know) but it does say that it is "the only remaining one of its class" which seems to conflict with the claims for the boats in the photos on the Little Boat Shop website (unless they are all three actually pictures of the same boat.) The Flickr boat is said to be "at the pavilion" (presumably the MIT Sailing Pavilion), has a very old (torn) sail, and is apparently kept outside. I wonder if it is still sailed?

I mentioned that the First Fleet of Techs was built by Herreshoff in Bristol RI and I know that the Herreshoff Marine Museum has an extensive collection of boats built and/or designed by the Herreshoffs over the years. Sure enough the museum's website confirms that their boat collection does include an MIT Tech Dinghy built in 1936, presumably also one of the First Fleet.

So there we have it Tweezerman. Apparently at least four of those original forty boats still exist (unless I've counted some boats twice) and there may be more. I know that at least one former MIT sailing team member and Tech ace reads this blog so perhaps he, or others in the know, can cast more light on this subject?

Postscript

Now that I've answered Tweezerman's question I have a couple of my own...

Is the video found by Tweezerman the oldest (or at least the oldest online) video of dinghy racing?

Does anyone know the names of any of the sailors in the video?

Rule #1 - Have Fun!

The best part of this video is at the 42 second mark where a kid in an O'pen BIC blasts past some poor kid in an Optimist miserably bailing out her plastic box.

This is the future of junior sailing. Check out the description of the recent O'pen BIC Un-Regatta held earlier this year at Miami Yacht Club.

It all started with an unconventional La Mans beach start at the gun. The spectator fleet was then surprised with the mandatory mid-course freestyle moves such as Spidermans (fast flips), Supermans (body drags), King Kongs (mast climbs), and compulsory 720s. The "serious play" format brought roars from the spectators and huge grins from the kids at every level of the fleet. Some boats were single handed, some double, a few triples. It doesn't matter- "this is the "UN-Regatta" where anything goes as long as it follows Rule #1- Have Fun!

Bastards!

I thought I had totally exhausted Murphy's Law of Laser sailing. Everything that could go wrong had already happened to me... surely.

I had broken a mast on Rutland Water and broken a boom off Cape Cod. I had broken down on the way to a regatta and broken my gooseneck when I was winning a race. I had capsized to leeward and capsized to windward more times than I could count; I had capsized by hooking another sailor's sheet around my bow and capsized by hooking another sailor's sheet round my neck.

I had done it all. Right?

Wrong!

On Saturday afternoon, Murphy found another way to make things go wrong while Lasering.

It was a perfect day for sailing. Sunny. Hot. 12-15 knots out of the south.

My son and I launched our Lasers out of Weaver Cove in Portsmouth and headed upwind on port tack in the general direction of Newport Bridge. It was champagne sailing conditions... hiking hard... busting through the waves. After a mile or so we cracked off on to a close reach bouncing up and over the waves. The spray was flying everywhere and I could hardly see where I was going for the salt in my eyes. Then we hardened up on to a beat again, blasting towards Conanicut.

After a while we tacked on to starboard and stopped about 40 minutes after leaving the ramp for a breather and a drink. Gatorade not beer. We were just upwind of Halfway Rock.

"Ready to go downwind?"

"Sure!"

We rode the waves downwind on a very broad starboard tack reach. I carved up and down and tried to catch a ride on the downside of each wave and blast through the next crest. I was in the zone. Lasering doesn't get any better than this. We surfed to the west of Dyer Island and then headed back up on the wind towards Melville Marina and the launch ramp.

A perfect hour or so of Laser sailing. Looking forward to going back home to dinner with the grandkids and a glass of wine or two watching the sunset.

The ramp was busy with a queue of motorboats waiting to use it. No problem. We sailed in to the beach just south of the ramp. I held the boats in shallow water while my son went to retrieve the launching dollies which we had left at the top of the ramp, as usual.

He seemed to be taking a long time. Eventually he shouted, "Someone has stolen three of our wheels!"

What?

I've never had this happen before. Someone stole our dolly wheels while we were out sailing? Incredible.

We worked out how to transport our boats to our road trailers without dollies. Pull the boats up on to the beach. (Ouch for the gelcoat.) Derig the boats on the beach. Bring a trailer to the ramp. Carry a boat on to the trailer. Repeat. Not a big deal except for a lot of huffing and puffing and maybe a few scratches in the gelcoat.

The parking lot was crowded. There were guys fishing on the dock. We asked around. Had anybody seen someone messing with our dollies? Apparently not.

The irony is that my son and I probably have the oldest mankiest dolly wheels in the world. If anyone is hoping to sell these pieces of shit then they are going to get laughed at. It's significant that they only stole three; they left the fourth wheel because it was rusted to the axle of my original antique galvanized English Laser dolly (now handed down to my son), perhaps the oldest Laser dolly in the world still in regular use. We concluded that the thieves were probably some kids wanting some wheels to throw around and play with. Still annoying.

Some kids in Portsmouth stole our wheels.

Bastards!

Kill Da Wabbit

Sailors and boats are arriving for the Laser World Championships in Nova Scotia. Bloggers are starting to blog about it...

Even the two guys responsible for all the charter boats, Brent and Josh, have a blog. Check out Brent and Josh Go To Laser Worlds to read about their adventures.

One of the US sailors went out to train yesterday and somehow got confused about the drill his training buddies were doing in Unknown Customs.

Yup, Brian tried to kill da wabbit.

I'm sure Brian knows how a rabbit start is supposed to work but, for anyone who doesn't know, here are the instructions (shamelessly stolen from NIH Sailing.)

A rabbit start can be run using no floats or marks, only the race boats themselves. The racers agree to have one boat serve as the “rabbit”. All other boats keep downwind of the rabbit prior to the start. At the agreed starting time, the rabbit crosses the other boats on a port tack. The line sailed by the rabbit is defined as the starting line and its stern is the windward end of the line. All other boats cross the line defined by the rabbit’s course and once across, have started. Once all the other boats have started, the rabbit is free to tack to starboard if the skipper so chooses.

Got it? You have to go behind the rabbit - not hit it. Don't kill da wabbit.

Matunucks