Sailboats

After all my serious posts this week about such weighty topics as the Sailing World Cup and ISAF Rankings, I thought you would all appreciate a picture of sailboats to end the week.

Greece? Belarus?

It has become popular among certain American politicians to claim that if their particular magic fix for the US economy is not enacted immediately, then the USA will end up just like Greece. I don't know why they always choose Greece. Maybe they don't want to upset all the Irish-American voters by using Ireland as an example of economic disaster? Maybe Iceland is too obscure?

Whatever the reason, "We'll end up like Greece!" seems to be the equivalent of the parental warning, "You'll shoot your eye out!" Greece has become a synonym for "really really bad".

Well, the future of the US economy may still be in some doubt, but one thing is clear: the state of US Olympic fleet racing is already pretty dire. The latest ISAF World Sailing Fleet Racing Rankings have just been released. The histogram below shows the countries ranked by the number of top three ranked sailors they have in all nine Olympic fleet racing classes.

OMG. The USA is ranked as level with Belarus and... Greece.

Greece?

I have attended several Laser Masters World Championships with the letters USA proudly displayed on my sail. I have sailed in several Sunfish World Championships as a member of the US team. Whatever it says in my passport, when it comes to international sailing I am an American. And I must admit I am ashamed to see my adopted nation ranked so low.

The richest nation in the world with over 300 million people and 12,000 miles of coastline is no better at sailing than tiny Greece with 11 million people? What is going on?

OK. OK. I guess Greece does have a fine maritime tradition and a fairly long coastline. So I guess it's not too awful for the United States to say, "We're no worse than Greece."

But Belarus? Now this is getting ridiculous.

Landlocked Belarus. Made up country that was part of the former Soviet Union. Tiny Belarus. There as many people living in Los Angeles as in Belarus.

That is pretty sad. We competed with the Soviet Union in every sphere of human endeavor for decades. In space, in science, in sport. We raced them to the moon. We won the cold war.

And we did all that so that one day we could say that in sailing, "We're no worse than Belarus"?

What is wrong with US Olympic sailing? Why is our ISAF ranking so low?

Greece? Belarus?

Choice!

Congratulations to the gold medal winners from New Zealand at the recent Sailing World Cup event, the Princess Sofia Trophy in Palma. Jo Aleh and Bianca Barbarich-Bacher won the Women's 470 event and Sara Winther won the Laser Radial gold. This is a very good set of results and bodes well for a strong showing by the Kiwi ladies at the Olympics next year.





The video above is not of Kiwi sailors. It actually shows one of the Spanish sailors, Lucía Pres Yllera, sailing her Radial at Palma. Woo hoo!

The photo at the top of the post is not of Kiwi sailors either. It is actually of sheep in New Zealand. Apparently a lot of New Zealand jokes are about sheep. I found some of these jokes on the Interwebs and I didn't think they were at all suitable for a family-oriented blog like this one. So have a good laugh at the photo instead. Or not.

People from New Zealand are, of course, extremely popular in the USA and many people here are rooting for them to do well in the Olympics. Americans feel a certain bond with other countries who escaped from the rule of the dastardly British and who, like them, speak a dialect of English with a strange accent. It's so much easier than trying to understand the French.





This post was sponsored by the New Zealand Lamb Marketing Board who would have made a generous contribution to the Tillerman Laser Sailing 2011 Campaign and Tuesday Night Beer Fund if only I had found a family-friendly joke about sheep that was actually funny.

Vive la France!

Congratulations to the French gold medal winners at the recent Sailing World Cup event, the Princess Sofia Trophy in Palma. Nicolas Charbonnier and Jérémie Mion took the gold medal in the men's 470 (with Pierre Leboucher and Vincent Garos in second place) and Manu Dyen and Stéphane Christidis won the gold medal in the 49er class. This is an excellent set of results and bodes well for a decent medal haul by the French sailing team at the Olympics next year.




The video above shows highlights from most of the medal races at the event. The photo at the top of the post is not of Charline Picon who won silver for France in the women's RS-X; it is of another famous French sailor, Brigitte Bardot (taken a few years ago, I believe.)

The French are, of course, extremely popular in the USA and many people here are rooting for them to do well in the Olympics. All Americans are eternally grateful for the vital assistance from the mighty French military machine during that little spat with the British Empire back in the 1780's. After all, without that French aid, people in America would still be speaking English.




This post was sponsored by Les Filles de l'Empire Français Nouvelle-Orléans Chapitre L'Equipe Pétanque who would have made a generous contribution to the Tillerman Laser Sailing 2011 Campaign and Tuesday Night Beer Fund if only I had asked in better French.

Brits on Top Again

Congratulations to all four British gold medal winners at the recent Sailing World Cup event, the Princess Sofia Trophy in Palma. Ben Ainsle won the Finn class, Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson won the Stars, and Paul Goodison won the Lasers. This is an excellent set of results and bodes well for a huge medal haul by the British sailing team at the Olympics next year.





The video above shows the medal race in the Lasers. For once, the medal race really did decide all the medals. Going into the race, only two points separated Goodison, fellow Brit Nick Thomson, and Aussie Tom Slingsby. At the first windward mark, Goodison was in the lead with a good few boats between him and the other medal contenders. After a safe run, he loosely covered his two rivals on the second beat and that was enough to win him the gold.





This post was sponsored by the Daughters and Sons of the British Empire, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Chapter, Ladies Cricket Team who would have made a generous contribution to the Tillerman Laser Sailing 2011 Campaign and Tuesday Night Beer Fund if only I had asked more nicely.

Common Folk

I haven't done any frostbiting this winter, but I'm still on the fleet email list. Yesterday I received an email with the usual exhortations from our fleet captains to come out and race this weekend. They say the weather will be sunny... if it's not cloudy. The winds will be 5 knots... or maybe 10-15... or perhaps even 20. There might be showers... or maybe not. (Somehow I think these two dudes could have great careers as weather forecasters. They are never wrong!)

And they ended up their encouragement with this sentence, "Get out and enjoy the best sailing of the year before the common folk start crowding up the harbor once the water temperature cracks 50."

"Common folk"?

Are they accusing me of being "common folk" if I don't come out and race this weekend?

Fighting talk.

Or is it? What's wrong with being common folk?

I come from a family of common folk, working class types from the Midlands of England. I'm only two or three generations removed from farm laborers and domestic servants. I've always been proud to come from common folk. My political sympathies have always been, and still are, with the common folk.

And yet the implied jibe in that sentence still carries a sting.

Don't we all have a yearning to be a little "uncommon" in some way or other? To be something or do something that defines us as individuals, that makes us distinct from the herd, the common folk?

I've led a pretty conventional life in most ways. Was a good student in the 50's and 60's. Didn't join my contemporaries in protests or riots. (Though I did once shout some bad words at Harold Wilson's motorcade as he sped by.) Married a good woman in the 70's and stayed married to her. Worked for the same company for almost 30 years and earned a pension. (Those were the days, eh?) Very boring person really.

About the only unusual thing I've ever done is Laser sailing. I know it must be strange to choose to be a Laser sailor because many of the readers of this blog, most of whom are boaters themselves, abuse and ridicule me for being a Laser sailor. We Laser sailors sometimes feel it's a big deal that over 200,000 Lasers have been sold, but even if that means there are 200,000 Laser sailors out there, that's still only about 0.003% of the world population. We are very uncommon.

And then only a small proportion of those Laser sailors will choose to sail when the water temperature is in the low 30's and the air temperature is in the 20's and you have to chip the ice off your boat before you launch it. Those Laser frostbiters are very uncommon folk.

I used to be one of those very uncommon folk. And then there was the year I won the Ironman Trophy in my frostbite fleet for sailing more races than anyone else that winter. How strange is that possum? I was the uncommon of the uncommon of the uncommon that year.

So, yeah, I guess the fleet captains are right. This year I didn't frostbite. That makes me just one of the common folk.

Next winter it will be different. I will sail in the winter. I will be uncommon folk.

What about you? What do you do to be uncommon?

Exams

From the ages of 10 to 21, exams were some of the most important events in my life each year. Exams to get into the right school. Exams to win the right to take more exams. Exams to get into the right university. Exams to get the right job.

They seemed important at the time, but I think a lot of the pressure I felt was self-imposed. Would my life have been much different if I hadn't taken them so seriously? Probably not.

After graduating from college, I didn't need to take any more exams. But I still had that recurring examination panic dream for many years afterwards. The one where you are about to take an exam and you realize you haven't prepared for it, you know absolutely nothing about the subject matter, you're going to fail, your life will be over... and you wake up in a cold sweat.

Working for a living had different pressures, different tests. Job interviews. Major presentations. Performance reviews. But I don't recall ever having the same nightmares about those events.

I discovered sailing in my early 30's and it has always been a splendid form of relaxation for me. A chance to escape from the hassles and challenges of work and forget about them for a while. It's amazing how mentally refreshing an afternoon of Laser racing can be. Physically exhausting but mentally refreshing. I would go back to work on Monday morning -- arms covered in bruises from capsize recoveries -- ready for another week of the grind.

So why would I want to take exams about sailing? Wouldn't that take away the very essence of my pleasure in the sport? God forbid I should start getting those dreams again, only this time about sailing exams.

But, after retiring from the corporate world, I decided to work as a sailing instructor and my new employer insisted that instructors had to be properly qualified by taking the US Sailing Small Boat Level One Instructor Course (USSSBLOIC). Course? Did I say course? Don't be fooled by the name. This is a four day continuous exam.

There are 600 pages of material to study before the "course". Then, during the "course" you are tested and assessed on swimming, sailing skills, safety boat operation, knots, classroom presentation skills, running land drills, running water drills etc. etc. not to mention good old-fashioned written exams on what's in those 600 pages (pass grade 80%).

Don't get me wrong. You learn a lot on USSSBLOIC. But don't kid yourself. You are being assessed by the instructor for pretty much every minute of the four days of the "course". The toughest part of the "course" for many of the students was safety boat operation. Many of us had done a fair amount of sailing but had hardly any experience driving a powerboat. I mugged up online about how to do all the safety boat maneuvers that are tested on the "course" and somehow muddled through the practical test. It's pretty important if you think about it. Parents don't want to come to collect little Bonnie or little Joey from sailing lessons only to discover that the sailing instructor ran them over with the safety boat and chopped off their legs with the propeller.

So I aced USSSBLOIC. Then, for reasons that escape me right now, the next year I voluntarily took the US Sailing Small Boat Level Two Coach Course (USSSBLTCC). This is about how to teach performance boat handling and racing skills. And it's the same deal as Level One. Written tests. Practical tests. Continuous assessment. And somehow along the way you learn a lot too. I won some sort of nominal prize for scoring top of my class in the written test, but I almost failed the practical test because I had to sail a boat with a spinnaker in 25 knots and I had never sailed a boat with a spinnaker in my life before. Scary. Fun but scary.

I also had to pass First Aid exams every year while working as a sailing instructor. I guess that's pretty important too in the event that you forgot what you learned on USSSBLOIC and accidentally chopped off little Bonnie's or little Joey's legs.

So, on balance, I suppose some exams in boating are a necessary evil. In fact, boater safety exams are mandatory to obtain a boating license in most US states and Canada. Regulations do vary from state to state. For instance in Rhode Island, all those born on or after January 1, 1986, are required to pass an approved boater education course before they legally may operate any vessel powered by a motor of more than 10 horsepower, and anyone operating a personal watercraft, regardless of age, must have passed an approved boater education course. It's all about safety again, and not having some untrained idiot chopping off little Bonnie's or little Joey's legs.

The good news is that you can take many of these safe boating courses and exams online. For example there is this boating exam site and this boat license site. And if you live in Canada there is this boating exam site too.

This post was sponsored by boaterexam.com who did make a contribution to the Tillerman Laser Sailing 2011 Campaign and Tuesday Night Beer Fund (TLS2011CATNBF) and they did ask very nicely.

Chicken on Friday

For reasons that elude me, nearly all my friends in the boating blogosphere seem to be posting pictures of chickens this week. What's going on? Is it some weird religious festival?

Well, I've never really understood the point in following the herd. I'm not into team sports. There's no "me" in team as far as I'm concerned. But I will make an exception this week and try and be a team player. So here is a picture of my grandson, Aidan, with a chicken.

His parents took him and his siblings for a formal photo shoot at an outfit called Sitting Pretty Portraits on Sunday. The photographer there had a special weekend of shoots with "bunnies and chicks." There's another person obsessed with bloody chickens. What is going on?

However, I must confess I have done chicken posts on Proper Course before.

There was the Rhode Island Red Rant.

There was the day I used a chicken to win a turkey.

And then there was the infamous post with a photo of a rabbit having carnal relations with a chicken.

Can we be done with chickens now?

Anyone for fish?

Family

Pictures

How important are pictures on blogs?

What does the choice of pictures tell you about the authors of those blogs?

Do pictures influence whether you want to revisit those blogs?

Here are a few examples to make you think...

Yarg posted some tacks.

Baydog posted an exit sign.

Bonnie posted a form.

Taru posted Taru.

What does it all mean?

Just asking.